Do I have these translations correct, and if so, are the subsequent explanations accurate? I know that genitives are used in many situations, but are the statements after the chart true here?

a person's name		ainm duine		a person's name means a lot to him		is mór leat ainm duine
people's names		ainmneacha daoine		I don't remember people's names		ní cuimhin liom ainmneacha daoine

duine is in the genitive, but it is not lenited because genitives following indefinite masculine single nominative nouns do not lenite. So, it's the attributes of the noun ainm (indefinite, masculine, etc) that determine duine's lenition, not the attributes of duine, which also happens to be indefinite, masculine and singular.

daoine is not lenited because genitives of strong indefinite masculine plural nouns do not lenite. In this case, it is the attributes of daoine itself (particularly whether it is strong or weak) that determine its lenition, not the attributes of the noun it modifies.

I'm not going to comment on your grammatical explanations right now (it's Sunday, I haven't got my thinking cap on!) but I would rather translate a person's name means a lot to him as is mór le duine a ainm ("is big - with a person - his name"). The version you have given, is mór leat ainm duine actually translates as a person's name means a lot to you.

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following indefinite masculine single nominative nouns

It doesn't matter if definite or indefinite.

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In this case, it is the attributes of daoine itself (particularly whether it is strong or weak) that determine its lenition, not the attributes of the noun it modifies.

Wrong.
Daoine isn't lenited because ainmneacha is a tréaniolra.

Lars

(Message edited by Lars on August 09, 2009)

Basically, qualifying nouns and adjectives are not lenited because the noun before is strong or weak, but because it ends with a slender consonant.

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Mbm wrote:
is mór leat ainm duine actually translates as 'a person's name means a lot to you'

Oops! Quite so. Would is mór leis ainm duine be 'right', even though is mór le duine a ainm would be better? I'm asking because I was actually just trying to use ainm duine (the combination I was studying) in a sentence. If my example just won't work, how about:

is aimnfhocal dílse ainm duine = a person's name is a proper noun

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Lars wrote:
Wrong. Daoine isn't lenited because ainmneacha is a tréaniolra.

Thanks for the correction. That's the confirmation/rebuttal I was looking for.

No. "Is mór leis" means "It is important to him"

Is ainmfhocal dílis ainm duine

dílse is plural.

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Aonghus wrote: No. "Is mór leis" means "It is important to him"

OK, now I'm confused! "A person's name is important to him" is what I was trying to say. Does is mór leis ainm duine say that? [literal translation: "it is big with him a person's name"; alternative translation: "a person's name means a lot to him"]

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Lughaidh wrote:
Basically, qualifying nouns and adjectives are not lenited because the noun before is strong or weak, but because it ends with a slender consonant.

I assume "it ends with" refers back to "the noun before", in which case, isn't "ends with a slender consonant" just a subset of "weak"? I got that impression from a Jul/30/2001 posting by Seosamh Mac Muirí (seen in full here), referred to several times on this forum over the years, which says,

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[when it comes to understanding plurals,] ... forget about declension... Just think about two things : Weak and Strong!
For genitive in plural, we mostly look to what we call 'strong'/tréaniolra and 'weak'/lagiolra plurals. ...
Just remember that there are two weak plurals; the narrowing of consonant type, like carr > cairr, and the addition of a final '-a' type:
...+a (as in 'fuinneog' > 'fuinneoga' = windows)
Let C = any consonant:
...iC (as in 'carr' > 'cairr' = cars)

Are you disputing the inclusion of Mac Muirí's 2nd type of weak plural (the addition of a final '-a' type), or is Mac Muirí's whole premise an oversimplification?

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"A person's name is important to him" is what I was trying to say. Does is mór leis ainm duine say that?

No, because there is no connection between the leis and the duine.

The literal transaltion would indeed be
Is big * with him * name person
(The name of a person is important to him - but no infomation as to which person)

But it would be "ainm duine" in the abstract.

Even if you put in an article, it wouldn't help.

Is mór leis ainm an duine
The name of the person is important to him.

If you want to tie the two, you need to go with Michals suggestion.

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Oops! Quite so. Would is mór leis ainm duine be 'right', even though is mór le duine a ainm would be better?

Well, yes. It is syntactically well-formed, but its meaning is jumbled: it's hard to figure out whose name is important to whom.

Not just hard - impossible without additional information.