NiallBeag wrote:
idshanks wrote:
Ahh! I didn't realise quite how the noun itself reflected its gender in the presence of the definite article! Shows how elementary my knowledge is so far! :P I've tried colour-coding in the past, but unfortunately I really don't respond well to colouring (I'm not a very visual person at all; I tend to learn via context and application above all else).
I need to learn a little more to work out how adjectives reflect the gender. (If it isn't obvious, I only finally made the first step to begin focused learning of the language this morning, so I'm coming from a pretty basic place right now! :P) It certainly sounds like it might do the trick for the few consonants which don't change. And from what I've read today, NiallBeag, it applies in Irish - the letters D, L, N, S, T prevent lenition of the following D, S, T (there was an acronym for the rule, but I've lost the link >_<). Is the rule similar/identical in Gàidhlig? (Hope I'm not talking keich here, haha!)
DeNTaLS, perhaps...?
Yes, Gaelic has the "DeNTaLS" rule. Set out below is an explanation which I found online a while back, which takes an interesting approach to explaining the issue. I don't know where I found this, and (given my usual practice), it may contain info from several sources which I merged together (including info from posts on this forum and the old one). Given the chatty tone of it, I suspect that it (or most of it) came from the old Akerbeltz site, which is now not functioning, although some of the material from it is available elsewhere. I'm going to post this in the Gaelic forum as well, and to avoid bugging those not interested in Gaelic, perhaps further comment on it as it relates to Gaelic ought to take place there, although it is obviously also largely relevant to lenition in Irish.
Quote:
Every Gaelic textbook will teach you about lenition and when to expect it; there is lenition after feminine nouns, after the definite article in certain cases and so on which are “relatively” straightforward. But as we all know there are certain exception to this rule ... you have sgian mhór but sgian dubh, an fhàinne but an duilleag, Dùn Bhreatainn but Dùn Dèagh, MacDhòmhnaill but MacCaluim, and, as the song goes: “mo nigheann donn”, at which point you will often find a list telling you that an does not lenite feminine nouns beginning with d or l and/or that it just is Dùn Dèagh and not “Dùn Dhèagh”.
Fortunately, there is an easier rule. Linguists call it the homo-organic rule, the rule of “sounds made with the same organ”. You could call it the “sgian dubh rule” to make it easier to remember, since it demonstrates the rule in action. But before we can understand this rule, we need to look at our mouth again and where we make sounds. Broadly speaking, in Gaelic there are three important areas in your mouth where you make consonant sounds: at your lips (labial sounds), at your teeth (dental sounds) and at your velum (velar sounds, made at the place at the back of your throat where you make a <k> sound):
Group 1 (labials) b, p, m, f
Group 2 (dentals) d, n, t, l, s
Group 3 (velars) c, g
The rule in Gaelic is that, whenever you have two sounds which are in the same group coming together, lenition is blocked, even if the grammatical rule is saying “lenite here please!”. Let’s look at some examples:
Dùn Bhreatainn -- n is in Group 2, b in Group 1, so lenition takes place
Dùn Dèagh – both n and d are in Group 2, so no lenition
Camshronach – m is in Group 1, s in Group 2, so lenition takes place
Caimbeul – both m and b are in Group 1, so no lenition
Mac Dhòmhnaill – c is in Group 3, d in Group 2, so lenition takes place
Mac Griogair, Mac Caluim – both c and g are in Group 3, so no lenition
sgian mhór – n is in Group 2, m in Group 1, so lenition takes place
sgian-dubh – both n and d are in Group 2, so no lenition
air an fhearann, An Fhraing – n is in Group 2, f in Group 1, so lenition takes place
air an duilleig, an deoch – both n and d are in Group 2, so no lenition
Of course, things are not quite that uncomplicated. In modern Gaelic, this rule has started to break down and is thus not always applied. The rule is most strictly adhered to with place names and surnames, and after the definite article. This rule is most intact with dental sounds (Group 2) and only infrequently applied with sounds from Group 1 and 3. So, as a pointer to good “current” Gaelic, it is suggested that you adhere to these rules with surnames, place names, the definite article an, the negation cha(n), and certain verbal forms like bhios, bhiodh and bu, but not otherwise.