The following was an attempt to say: "Not at all. They have no windows in Donegal out of which the people throw anything at all." I can quickly get lost in relative clauses. How'dIdo?


Ní hea. Níl fuinneoga i nDún na nGall acu a gcaitheann na daoine rud ar bith as.

I'd say you have failed to mark 'windows' more definitely -níl aon fuinneoga acu, mar shampla

The crux here is 'out of which' which we feel in English to have a sort of 'movement' involved but which so involving a preposition is not too amenable to translation.

It could be rephrases as:
from which
via which
by which

that is we are dealing with agency or a conduit in some sense; however, with the grammatical form of indirect relative it is like a relative of a relative.

For example:
direct: there was a man there
(later on) direct relative: there is the man that was there
indirect relative: there is the coat whom the man that we saw wore/there is the coat whose owner we saw (in reference to the man, regardless of number of relatives embedded)


So if we take the same logic, we get a set of sentances like thus: i) they have windows in Donegal ii) people throw stuff of windows

We now negate the first and use the second (after having added conditionality/modality to it) to refer to the first: i) they don't have windows; ii) people can throw stuff (out of)

The trick is that one has to get the stuff that is been tossed to refer back to the window while keeping the preposition happy. In English one has 'throw out of' verb adverb preposition which refers back on to the window (window one can throw (stuff) out of)

A simpler conjunction sentence would be "Tá fuinneoga againn i dTir Chonaill (they have windows in Donegal) agus caithfí (and can/would throw) stuif astu (stuff from them) mar sin (as a consequence/thus)"

You sentance uses the indirect to refer to a referred to thing, so going on prior logic we get this scheme:

There is a man there
There is the man that we saw
There is the coat of the man whom/that we saw

There are windows there
There are the windows that are in Donegal
There are the stones of the Donegal windows that were thrown out

So, “They have no windows in Donegal out of which the people throw anything at all”

So since we have a referent of a referent or a dual layered relative, eclipses in Irish can be used (indirect relative).

Thus: Níl aon fuinneoga i dTír Chonaill acu = they have no windows in Donegal

a gcaithfí aon rud amach astu mar sin =that one can throw something out of them thus


Thus: Níl fuinneoga i nDún na nGall acu a gcaitheann na daoine rud ar bith as. Vs Níl fuinneoga i dTír Chonaill acu a gcaitheann na daoine aon rud astu ar chor ar bith

The short answer is that I don’t really know!

Not at all. They have no windows in Donegal out of which the people throw anything at all.

The translation of "Not at all" depends on what comes before (the verb of the preceding sentence).

I'm not sure of the meaning of your sentence. What do you mean?

There is the coat WHICH the man we saw wore

As I've stated here before the only form of standard English at any registrar I cannot use is the relative form -'that' is used for everything, direct and indirect even forms like 'thats' (there is the man thats son is to be married) where i grew up.

It is so ingrained for me it means the relative is harder to learn than the copula in Irish, as unreasonable as that sounds

On reflection, i do know the animate/person vs inanimate distinction of which/who(m) so it was a small slip up

who? The man who wore a coat... the man whose coat was...
what? the coat that/which the man wore...

Of course, this, rather complicated, way of distinguishing something that doesn't really need to be distinguished probably seems futile to you :-)

Mo chuid aistrithe a leanas:
"Not at all. They have no windows in Donegal out of which the people throw anything at all."

(not at all) Níl aon fhuinneoga thuas i nDún na nGall le rud ar bith a chaith amach astu (or tríothu?).

However I'm not sure this is alright. If you need a translation with a relative clause it'll be something like:

níl aon fhuinneoga thuas i nDún na nGall a gcaitear rud ar bith amach astu/tríothu.

The 'not at all' thing depends on the previous sentence, as Lughaidh has written...

Daithí

If I remember correctly Dún na nGall (or was it Tír Chonaill properly) is down there (like the hell as well ), not up there - thus - "thíos i dTír Chonaill".

