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The Noun – An ainmfhócal
There are five cases of the noun in Gaelic, and these cases will be described in the following order;
- nominative'
- genitive
- dative
- accusative
- vocative
The Nominative Case
The nominative is used as the subject of a clause, and is identical with the accusative form, and in most cases also the dative form of a word, although there are some differences.
Nominative singular is the word listed in a dictionary, whereas the nominative plural is hard to form because there are so many irregular forms, however there are two forms of forming plural, the first one called weak while nothing but the stem is modified.
As an example one may take leabhar, which in its plural form is leabhair, or bróg, where a final a is added and in its plural form is bróga.
Harder to master is the strong plural forming, which is formed by adding one out of a number of suffixes to the word, and moreover, one may still see traces of the dual plural, a form of plural only used after the word dhá (two). Common plural prefixes are í, -acha, -anna and -tha
An easy rule to remember is that a weak masculine word‘s genitive plural is always identical to its nominative singular lenited, and the genitive plural is identical to the nominative singular eclipsed, and when the plural is strong the genitive, nominative and vocative plural are identical to each other.
E.g:
- Singular nominative: an fear
- Plural nominative: na fir
- Singular genitive: an fhir
- Plural genitivena bhfear
The Genitive Case
A genitive is used as an attribute to an other noun, and always follow the first noun in Irish Gaelic, and genitive is used to show all of the following meanings of the attribute;
- origin: mac Sheamais = James‘s son
- ownership: teach m‘athar= house of my father
- material: bróg leathair = leather shoes
- location; gaoth fharraige = wind of the sea
- occupation; fear an phóist = post man
- measure; leanbh míosa = one month old baby
- contents: bosca aran = bread box
- specific purpose: bean an tí = woman of the house
- description: óiche Méan Fómhair = September night
- use: léine buachaill = boy‘s shirt
- title, name: Ollscoil Ghaillimh = University of Galway
- price: stampa phuint = 1 pound stamp,
However Genitive is used for a lot of other purposes, e.g as an object of a verbal noun or a subject of an intransitive action
The Dative Case
Datives are used as an indirect object after simple prepositions. The prepositions change into other words when combined with personal pronouns which will be shown more closely in the chapter called prepositions. Otherwise, dative is hardly ever used in Modern Irish, with the form Éirinn as one of the few common exceptions.
The word le is often used to express the ownership of an indefinite object, e.g tá leabhar le Éoin, That is a book by Johan
The Accusative Case
Accusative uses the same forms as the nominative and the rules of lenition and eclipsing are as well identical to their nominative equivalents. Hence most Scottish Gaelic and many Irish grammars treat the accusative as non-existent.
The Vocative Case
The vocative case is hardly ever used in Modern Irish, however survives in one vital form; when one is calling for another person the vocative is used. The vocative is shown by „a“ followed by the mutated form of the name and the insertion of an i after the final vowel if the name is masculine, if not one only writes „a“ and lenites the name, e.g Séan – a Shéain, Morag, a Mhorag (John!, Sarah!)
Many people do believe that the vocative particle a is identical to the English „oh!“ but in fact it is not, if one really wishes to say e.g oh James! or oh Janet one would say a Sheamais ó and a Shinéad ó, as the vocative particle are unstressed in Irish. Vocatives are virtually unknown in the Germanic languages, but exists in e.g Latin and Saami. The famous Latin phrase „et tu, Brute?“ is a vocative as the name Brute in nominative would be Brutus.
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