I’ve heard that the noun following a possessive adjective is always lenitated in speech, even if it isn’t written – is that true ?....that there is a subtle difference in sound between, for example, “a nead” (when the “a” is masculine) and “a nead” (when the “a” is feminine).

The story I heard is of someone ‘ag cúléisteacht le comhrá’ about someone swimming and leaving “a léine ar an trá”, only to be disappointed to learn that the “a” in question was male !

A Dhuibhlinnigh, there are dialects that differentiate between tense and lax n's that do make that difference. A nead (masculine) would be with nʹ and a nead (feminine) would be with Nʹ. And a similar difference with l's and maybe r's can be found - but Munster doesn't have the tense-lax distinction anyway...

Duibhlinneach I'm referring to this book a lot today but Ó Siadhail definitely has something about that in Learning Irish...
Again must be Conamara pronunciation.

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A Dhuibhlinnigh, there are dialects that differentiate between tense and lax n's that do make that difference. A nead (masculine) would be with nʹ and a nead (feminine) would be with Nʹ. And a similar difference with l's and maybe r's can be found - but Munster doesn't have the tense-lax distinction anyway...

True. Connnachta and Ulster still make the differentiation. Munster too once had such things but not anymore, not for a long time.

Well the 'shirt on the beach' story did come from Connamara. Although it's hard to imagine that such a handy "tool" wouldn't be more widespread.

So if it was historically that common, why isn't it written ? i.e. why is the séimhiú omitted after n, l and r ? because the sound difference is so slight ??

Well, native Gaeltacht speakers in Munster have gotten on just fine without it for a long time now.

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So if it was historically that common, why isn't it written ? i.e. why is the séimhiú omitted after n, l and r ? because the sound difference is so slight ??

Good question!

Because, D., it is not actually lenited.

lenition means a softening in the pronunciation, but is normally the conversion of a plosive to a fricative. Eg p to f. There are examples where that is not the case, eg t to h, but originally in Old irish it was t to th (as in "think").

But l and n - these are already fricatives - they lose a secondary articulation under the circumstances that would cause lenition of other consonants.

Anyhow, while "lenition" of these is not shown in the orthography, medially and finally the changes are shown. Eg a single n=lax n, a double n=tense n.

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But l and n - these are already fricatives

???

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I’ve heard that the noun following a possessive adjective is always lenitated in speech, even if it isn’t written – is that true ?....that there is a subtle difference in sound between, for example, “a nead” (when the “a” is masculine) and “a nead” (when the “a” is feminine).

Not that subtle, actually. The different between /L'/ & /l'/ and between /N'/ & /n'/ is very clear to the ear.

/L'/ is more or less a "ly" sound as in "million", /l'/ is a light l as in "to live", roughly.
/N'/ is like the Spanish ñ ("ny", roughly) and /n'/ is a light n as in "knee", roughly.

Now the difference between the broad ones : /N/ & /n/ and /L/ & /l/ is more difficult to hear. N and L are dental, n and l are alveolar.

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The story I heard is of someone ‘ag cúléisteacht le comhrá’ about someone swimming and leaving “a léine ar an trá”, only to be disappointed to learn that the “a” in question was male !

his shirt : "uh lay-nyee"
her shirt : "uh lyay-nyee".


If one wanted to write these mutations in writing, one could write "a léine" and "a lléine", "a nead" and "a nnead", etc. But I've never seen that. You would need to write "lléine" and "nnead" when they aren't lenited too, ie. most of the time, change the dictionaries. So, it's a pronounced mutation, but it's never written...


Btw there were four r's as well, now in Ulster there are 3 in the speech of some older speakers : /R/, /r/, /r'/.
Trilled broad r, one-tap broad r, slender r. But now, most speakers have only two: /r/ and /r'/. Few people use a trilled r (with several taps) - which is a pity because it's a nice sound, but such is life :-)

Very interesting.
So, could nhead and lhéine and rh... not have been sufficient to show the ll and the nn sounds ?
Why were they left out in writing ?

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N and L are dental, n and l are alveolar.

Are N and L still in use, Lughaidh?

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Few people use a trilled r (with several taps) - which is a pity because it's a nice sound, but such is life :-)

Indeed. Thanks for explaining that. I always wondered what precisely /R/ was. Italian has two r's: a single flapped r like "ora" and one with several flaps like "barra". You can hear both r's in "errore". You'll also hear it in some speakers of Received Pronunciation ("BBC English") in old films from the 1930s: "The Brrritish Empire strrraddles the globe". We also have another r, a French-style uvular r in parts of Waterford and Tipperary. Today FM used to do a sketch making fun of a fictitious inhabitant of from Waterford - I think. Half the joke was in the uvular r. Does this occur anywhere else?

