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The Daltaí Boards » Archive: 2005- » 2010 (September-October) » Archive through October 18, 2010 » The genitive plural of lámh « Previous Next »

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David Webb from corkirish.com (Unregistered Guest)
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Posted on Wednesday, October 06, 2010 - 05:16 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

when you are reading old books that are capriciously edited, you can't be sure that the spelling you are getting is the form being intended.

Take this from Séadna:

‘Agus,’ ar siad, ‘tá órdughadh ó’n rígh, congnamh fear do ghléasadh láithreach agus imtheacht agus breith ar Shéadna úd, pé h-é féin, agus é a thabhairt chun lámha anso gabhtha.’ = "and", they said, "there is an order from the King to assemble a detachment of men straightway and go and seize that Séadna, whoever he is, and bring him to justice here".

Chun lámha - well, that is the spelling. But the genitive plural of lámh is meant to be lámh, not lámha. And lámh and lámha are not pronounced the same, and so I am wondering whether this means the Cork Irish gpl is lámha?

Niamh has:

Bhéadh an ruag ar ár muintir féin ar thaobh na lámha deise agus ar thaobh na lámha clé. = Our own people would have been put to flight on all sides.

This is even more confusing: would lámha be genitive plural here: "on the right hands' side, and the left hands' side"? I don't think this can be. I think lámha is written for láimhe (genitive singular) here, although the editor of Niamh usually has láimhe for the genitive singular, and so allowing lámha to creep in here is strange.

As far as I know the declension of lámh with pronunciations is as follows:

CaseSingularPronunciationPluralPronunciation
Nomlámhlɑ:vlámhalɑ:
Genláimhelɑ:lámhlɑ:v
Datláimhlɑ:vʹlámhaibhlɑ:vʹ


É a thabhairt chun lámha - this is awkward, because the form lámha could either represent a nominative plural or a genitive singular pronunciation, seeing as those are both pronounced the same, but not the genitive plural.

Do people on the forum have a good sense of what the phrase should be? Tabhairt chun lámh? Tabhairt chun láimhe? Tabhairt chun lámha?

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Carmanach
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Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 306
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Friday, October 08, 2010 - 09:36 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Is it possible that the writer is confusing "láimhe" and "lámha" seeing as both are pronounced the same in speech /lɑ:/? That would make sense especially in the second example you cited above.



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