I noticed today:

Pé breithniú a bhí ag Niamh ná ag á hathair ná ag Murchadh, ná ag éinne eile de chuallacht Bhriain á dhéanamh, i gcaitheamh na cuairde san, ar an scéal san, ná ar aon scéal eile dá shórd a tháinig chúthu ó Cheann Cora...


Pé...ná...

The ná is almost like this is negative - why not nó? I know the answer is that usage always trumps logic, but it is an interesting question.

My feeling is that this is not "nó" because it is an and rather than an or

Whatever observations Niamh and her father ....

The superset of their observations.

But that is a gut feeling, not backed up by the dictionaries to hand.

Well, is what directly follows the particular extract you quote negative in some way? "No matter how much Niamh nor her father nor Murchadh etc studied/considered the news that came to them from Ceann Cora, . . . ."

The whole section is:

Pé breithniú a bhí ag Niamh ná ag á hathair ná ag Murchadh, ná ag éinne eile de chuallacht Bhriain á dhéanamh, i gcaitheamh na cuairde san, ar an scéal san, ná ar aon scéal eile dá shórd a tháinig chúthu ó Cheann Cora, bhí aon bhreithniú amháin acu go léir á dhéanamh ar na scéalta a bhí ag teacht chúthu anoir agus aduaidh, agus anoir aduaidh, ón uile áird den domhan Lochlannach. Bhí na scéalta san ag teacht coitianta, agus fé mar a bhí an aimsir ag imeacht bhíodar ag teacht níba thiúbha. Is é breithniú a bhí ag cuallacht Bhriain á dhéanamh ná so: nuair a thiocfadh na slóite a bhí chun teacht, nuair a thiocfadh toradh ar an dtórmach go léir, nuair a thiocfadh an cogadh a bhí geallta, nárbh fholáir do bheith ’na chogadh bháis do thaobh éigin, do Ghaelaibh Éireann nó do sna gintibh a bhí ag teacht.

'na chogadh bháis -

uurghhh! this lenition thing is so awkward, as the rules are so vague. There is nothing in the rules to explain why báis should be lenited after cogadh, is there? (I assume it means "war to the death")

’na chogadh bháis do thaobh éigin

A war resulting in the death of one side

which could be rendered as

a war of death

i.

a deathly war

Bhí aigne na bhfear socair ar an gcuma san ní hamháin i gcuallacht an Árdrí, ar an gcuaird, ach fós i dteaghlach gach rí cúige ’nar chaith an t-Árdrí roinnt laethanta ann, agus in sna daingeanaibh a bhí curtha suas ag an Árdrí, agus ins gach aon bhall ’nar chuaigh cainnt na bhfear san agus a n-anál fén bpoiblíocht.

What does fén bpoiblíocht mean? In public? There is nothing in NÓD1977 or PSD1927 under poiblíocht to explain this...

quote:

Pé breithniú a bhí ag Niamh ná ag á hathair ná ag Murchadh, ná ag éinne eile de chuallacht Bhriain á dhéanamh, i gcaitheamh na cuairde san, ar an scéal san, ná ar aon scéal eile dá shórd a tháinig chúthu ó Cheann Cora, bhí aon bhreithniú amháin acu go léir á dhéanamh ar na scéalta a bhí ag teacht chúthu anoir agus aduaidh, agus anoir aduaidh, ón uile áird den domhan Lochlannach.

I believe that "breithniú" here is in fact "judgement", "evaluation". I think what he is saying is that irrespective of the differeing views of Niamh etc regarding the tidings coming out of Ceann Cora, that they were all of one mind regarding the news arriving from the east and north.

quote:

'na chogadh bháis -

Something to do with the dative? I think Ó Sé has a reference somewhere to how lenition can "jump" from one word to a following adjective or noun in the genitive with a genitive function. I'll try and find it for you. Is "báis" being treated as just another adjective in the dative and so taking lenition? It's not an adjective per se of course but a noun functioning as an adjective.

quote:

What does fén bpoiblíocht mean? In public? There is nothing in NÓD1977 or PSD1927 under poiblíocht to explain this...

You're not looking closely enough! An phoiblíocht = the public - Ó Dónaill, i.e. the people, the populace.

poiblidheacht - the public, a republic - Dinneen

Also "bheith faoi anál X" means to be under the influence of X.

Cork Irish, that reference of Ó Sé's I mentioned above is in section 102 of his book.

