księżycowy wrote:So the correct sentence would be:
Cad deineann tú cócaireacht go hiondúil sa bhaile?
Maybe?
No.
This is an oblique object. You can't use a direct relative clause to front it. You also can't make
cad the object of a preposition. You have to follow it with a third-person form:
Cad air go ndeineann tú cócaireacht? (Cf. English "On what are you working?")
You should see parallels between this and the discussion of fronting objects of non-phrasal verbal nouns.
księżycowy wrote:I was going to ask if cócaireacht was a verbal noun, but Ó Donaill seems to say that it is a noun. (Unless of course he counts verbal nouns the same as nouns)
I don't believe he makes a distinction. There is a class of nouns which are not "verbal nouns" in the sense that they are not transparently derived from verbs. But in terms of function, they work just like other verbal nouns. Like
cócaireacht, they are quite often derived from agent nouns without a corresponding verb, e.g.
feirmeoireacht,
siopadóireacht, even
Gaeilgeoireacht ("Stephen Fry ag Gaeilgeoireacht ar son TÁ"). There are also a few derived from verbs which are now obsolete, at least with that meaning (e.g.
feitheamh, from the obsolete verb
feithim "I look at, I watch over", which is used more often in Munster than
fanacht in the sense of "waiting for" or "expecting").
księżycowy wrote:Also, I just wrote:
An maith leat lus an choire? Ní maith le mo mháthair é, ach is maith liom é.
in the answer-ask game which I'm hoping after the above conversation, it's correct. If so, is there a way to condense the second sentence?
I can't think of a way which sounds natural.
I would prefer
liomsa here because of the explicit contrast.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons