I have been building an automatic generator of Irish word forms for verbs, nouns, and adjectives. The generator is written in the KATR formalism. You can see the forms it can generate at

http://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/linguistics/irish.utf8.html

I have also written a front end that lets you search a very small word list and get the forms for any word on the list. The front end is at

http://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/linguistics/irish.cgi

You might try searching for "boat", "drink", "verb", or "irreg" to get a feeling for what it can do.

I can make the Irish KATR specification available to anyone who is interested, along with the programs necessary to use it.

Let me know if you find mistakes in the output or have suggestions for improvement!

Raphael Finkel

Just a quickie: súil/súileann is given as "walk" - that should be siúil/siúlann.

Nice job!

I've quickly looked through it and spotted another two bugs:

*an tscornach (Nom Sg Def)

*an thincéara (Gen Sg Def)

These are incorrect. You need "an scornach", "an tincéara".

Another thing, for some reason you don't have Present forms for the verb "abair". You may also want to add Dative Singular for nouns that have it (e.g. "bos") as well as the comparative form for adjectives.

Best

quote:

declarative rinneadh ní rinneadh

I think the briathar saor in the negative is ní dhearnadh in the CO...

Thanks!

Abigail: Go raibh maith agat! You get the prize for being the first to find an error. I have repeatedly asked Irish scholars here at UCC (University College Cork, where I am on Sabbatical) for feedback and corrections, and none has responded.

I have fixed "walk". It's a common beginner's mistake, I guess, confusing siúil and súil.

Peter: Should I consider "sc" to be a single consonant with different rules from "s" alone? I know that "an tsraid" is correct, so some "s" combinations are treated like "s" alone. How about "st"? I have placed a temporary fix in my theory until I know the true nature of "s" + consonant.

You suggest "an tincéara" for the gen. sg. form. I thought that the rule of leniting the noun in the gen. sg. applies to all masculine nouns. Have I misunderstood this rule?

I do not know the rules for the comparative or superlative of adjectives; can you point me to them?

Is the dative singular predictable, or is it always irregular? Once I understand it, I will try to add it.

You are right; I have omitted the present of "abair". I guess I should add it. It is so unusual that I have temporarily put in a rule preventing any forms from being generated.

Lughaidh: Thanks for the correction. I wasn't coding dependent forms correctly for irregular verbs.

Rafphael

"I can make the Irish KATR specification available to anyone who is interested, along with the programs necessary to use it. "

Where? How? Is there a good web for learning a little about KATR for beginners?

There was a time when I thought I was keeping up with the technology. Not now. I haven't a clue what KATR is. Nor can I boost my flagging energy enough to search and find out.

I have Ó Dónaill's dictionary in the form of WinGléacht and that is amazing. Searchable in English or Irish and right clicking on an Irish word gives you everything you would ever need to know about it. All in the CO of course. It's a brilliant achievement.

Then there's Gaelspell. Does anyone use that? Is it any good or do you have to "teach it" yourself?

What of the Grammar checker? I've forgotten the name? I would say that would be useful. I can't imagine how it would deal with the séimhiú since there is so much indecision on where to use it or not.

An bhfuil cleachtadh ag aon duine anseo ar na cláracha seo?

Re: I thought that the rule of leniting the noun in the gen. sg. applies to all masculine nouns. Have I misunderstood this rule?

Quoting the following from my handy little Irish grammar book (Irish: a Complete Course for Beginners, by Diarmuid Ó Sé and Joseph Sheils), the rule is:

[to form] the genitive case, if the noun is masculine and preceded by an (the), lenition is added after the an, [but] an does not lenite t or d, [and] l, n and r are never lenited.

I think that's the answer, but I'm a rank beginner, so would someone else please confirm or deny.

PS: Your app has great potential!

(Message edited by linda_kathleen on July 11, 2009)

Fáilte a Linda Kathleen!

In addition to leniting the initial consonant of the masculine noun as you describe above, in order to form the genitive of a masculine noun, the final consonant of the noun is slenderized if possible. For example:

an bád = the boat (nominative)

an bháid = the boat's (genitive)

(Message edited by student on July 12, 2009)

I was thinking of the difficulty in deciding whether to say "obair baile" or "obair bhaile" and "buidéal bainne" or "buidéal bhainne" and so on. I'm sure if I knew Irish better each of those would be correct but expressing some different nuance that eludes me at this stage. Since I am not a learner but a unconscious speaker of the language (Hold on, a Thaidhgín. Unconscious? OK. I'm not necessarily aware of the rules when I speak or write. I know a good few of them though. These I don't.) learners probably have an advantage and may be able to direct me to some explanation of the issue.

quote:

expressing some different nuance that eludes me at this stage.

I think it has do to with some form of memory storage that occurs in our brains. For example, when you posed the answers above, my brain chose "obair bhaile" and "buidéal bhainne." I'm not sure if I'm correct, but my selections are based on what I thought I heard from my Daltaí teachers. That is, I can hear them saying "obair bhaile" and "buidéal bhainne."

During Mass today, I happened to be holding my two-year-old grandson while we were saying the Our Father. He spent the whole time during this prayer watching my lips and mouth. I was in complete awe watching him watch me. It was as though he was programmed somehow to watch me talk!

Anyway, my point is that somehow we are programmed to watch, listen, or touch our way to learning how to speak.

I think the same thing happens with blind people, but in a different way; they feel the way we talk. Probably the best movie I've ever seen, and will ever see, is the movie Black. I love the movie for its sheer beauty, but one of the many dimensions of the movie has to do with how the main actor learns to communicate; she does it by touching the lips of the speaker. You have to see the movie to understand what I'm talking about. Just watch the scene with the song "Love" and you'll know what I mean.

(Message edited by student on July 12, 2009)

Go bhfios domh, "buidéal" is masculine so there's no reason to say "buidéal bhainne"...

Linda_kathleen says: [to form] the genitive case, if the noun is masculine and preceded by an (the), lenition is added after the an, [but] an does not lenite t or d, [and] l, n and r are never lenited.

Does the same rule (no lenition of t or d) apply to the feminine nominative sg, which also lenites after "an"?

As to slenderization, I mark a vowel that might slenderize with (i) after it, but I may change that representation.

As to KATR, you might look at ftp://ftp.cs.uky.edu/cs/techreports/346-02.pdf .

I have upgraded the site so you can try your own vocabulary. You type in the stem, the English meaning, and any peculiarities special to the word, and the program generates forms on the fly.

Now that I am an approved member of this list, call me Refoyl.

Raphael Finkel