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Are N and L still in use, Lughaidh?

I read in An Teanga Bheo that they were, and a teacher of mine told that he knew some young speakers from Gaoth Dobhair who still make the distinction between N and n, L and l.

Carmanach - the rr in errore is R, and the r is just r. But I am unsure the trilled r was used in Received Pronunciation, unless it was by a Scot. The tap, the single tap r, was used in Received Pronunciation between vowels (as in "very"), but I have never, in the flesh, met someone who used that and I think, unless they are aristocrats in their 90s, they are no longer around. As for the uvular r - well yes, that existed in Durham. It was the accent used by the miners who went down the pits, and for that reason their accent was called Pitmatic, but I think you would struggle to find anyone speaking that nowadays too.

Of course Munster Irish does have N and L. It is the lax n and l it doesn't have. In the slender consonants, Munster Irish has nʹ and lʹ, but not Lʹ, and Nʹ only exists non-initially (as /ŋʹ/ in Cork Irish).

PUL felt able to just ditch double n in the spelling, where it made no difference in his own pronunciation, writing Éirean but Éirinn, but in point of fact he had N and Nʹ in those two. It's just that, as there was no n-N distinction, he saw no need to write Éireann.

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Of course Munster Irish does have N and L. It is the lax n and l it doesn't have.

Don't you mean that it's the tense or unlenited n and l that it lacks?

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PUL felt able to just ditch double n in the spelling, where it made no difference in his own pronunciation, writing Éirean but Éirinn, but in point of fact he had N and Nʹ in those two.

But aren't /N'/ and /N/ the tense n's?

Munster Irish has only the tense N and tense L, and doesn't have the lax ("lenited") versions.

Broad: N and L only
Slender: n' and l' (and N' non-initially in words like Éirinn)

>>>Don't you mean that it's the tense or unlenited n and l that it lacks?
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No - the first consonant of naoi is a broad tense N. The first consonant of luí is a braod tense L.

The n in caoineadh is a slender lax n. The l in buile is a slender lax l.

The nn in Éirinn is a slender tense n in Kerry, although realised as a slender ng elsewhere in Munster. So it is phonologically N', but not realised like that in Cork.

In effect, when a Munsterman says "a léine", it must always sound like "her shirt" to the people in Connaught, and never like "his shirt".

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No - the first consonant of naoi is a broad tense N. The first consonant of luí is a braod tense L.

So where does that leave /n/ and /l/?

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The nn in Éirinn is a slender tense n in Kerry, although realised as a slender ng elsewhere in Munster. So it is phonologically N', but not realised like that in Cork.

Where did you hear or read that?

There is no /n/ and /l/ in Munster. What does it leave them?Fágtar ar lár iad!

We need Lughaidh's expertise here!

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There is no /n/ and /l/ in Munster.

Where did you read that?

Well IWM says that /n/ is dental and velarised (ie, tense), see p46. Page 48 says /l/ is dental velarised. So they are N and L.

Tense N=dental and velarised. /n̪ˠ/

Then it's right for Muskerry Irish : N, L, n', l' (plus N' when non-initial).

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Now the difference between the broad ones : /N/ & /n/ and /L/ & /l/ is more difficult to hear. N and L are dental, n and l are alveolar.

Lughaidh, Ó Cuív (The Irish of WM) says that /n/ is dental and that /l/ is formed by pressing the tip of the tongue against the upper teeth which appears to be saying that it too is dental. de Bhaldraithe (The Irish of Cois Fhairrge) says that /N/ is alveolar and that /L/ is dental.

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But l and n - these are already fricatives - they lose a secondary articulation under the circumstances that would cause lenition of other consonants.

Corkirish, how are l and n fricatives in West Muskerry?

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Munster Irish has only the tense N and tense L, and doesn't have the lax ("lenited") versions.

If that's true why does Ó Siadhail (Modern Irish: page 94) say the following?:

"In Munster the opposition between tense and lax l and r [sic] is lost, so that a two-part system emerges with /l/, /l'/ and /n/, /n'/."

He does mention your point about /N'/ existing in Muskerry and the Déise but being realised as /ŋ'/ between vowels and in word-final position.