Carmanach, I saw poiblíocht there of course - I learned this word yonks ago - but I didn't see "fén bpoiblíocht" - but Aonghus' explanation that "bheith fé anál duine" as a phrase makes sense. I recently saw "dul fé" with a similar meaning. You see how i often look up the wrong word in a phrase?

Yes, I think bás is acting as an adjective in "'na chogadh bháis", and that probably explains the lenition.

"anál a chuir fé dhuine" is a common enough expression. And yes, it means to influence someone. "Fé 'neál duine" = under someone's influence.

/n'ɑːl/ is the normal pronunciation in Corca Dhuibhne. Note the slender n. A schwa precedes the n in certain circumstances. I imagine a similar pronunciation is used in West Muskerry and elsewhere.

Note that in the CO, it is "anáil".

Carmanach, anáil is dative in PUl's works:

nom: anál
gen: análach
dat: anáil

And what about the n, is it palatalised in WM?

I don't know about the quality of the n, but I hope to find out from the people in Muskerry as part of the editing of Niamh! Féach ar an mball so! (watch this space!)

quote:

Féach ar an mball so! (watch this space!)

"Fan go gcloisir/gcloisfidh tú tuilleadh nuachta uam" or "Beidh tuilleadh nuachta agam duit go fóill" or "Beidh réiteach na ceiste sin agam duit go fóill" is what I would say there.

GRMA!

Ná háirimh é! = Don't mention it!

Níl a bhuíochas ort! = You are welcome!

"Tá fáilte romhat" as an expression of gratitude would appear to be a calque of the English.

Another one to say if someone offers you a drink and you politely decline: "Tá do chuid is do chlú agat".

"Do chuid" because the person asking has not been obliged to part with his money on your part. He still has his "cuid".

"do chlú" because the person had the good manners and generosity to offer you a drink in the first place. He therefore holds on to his good name, his "clú".

I suppose the best English translation would be "You hang on to your money, but thanks for offering anyway!".

Tá do chuid is do chlú agat - almost implies he was only offering to get "brownie points" and was expecting his offer to buy a round to be rejected? Am I being cynical? ;-)

Tá do chuid is do bhuíochas (do chlú, d'oineach) agat; 'you have your meat and your manners', thanks for your offer. (Ó Dónaill)

quote:

Am I being cynical?

Yes.

Actually, 'ná' is predicted in this context ('pé breithniú a bhí ag ... ná ag ..., bhí aon bhreithniú ag ...'). 'Ná' is used instead of 'nó' in downward entailing (monotonic) contexts. Consider a common case: níl carr ná teach agam. This entails that níl carr mór ná teach te teolaí agam (that is that the disjunction of the subsets of the sets of cars and houses also makes this sentence true). We can formalise this sentence as not exists x ([car(x) or house(x)] & I_own(x)). Not exists x (A(x) & B(x)) denotes a function that is downward monotonic in both A and B.

Now, consider 'pé breithniú ...'. We can formalise this sentence as something like for all x (view_news_Ceann_Cora(x) & (niamh_holds(x) or father_holds(x) or ...) -> exists y and only one (view_news_east(y) & niamh_holds(y) & father_holds(y) & ...)'. For all x (A(x) -> B(x)), which can be said to translate the English 'every', is downward entailing in A: All dogs bark entails that all small dogs bark. Thus, 'ná' is allowed to appear in the clause that gets translated as the antecedent and that is exactly what we have.

Things like the Irish 'ná' are called negative polarity items in linguistics. There's a lot of literature on that topic.

Peter, I have no idea what you're talking about, but it sounds like you know much more about it than I do!

Ana dheas.

Sin a bhí á mhaíomh agam thuas, sílim

http://www.daltai.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/daltai/discus/show.pl?tpc=20&post=97443#PO ST97443

I think you are right about the superset of their views, but note that the way you paraphrased the sentence is ambiguous:

Whatever views Niamh and her father held ...

could mean either the views their shared or the views that each of them held independently, not necessarily identical. Then, it is on this second reading that we get the superset of their views, but not on the first.

Bhí fhios agam go raibh an Ghaeilge níos cruinne ná an Béarla!

David, I believe you got the idea anyway that the form of this Irish functional word is sensitive to logical context. In fact, it exhibits a behaviour which is very similar to that of 'ever':

No Martian has ever been to England.

Every Martian who has ever been to England knows where Big Ben is.

yes, but as Aonghus pointed out, this is not explained in dictionaries (or grammar books). But as ever, it is usage that counts, and not dictionary entries...