So! I've posted something up and I'd appreciate the more knowledgeable among you taking a look at it and telling me where I've screwed up.

I'm continually astonished at the vague, uninformative nature of some grammar resources. I'd assume that a table like the one I posted up in this blog would be commonly available, but I had to divine it from the grammars I have on hand.

Can you take a look-see and let me know where it's wrong and what the corrections should be? Thanks!

http://plastic-paddy-usa.blogspot.com/2008/03/changes-to-beginnings-of-words-spa wned.html

I have a blog too! Must post the URL sometime...

It is true that Irish grammar are often not too detailed, but I think the market is not there for a huge 500+ page one.

I think there is a culture of doing grammar books a certain way. I'm going to blog a grammar guide, and in time, when I'm doing my Phd and living in the Gaeltacht, I hope to make a grammar in detail of usage as well.

Verb conjugations are fine, but it doesn't tell much on how to use them.

In the table you forgot to mention that d and t are eclipsed too in the genitive plural (go deo na ndeor, i measc na dtithe).

Vowel has only one l ;-)

bhur Dtráchtanna in the text I would say. And "le bhur" sounds odd to me, shouldn't it be "le n-bhur"?

p.s. Dative is missing, and "Acc" is in the table? There is no accusative in modern Irish.

quote:

"le bhur" sounds odd to me, shouldn't it be "le n-bhur"?

According to An Teanga Bheo, in Corca Dhuibhne people say lé húr or lé úr.

In Ulster we say "le mur"

In Connemara it seems that they say "lena".

Actually, I wonder where "bhur" comes from (except from historical forms), given it isn't used neither in Ulster nor in Connemara nor in Munster :-)

There is no nominative too...

There is no accusative in modern Irish

There is no nominative too...

Thank you both.

And, as I mentioned, I'm slave to the crappy resources I have at hand which seem intent on presenting Irish grammar as obtusely and incomprehensibly as possible.

Frankly they seem almost deliberately unclear.

Bhuel, I was old that to have an accusative, you needed a nominative in opposition.

I suppose one could argue that a direct 'naming case' is the nominative, if you still have the genitive and vocative. I leave it to others to light the way...


I also believe the resources are crap, unless you spend like I did a lot of money. On top of that it has costs hundreds of Euro to ship many books here to where I live. Still thats the price

I've seen grammars that refer to nominative and accusative cases, and others that call it the "common case." I just keep using nominative and accusative out of habit, I suppose. Whatevs.

What have you found to be the most useful grammar resource?

"Common case" is not precise and doesn't mean anything (why the dative wouldn't be common too?).

We don't need to use the word "accusative" because there's no accusative, it's just like the nominative in every case. And it adds one declension case more, which frightens learners ! 4 cases is enough !

So, Lughaidh, would you say in f.e. "Léann Cáit an leabhar", an leabhar is nominative and direct object at the same time?

So you reject the common definition "The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments" and use it simply as a label for "an leabhar". Then its okay.

(Historically there were different accusative forms in Irish, weren't there?)


PS I wondered always which case is the English "me" in "it's me", but on the other hand English has no cases "any more")

I hereby accuse Lughaidh of stealing several cases. He's nothing but a common thief.

The dative isn't 'common' because there are still vestigial 'uncommon' traces of it here and there.

I know you know that

"What have you found to be the most useful grammar resource?"

I like Lars' resource, even if written when he knew less, due to it's comprehensive nature.

There is no book I turn to in all times. Christian Brother's is prob the best overall. Donna Wong's book could have been the best (it has a very thorough breakdown of the number system) but suffers from a tendency to confuse (gives mention of initial mutation of a consonant then gives a vowel initial word as the example and a few other things -I don't have it with me so can't reference it. It never arrived in the books of books I received).

It depends on learning style -I seem to have some block on learning Irish which has now only been broken recently. This time last year I spent maybe 5 or more hours a day thru most of March when not working on Irish grammar and what did it do for me?

Words are used differently in differing positions -see for example, 'indeed' as translated when in initial, medial or final position. I need usage information too, and this is lacking.

quote:

So, Lughaidh, would you say in f.e. "Léann Cáit an leabhar", an leabhar is nominative and direct object at the same time?

Aye, I would say that. Why would we use the word "accusative" given there's no difference between it and the nominative? Would you say there are declensions in English because the functions of a subject and of an object are different?

Kate is reading a book in her room > Kate : nominative; a book: accusative; room: dative ?

quote:

(Historically there were different accusative forms in Irish, weren't there?)

What do you mean?

quote:

What do you mean?

In old Irish you conjugated five cases, f.e.

Nom. rí ben fer
Gen. ríg mná fir
Dat. ríg bein fiur
Acc. ríg bein fer
Voc. rí ben fir

(I am not an expert, I saw this only in my "Dictionary of the Irish language based on old and middle Irish materials", and picked them up randomly for illustration.)

quote:

Aye, I would say that. Why would we use the word "accusative" given there's no difference between it and the nominative? Would you say there are declensions in English because the functions of a subject and of an object are different?
Kate is reading a book in her room > Kate : nominative; a book: accusative; room: dative ?

In English, you distinguish the cases by replacing them by pronouns. Then the distincion appears (she/her, who/whom)

The woman is seeing the woman.
She is seing her.
Whom is she seeing?
Who is seeing?

So you have a casus rectus alias nominative and a casus obliquus after prepositions and as objects.

But in my post I wanted to have it acknowledged, that "nominative" means something, i.e. to point out, who is the carrier of the action.

On the other hand, f.e. in Latin merged the indo-germanic separative case with the genitive, but I call "pecunii" in "pecunii careo" "I have a lack of money" "genitive", not "seperative" nor "genitive/seperative/locative",

so after a merger, which is in Irish (not like in English) total, I admit now after deliberation that in word formation one label is sufficiant and the rest is a question of syntax, in which you may use termini like subject, object etc.

Taking this by heart, I might better digest such rules as

"a few prepositions are followed by the nominative case, e.g. gan, go, dtí,idir, seachas"

which sounded silly in my ears, when I first read it: nominative after prepositions!

quote:

On the other hand, f.e. in Latin merged the indo-germanic separative case with the genitive

Well, you are wrong on that. Latin ablative is a merger of ablative proper, instrumentalis and locative. Genitive in Latin stayed as it was bar for analogical change of endings (i.e. 2nd declension's -ī making its way into 1st and 5th declensions). Slavic and Baltic languages, though, did what you said and replaced native genitive with ablative altogether.

"But those that understood him smiled at one another and
shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me"

Yes, I confounded it with Greek.

There merged Ablative/Separative with the Genitive, but Locative nearly always with the Dative.

In Latin, truly, it is a merger of Ablative/Seperative with instrumentalis.

The locative split, normally it is like the ablative (Carthagine: in Karthago), but in the first declination like genetive (Romae (from Romai): in Rome). Seldem you see the old -i-Ending pure (domi: at home).

So it's naturally "careo pecuniā", but it's a separative which I call ablative (or if I want to be clear "ablativus separationis), so why not "nominative" for an direct object.

Moral: Do not do history of language, when you are too tired after work.