I came up to "géire caint" (quickwittedness in speech) in a book I am reading. Géire here is superlative and not a noun. The full sentence is "ba ró dheacair fir ba threise aigne ná ba ghéire caint a dh'fhághail".

I was wondering why it wasn't "ba ghéire cainte".

Lars Braesicke's site says:

"A genitive expression like: "a man of the highest fame" is translated with the nominative:
e.g.: an fear is airde clú = a man of the highest fame (lit.: "a man is highest fame")"

This seems to be the same circumstance as the sentence I am dealing with. I am wondering why the form stands in the common form of the noun. The only conclusion I can reach is that aigne, caint and clú above are all in the accusative, and not the nominative.

I mean accusative in function, but nominative in form, given the lack of an independently formed accusative in modern Irish.


ba ghéire caint: the most quickwitted with respect to speech
ba threise aigne: the strongest with respect to the mind
is áirde clú: the highest with respect to fame

Adding in "with respect to" seems to clarify that the function is accusative. Am I right on this, by the way?

Nowt to do with accusative vs. nominative, David Webb. Like everybody else, I wondered, when I first came across that structure, why the genitive wasn't used (plenty of examples though of the genitive incorrectly used even in reputable sources ). Check GGMB (on line) 11.35 "ainmneach tagartha ainmfhocail". No real explanation: it is because it is. I'm rather fond of the structure myself - and not just because of my laziness to learn the declensions and their genitives... A question for those more experienced/expert/fluent than me: Is there a difference of register or style between "is mó cáil" and "is cáiliúila" (etc)?

(Message edited by Hugo on April 04, 2010)

("cáiliúla" - not "cáiliúila").

(Message edited by Hugo on April 04, 2010)

Both are correct but "is mó cáil" would probably be thought better form.

General rule: if the adjective is derived from the noun, use the noun - and vice versa.

e.g. "an fear is mó cáil" rather than "an fear is cáiliúla"
but "an fear is cliste" rather than "an fear is mó clisteacht"

Hugo, I am not convinced your explanation is right. I don't know what GGMB stands for, but I assume it is some grammar book of Standardized Irish (Graiméar Gaelainne and then M B-what's MB?)- but as there is no separate accusative case in Irish such books are unlikely to describe accusative functions in those terms. For example: chíonn an fear an cáilín - cailín is definitely accusative in function, although there is no separate accusative case. It may be easier today to just say that the genitive is frequently not used - and then list lots of examples where the "nominative" stands in its place. But Peadar Ua Laoghaire, the author in question, is an impeccable source - THE most impeccable, in fact, and he was not prone to dropping genitives in all the places where it would be dropped in the Connemara today.

I conclude that in "ba ghéire caint", caint is in fact accusative. Another example is "ag gabháil an bóthar síos", where "an bóthar" is in the accusative, at least functionally (in the nominative morphologically).

Lars lists many circumstances where the genitive is lost today. I don't know enough about the spoken Irish of Cúil Aodha to know whether Cúil Aodha usage on the ground today reflects each point in his list. But I do know that Peadar Ua Laoghaire had a more robust use of the genitive. The example of "teach Bhríd Rua" is given on Lars' site - apparently where the noun is itself qualified by an adjective the genitive of the noun is no longer used, but PUL had "tigh Dhiarmuda Léith". So I don't think PUL could be described as a weak user of the genitive and his use of the morphological nominative in "ba ghéire caint" needs explaining - I am convinced it is an tuiseal áinsíoch.

GGMB = Graiméar Gaeilge na mBráithre Críostaí

http://ec.europa.eu/translation/language_aids/freelance/documents/irish/christia n_brothers_irish_grammar.pdf

David, I thought your original question was "why isn't it 'ba ghéire cainte'?" Did I misunderstand?

...Er...um...GGMB was meant to be GGBC, the usual acronym for 'Graiméar Gaeilge na mBráithre Críostaí', as Séanw has indicated above. Sorry for the confusion, David.I assume GGBC is the source for the Lars Braesicke site.

Abigail, yes, you're right, my original question was "why isn't it 'ba ghéire cainte'?" Caint is nominative. I just point out that some functions of the modern nominative can be described as accusative. I am probably trying to emphasise a point that doesn't need emphasising.

Hugo, GGBC is one of the sources for Lars Braesicke's site, but I think his site is based on much more than that. He covers usage in all the dialects, for example, and I think he has said before somewhere that he used Gearóid Ó Nualláin's somewhat ramshackle Grammar of Modern Irish as a source too. I think it is basically based on everything Lars had to hand. In fact Lars' grammar is much more useful than GGBC.

Well, I'll have a look this weekend and see if Stair na Gaeilge sheds any light (unless you have it yourself?) Accusative and nominative had fallen together long before my time.

(Message edited by Abigail on April 07, 2010)

What you mean by accusative is usually called "Direct Object", especially considering that you make a distinction between cases in morphology and syntax. I don't have the answer to your question but the the idea is that this morphological marking should indicate that you're not dealing with a nominal argument of a noun.

"ag goil síos an bóthar" - or the one you have - should be taken to mean that "goil" does not take an NP argument (as it does not in English or Russian) but "síos an bóthar" functions as a manner adverbial.

Things like "an fear is mó cáil" apparently involve some intricate predication pattern. I can only guess -- but sure enough there must be some nice syntactic analysis of these clauses out there: it should be close to the way "is maith liom teach" sentences are built which obviously do not require the genitive.

Peter, gabháil *can* take a direct object. Séadna has:

Bhíodh sé i mBóthar na Bró asdoídhche, ag faire ar dhaoinibh a bhíodh ag gabháil an bhóthair déanach ’san oídhche, agus ’ghá robáil.

But there is also gabháil an bóthar elsewhere.

I got it wrong above. I said an bóthar síos, but this normally appears as síos an bóthar.

It seems that phrases with an bóthar can just be adverbial phrases, like síos an bóthar. Separate from that is the fact that gabháil doesn't normally take an object (as there are also examples of "ag gabháil bóthar" where bóthar is not part of an adverbial phrase), but gabháil may take a direct object occasionally.

Confusing?

Peter, as you know, in Russian, temporal/spatial adverbial phrases can go in the accusative:

всю дорогу, они шли молча

is an example in one grammar book

It's not really confusing, I don't see a problem if some (or all) Irish dialects have two verbs "gabh/téigh", one intransitive and the other (apparently marked) -- transitive. In Russian, you have a pair "идти" (< "ити") -- "про-йти", the latter being a perfective verb derived by prefixation which optionally takes a direct object (denoting a road/path or some distance).