(Message edited by Róman on September 02, 2007)

Ár ndóigh, thíos i dTír Chonaill, nó i nDún na nGall, más í an chathair atá i gceist ag Pádraig...

Ní hea. Níl fuinneoga i nDún na nGall acu a gcaitheann na daoine rud ar bith as.

Disregard the ní hea. It was merely a retort to someone's assertion that persons in Tir Chonaill throw things out of windows.

I was trying to avoid that old interdiction against ending sentences with prepositions when I proffered my English version. That being set aside, I would say in English:

"They don't (even) have windows in Tir Chonaill that people throw anything out of."


The parenthetical (even) have in this version would emphasize the absence of windows, but I don't know how to achieve that emphasis in Irish. My main concern is whether the sentence is intelligible and if it is in violation of basic rules of grammar.

"If I remember correctly Dún na nGall (or was it Tír Chonaill properly) is down there (like the hell as well ), not up there - thus - "thíos i dTír Chonaill". "

My bean an tí made mention of this that one year some people from Belfast told her her directional adverbs were all wrong that she used down/thíos for all sorts where the Caighdeán would not deem appropriate, but i'd say that country people have that habit, and in colloquial terms a habit easy for bilinguals to slip into

Does any of this have to do with old traditions in map-making? In the Northeastern portion of the States (New England) people are referred to as Down-Easterners. I'm told this comes from a tradition in cartography that placed the eastern shoreline at the bottom of the page.

Níl fuinneoga ann acu ach oiread.

Más buan mo chuimhne, tá rud aisteach go deo ag baint leis na dobhriathra áitiúla agus treo i gcanúint na nOileáin. Bhí díospóireacht againn tráth ann ina thaobh mar ní raibh cainteoirí dúchasacha sásta glacadh leis an bhfiric go bhfuil Maigh Eo níos foide ó thuaidh ná Gaillimh ach ar aon dath "thuas" a bheith acu leis sin i gcomparáid le Cathair na Gaillimhe a bhíonns "thíos" amach is amach. Sin ráite, "tá tú ag goil síos Gaillimh" agus "suas go Maigh Eo" nuair atá tú i gConamara :)

"Up" and "Down" for places has to do with railways. Up is towards head office (usaully Dublin) , down is away from it.

quote:

My bean an tí made mention of this that one year some people from Belfast told her her directional adverbs were all wrong that she used down/thíos for all sorts where the Caighdeán would not deem appropriate,

Sin an tsórt pleidhcíocht a tharraingíonn drochcháil ar cainteoirí cathracha agus an gCO araon.
Ní deir, go bhfios dom, an CO rud ar bith faoi conas an teanga a úsáid.

That's very interesting Aonghus, I did not know that was the reason.

I always think of travelling up to Belfast, but wondered why my Belfast colleagues always talk about travelling up to Dublin

An bhfuil fuinneoga ag tréiní a gcaitheann na daoine stuif as?

níl aon fhuinneoga acu i dTír Chonaill a gcaithfí rud ar bith amach astu...

... as a gcaithfí rud... (without astu)
... a gcaitear rud... astu.
... as a gcaitear rud... (without astu)
... a gcaiteann/gcaithfeadh duine... srl.

Some of these should be correct.

Go raibh maith agat, a Sheain-D,

For what it's worth, I found the following example in Christian Brothers' New Irish Grammar:

An poll a dtagann na coiníní as. (out of which.)

The English sentence you gave, i.e.:

"Not at all. They have no windows in Donegal out of which the people throw anything at all."

is very unnatural sounding. Plus it's ambiguous. It could possibly mean either:

They've no windows in Donegal to throw stuff out.
or:
They've no windows in Donegal that people throw stuff out of.

The former would be something like: Níl fuinneog ar bith acu i nDún na nGall le rudaíbh a chaitheamh amach astu.

The latter: Níl fuinneog ar bith acu i nDún na nGall a gcaitheann daoine rudaí amach astu.

Before you go translating to Irish you have to make sure of what you're trying to say in the original language, and it must sound right in the original language also.