Also, if /N/ and /L/ are the symbols used for tense broad n and l respectively why does Ó Cuív not use them? Also why does Ó Siadhail not use them in giving examples from Munster? If Munster broad l and n are indeed tense and not lax why does de Bhaldraithe describe /N/ in Cois Fhairrge as being alveolar but Ó Cuív describes /n/ as dental? As for /l/ and /L/ both Ó Cuív and de Bhaldraithe seem to use a similar description. de Bhaldraithe says that /L/ is dental and Ó Cuív appears to be saying that /l/ too is dental. But why no mention of /L/ or /N/ in Ó Cuív's book?

Are they wrong or am I reading everything incorrectly, which is entirely possible of course!

As for /R/ existing in Munster, where is that mentioned by Ó Cuív?

So, why is the séimhiú (which this thread has established is pronounced) not written for l, n and r ?

You're right Carmanach, l and n are not fricatives. But they're not plosives either. They are separate categories (nasal and laterals).

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If that's true why does Ó Siadhail (Modern Irish: page 94) say the following?:

"In Munster the opposition between tense and lax l and r [sic] is lost, so that a two-part system emerges with /l/, /l'/ and /n/, /n'/."

Because Ó Siadhail got it wrong?? or He is using a broader transcription there that doesn't show tense/lax distinctions?

When the distinction went from 4-way to 2-way, it did so in a way that meant broad l was dental and velarised and slender l alveolar and (weakly) palatalised.

Broad L and N are only L and N when discussed in the context of the wider Irish phonological system, incl. Galway and Donegal. Because the tense/lax distinction is not present anymore, you could just adopt the transcription l and lʹ, but as l is dental and velarized, it is actually identical to what would be L in Galway/Donegal.

Ó Cuív does say broad l and n are dental and velarized (ie they are tense). The transcription is appropriate to the dialect, but not necessarily appropriate to the wider Irish language.

>>So, why is the séimhiú (which this thread has established is pronounced) not written for l, n and r ?

Because these aren't plosive consonants becoming fricatives. That would be one explanation, but note that the "decision", to the extent that any one person sat down to take such a decision, would have been made more than 1000 years ago - I can't guarantee that a monk in the Old Irish period analyzed it in terms of plosives and fricatives.

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>>So, why is the séimhiú (which this thread has established is pronounced) not written for l, n and r ?

Because these aren't plosive consonants becoming fricatives.

Not sure that's a good reason. Probably because it's not so easy to write, and because it was never written. Maybe because the difference in sound isn't as big as with the other sounds?...
Hard to say...

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That would be one explanation, but note that the "decision", to the extent that any one person sat down to take such a decision, would have been made more than 1000 years ago - I can't guarantee that a monk in the Old Irish period analyzed it in terms of plosives and fricatives.

that's right, or at least, probably a monk of that period wouldn't think "I'm not going to write the mutation of l, n, r because they aren't plosives and they don't become fricatives.

Modern Irish lenition (non-automatic phonological and grammaticalised) originated in consonant phonemes having distinct allophones in the intervocalic position. Clearly it affected not only stops, but also fricatives (s,f).

From de Bhaldraithe's description, it is not entirely clear to me how the principle allophone of N was realised in CF Irish. He says little about the active articulator. Presumably, it is the blade of the tongue since, according to him, the tip of the tongue occasionally touches the upper teeth, but the main contact area is alveolar. My guess is that both these N and L of CF Irish would now be dubbed dentialveolar. But anyway, one needs to carry out palatography to find out exactly what the articulation is, something that de Bhaldraithe (I think) did not do back then.

What we can do is make some very rough predictions based on their acoustic properties.

I believe that what you can find is that there are articulatory preferences of individual speakers that vary greatly with age and location even within the small area of, say, an Cheathrú Rua - Iorras Aithneach. And this is only in competent native speakers (not semi-natives by Ó Curnáin's standards). You will find both apical and laminal articulation, irrespective of what you might expect given the lax-tense distribution. So, it could well be that the only salient feature of the N and L common to all speakers of Connemara Irish is, puzzling as it may be, nasal and lateral articulation respectively.

(Message edited by peter on January 18, 2011)

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Because Ó Siadhail got it wrong?? or He is using a broader transcription there that doesn't show tense/lax distinctions?

