linguoboy wrote:Except that bean an tí is a compound in much the same way that "housewife" is in English.
Okay, is that the case for all such genitive constructions or is it just
bean an tí? If it were another phrase would it be correct to place the adjective after the first noun of the construction? E.g. "
cathaoir na mban mhór" vs "
cathaoir mhór na mban"?
linguoboy wrote:Ciarán12 wrote:Secondly, am I to assume that the difference between "mhóir" and "mhór" is in which noun-gender it is used for, thus differentiating it based on the fact that "bean" in feminine and and "teach" is masculine? But If that was the case, wouldn't one of them not be lenited, given that that only happens to feminine singular nouns?
I never said that it
only happens to adjectives modifying feminine nouns. You didn't ask me what the rules were for masculine nouns.
Okay, what are the rules for masculine nouns?
linguoboy wrote:Ciarán12 wrote:And does this mean that adjectives describing masculine nouns are slenderised?
Only in the genitive singular (where they are also lenited) and not for all adjectives. So, for instance,
bean an fhir mhóir but
bean an fhir fhionn (not *
fhinn).
I see. Are there many such exceptions?
linguoboy wrote:Ciarán12 wrote:Ans also, how would they be differentiated if both nouns in the phrase were the same gender?
You mean if both nouns were in the genitive case?
No, but that's a good question too. I'm vaguely aware of a rule about two genitives coming after each other in Irish and how the first is actually in the nominative but takes the appropriate initial mutations and the second is in the genitive. Or something like that...maybe(?).
What I actually meant was something like the phrase I gave above "
cathaoir na mban mhór". I was under the impression that "
bean an tí mhór" and "
bean an tí mhóir" showed that, regardless of which noun the adjective was describing, the adjective must come after the second noun in such a (genitive) construction, and that in that particular instance the differentiation between whether it was the house that was big or the woman that was big was by marking the adjective for gender (as in this case the nouns were different genders). So I was wondering how the distinction would be made if both nouns were of the same gender, as in "
cathaoir na mban mhór" (does the "mhór" describe the "cathaoir" or the "bean"?).
linguoboy wrote:Ciarán12 wrote:How do I know which ending it takes?
In general, adjectives ending in a broad consonant take
-a and those ending in a slender consonant take
-e. The chief class of exceptions are adjectives ending in
-úil, which becomes
-úla in the nominative plural (paralleling what happens in the comparative form).
Okay, that seems clear enough.