If a noun is used attributively (as an adjective), does an additional adjective follow the first noun or does it follow both words as a unit?

Mar shampla:

scian phóca dearg

nó

scian dhearg phóca?

Genitives can be either appositive or attributive - and it makes a difference in the word order:

fón póca briste - a broken mobile phone (appositive)
cupán deas tae - a nice cup of tea (attributive)

deireadh maith seachtaine - a nice end to the week (attributive)
deireadh seachtaine maith - a nice weekend (appositive)


For your example, scian phóca is appositive (just like fón póca), so adjectives don't split it and it would be scian phóca dhearg.

I would also add that there is a difference in meaning between these two:

cupán deas tae = a nice cup of tea
cupán tae deas = a nice teacup

In the first one, there is an implication that there is some tea in the cup. In the second one, there is no such implication because it is a comment about the cup itself (its shape, perhaps, or colour).

Abigail, the distinction between attributive and appositive genitives sounds useful. Where did you get that from?

It would be useful if it weren't so misleading. Apposition normally refers to "a construction consisting of two or more adjacent units that have identical referents". (SIL glossary.) That is, in A half million people live the city of Dublin, both "city" and "Dublin" refer to the same entity; you could remove either one and the sentence would retain the same meaning. It's just clearer to include both.

This isn't the case with fón póca or cupán tae. A "teacup" isn't both tea and a cup; it's a particular kind of cup that's used for drinking tea. In other words, these are compound nouns. It's just that the way the two elements of the compound are linked is through use of the genitive. Tae is performing an attributive function cupán tae deas here just as surely as deas is. (Incidentally, cupán deas tae is an example of the partitive genitive.)

I've never heard the term "compositional genitive", but it would be a better description of the situation than "appositive genitive".

Domhnaillín, Abigail and Mbm provided a great explanation of a point above. It seems there is a tendency to take all debates off into discussion of the semantics, but the substance of the discussion is far more interesting, nicht wahr?

Definitely more interesting than metadiscussion, n'est pas?

Can't remember where I got it from, but here's a nice account:
http://www.acmhainn.ie/tearmai/seimhiu.doc

... although the term "appositive" isn't mentioned there. Strange, I wonder where I did pick that up from then.

Is "Cupán tae dheis" used?
"A cup of nice tea/a cup with nice tea in it."

"For your example, scian phóca is appositive (just like fón póca), so adjectives don't split it and it would be scian phóca dhearg."

Yeah, I forgot the lenition on "dearg". According to Ó Siadhail, "phóca" is used attributively in "scian phóca". This is the first time I've seen the word "appositive".

quote:

...first time I've seen the word "appositive"

.
Cén fuilghrúpa atá agat, a Cheltoid? "Appositive" atá agam féin...

When trying to explain the workings of one language by using another language as a launching pad in the process, I wonder do we tend to forget the oftentimes idiomatic and metaphoric nature of the reference language and that the apparently precise and definitive nature of many expressions is rooted more in tradition and habit than in any kind of "per se" precision.

Now, what am I talking about? Fair question.

If some expression has been describing something for a very long time, we take it for granted that both the expression and the object, or whatever, it is describing are mutually in a blissful state of precise bijection. What if "the guy who wrote who first wrote the label" all those years ago was having an off-day?

For example, we say "a nice cup of tea" but we really mean more precisely "a cup of nice tea".
I have better examples if I could only think of them.

(Message edited by ormondo on May 01, 2010)

To answer James_murphy's question:

quote:

Is "Cupán tae dheis" used?

The answer is "no". One might say "cupán deas tae" but since the consumption of tea is the homeliest of all Irish activities slang and colloquialisms abound: T'r'm (Torm / Tabhair dom) steall tae etc

Ormondo: Tomás de Bhaldraithe gave a talk on Irish language dictionaries which has been republished in the book "Corpas na Gaeilge" and he distinguishes between the English to Irish Dictionary intended to explain English to an Irish speaker and the English to Irish Dictionary intended to assist the English speaker to learn and use Irish.