"Ní dhéantar idirdhealú anois idir l dúbailte (l gan séimhiú go stairiúil) agus l singil i bhformhór Chúige Mumhan, ionas nach bhfaightear ach dhá l, .i. caol agus leathan"

"I dtuaisceart an Chláir airítear an fhuaim /L/, .i. an l dúbailte a samhlaítear le Gaeilge Leath Chuinn"

"Déantar n leathan de nn leathan ar fud na Mumhan, m.sh. dəun < donn. I dtuaisceart Cho. an Chláir bíonn n dúbailte caol /N'/ le cloisteáil, ach ní hann don chonsan dúbailte leathan a bheadh ag freagairt dó"

Seán Ua Súilleabháin, Stair na Gaeilge, page 488

"The tendency to simplification has been carried out most thoroughly in Kerry and in part of Cork, where no distinction is any longer made between the lenited and unlenited sounds of l and n, so that there are but two l and two n sounds, viz. a palatal and a non-palatal. In the rest of Cork and in Waterford the same rule holds, except that palatal nn, when intervocalic or final, is distinguished from palatal single n by being pronounced ŋ. In Clare ll and nn are still distinguished (at least when palatal) from l and n."

T.F. O'Rahilly, Irish Dialects Past and Present, page 205.

So, leaving aside Clare for a moment, does this mean that Ó Siadhail, Ua Súilleabháin and O'Rahilly are all mistaken regarding the absence of /N/ and /L/ in Cork, Kerry and Waterford, if I am indeed understanding them correctly?

Excuse my own ignorance, I'm approaching this as a layman, but can someone explain to me what are the precise differences in articulation between tense and lax broad n and l?

The precise differences in articulation are dialect / idiolect specific. In modern terms, it is a phonological feature which does not necessarily have a single phonetic correlate. It corresponds to a bunch of things. The opposition is often given in terms of place of articulation, length, secondary articulation. What is of importance is the present-day reflexes of the lax and tense consonants of the previous stages of the language. The symbols N L n l should have no inherent meaning (by default, N L are tense phonemes though but it does not tell us anything about their realisations). An author usually provides a description of what these stand for and so you have to check it in each particular case.

Thanks for that, Peter. I suppose at the end of the day there's really no substitute for listening carefully to native speakers and working out exactly how they pronounce them.

Tense = dental and velarized, as shown by the IPA symbols /l̪ˠ/ and /n̪ˠ/.

Instead of saying "does Munster have L and N like the tense consonants in Galway?", think of it like this: does Munster have /l̪ˠ/ and /n̪ˠ/? According to Brian Ó Cuív's description, it does.

To approach if from whether Seán Ua Súilleabháin, T.F. O' Rahilly and Mícheál Ó Siadhail are wrong on this is really the wrong angle for me. Come at it from the descriptions of spoken Munster Irish. Does it have dental and velarized l's and n's? It does.

The n in donn is dental and velarized.

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The n in donn is dental and velarized.

Again, pardon my own ignorance but how precisely would that render broad n and l, "tense"? In what sense are they said to be tense. I can hear the "tenseness" between /n'/ and /N'/, and between /l'/ and /L'/.

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To approach if from whether Seán Ua Súilleabháin, T.F. O' Rahilly and Mícheál Ó Siadhail are wrong on this is really the wrong angle for me.

Fair enough but why would they be saying the opposite?

Well, the tenseness is shown in the more emphatic pronunciation, so a broad tense n show its tenseness by being dental and velarized, where a slender tense n shows its tenseness by being more obviously palatalized.

But I see your point that the definition of tenseness shifts between the broad and slender consonants. Therefore they are only tense because defined as such in comparison with the lax consonants. So in Munster, where they are not opposed to a set of lax consonants, they can't be said to be tense (as that term is only relative, when placed in the context of an opposing pair).

(Message edited by corkirish on January 19, 2011)

So does that mean that the broad n in "bun", say, is tense just as it is in "bonn" as the broad lax n /n/ doesn't exist in Munster?

So Ó Siadhail, O'Rahilly and Ua Súilleabháin are all using some other set of criteria to define tenseness?

Also, in relation to /R/; Ó Sé (point 10) speaks of a continuous r used in singing. Is /R/ what he is referring to?

Carmanach, it means the "n's" in bun and bonn are dental and velarized. I don't know about /R/ in singing - I had assumed it not to exist in Munster until you mentioned it.

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So in Munster, where they are not opposed to a set of lax consonants, they can't be said to be tense (as that term is only relative, when placed in the context of an opposing pair).

Ó Siadhail, Ua Súilleabháin and O'Rahilly were comparing them with those used in similar positions in Connachta and Ulster and they deemed the Munster broad n and l not to be tense. But might they really be saying that Munster broad n and l are not tense but not altogether lax either, in other words, somehow less tense than those used in similar positions in Connachta and Munster?

Do you know of any texts that describe such features as /N/ and /L/ in Munster in much greater detail than, say, Ó Cuív and Ó Sé? I'd like to study it in more detail. I'll be listening very closely from now on!