In the first case all the currently used head-words in English can be listed and explained in Irish either by giving their equivalents in Irish if any or by long explanations in Irish.

In the latter case there are further choices:
1. restrict the English head-words to those which have equivalents in Irish.
2. give the current English head-words and coin new Irish language words to serve as "equivalents"

If the Irish (those living in Ireland and those living abroad) decide to revive Irish in order to use it in every aspect of modern life the latter will be the preferred option. The wonderful work published on www.focal.ie is a manifestation of the power of the new Irish language and what can be achieved.

We may not have the pithy humour of Tomás Ó Criomhthain but, boy, have we modern terminology. There is no need to feast on the failures -- mistranslations and Béarlachas, etc. Used well the new terminology makes topics that are obscure in English clear in Irish. Many readers of "Annual Reports" have alluded to this fact. Where the English consists of jargon intended to obfuscate, the Irish reveals the meaning.

On the other hand, the gloomy dispairing viewpoint, if we decide "the real Irish" died out long ago and is now a museum piece with a dwindling population of native speakers and a literature to be picked over by an ever-diminishing number of scholars there is no need for more dictionaries.

Those of us with an interest in Irish need to clarify if we are revivalists or antiquarians. Me? I'm for revival. Táim ar son na hathbheochana. Ar son úsáid na Gaeilge sa saol laethúil. Sa teaghlach. Cois cliabháin.

There are said to be 25,000 true native speakers of Irish. How many daily speakers are there? How many claim some knowledge of the language? 1,500,000 persons? Of which I am one!

As for the "cup of tea" suppose we drank our tea out of a billycan or a jamjar? Why the emphasis on the vessel? Hence "steall tae" nó "steancán". The closer you get to the speakers of a language the less alike you may discover us to be. Our daily lives may be far apart and very different. Have you ever tasted tea made over a smokey turf-fire on the bog in mid-summer? One of the true pleasures of life. [I know. That's what caused the recent forest fires in Galway. Loscadh sléibhe. Dóiteán coille.]

quote:

For example, we say "a nice cup of tea" but we really mean more precisely "a cup of nice tea". I have better examples if I could only think of them.

An excellent method, in my opinion, to visualize these differences is to tree diagram the phrase structures. You'll see the relationships jump out at you, especially when the word order may obscure this from an English point of view. Unfortunately I can't diagram this for you here, but if you search "linguistics tree structure" in Google Images or something like that, you'll see something along the lines of what I am talking about.

Tá píosa portáin ag m'athair chéile. Is minic a dhuisíonn sé mé gan rabhadh go luath ar maidin chun móin a charnadh nó a chasadh nó a rugadh abháile (agus mise ar mo laethanta saoire!). Is obair an chruaidh é ach baineann na leanaí sult as agus is blasta an tae ina dhiaidh.

D'imigh an sorn móna cúpla bhliain ó shin agus is ar ola a ritheann an córas téimh lárnaigh anois. Ní ghearann sé ach an méid a shasíonn an tine sa phub. Ach is fiú an obair a dhéantar sa samhradh nuair a shocraíonn tú síos in aice an tine ar oiche fuar gheimhridh le pionta brea pórtair agus boladh móna san aer.

Ta brón orm nach baineann an méid thuas le ord focail ar chor ar bith!

(Fáilte roimh ceartúcháin)

Portaigh seachas portáin - tá aistear fada romham fós!

portáin?

Portaigh atá i gceist agat sílim; áit a mbeaintear móna, seachas sliogéisc le crúba!

I spared my blushes by a mere four minutes.

Tá an t-idirlíon gasta. Ar chúis éigin ní fhaca mé do fhéin cheartúchán.

Sciorradh méir:

áit a mbaintear móin

(Message edited by aonghus on May 05, 2010)

Fadhb ar bith. Tá cúpla botúin eile tugtha faoi deara agam anois ach ba drochcheann é sin. Portán, portach, an iomarca portáir, mo phort seinnte...

Tá sé róghasta - bhí mé ag déanamh trácht ar an méid a scríobh tú roimh do phost deireanach.