Hi! Quick question if anyone knows (btw, I always try to dig up the answers to these things myself first, but sometimes I’m just stuck and gotta ask. )

Regarding lenition after collective nouns in Irish: I have learned that indefinite plural genitive nouns are not supposed to be lenited after collective nouns, but every source I can find has an example something like “buíon fear” (a troop of men) or “tréad bó” (a herd of cows)…and that, of course, makes perfect sense, but, regardless of those genitives following a collective noun, they would not be lenited anyway because men, cows, etc. are all living things, which are never supposed to be lenited in the genitive.

So…I was wondering if this “collective noun” rule can also applied to non-living things, such as “a batch of cookies” (baisc brioscaí, rather than baisc bhrioscaí) or “a pile of pebbles (cruach méaróg, rather than cruach mhéaróg)….?

I thought I was probably on the right track with that, but I was trying to find examples on https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/baisc , but ran into the example “baisc phrátaí” (heap of potatoes)

So then I just got pretty confused… can anyone shed some light on this for me? Thank you soooooo much for any help!

I don’t think it is a general rule.
It depends on purpose of the genitive.



Those aren’t considered collective nouns, just mass nouns.

I sometimes think the explanations in some grammar books are concocted on the fly, so to speak, to try to explain perplexing variation in Irish native usage, rather than being the real explanations.

Buíon fear - considered a collective noun.
Uail bhan - not considered a collective noun?

Maybe the real explanation all along was that buíon fear was calcified as such centuries ago, whereas less common noun phrases that appear to have collective nouns are more likely to align with a rule about lenition after a feminine noun.

DJWebb2021, That’s a brilliant hypothesis, in my opinion. It would definitely explain a lot of things that appear to be inconsistencies.

Labhrás, thank you so much…I did a little research and I now understand the difference between mass and collective nouns! If it’s not too much trouble, could you maybe elaborate a bit though on what you mean about lenition of living things depending on the purpose of the genitive? In the Caighdeán Oifigiúil and in my book A Grammar of Modern Irish, it makes it seem like a pretty blanket rule (w/ the exception of a living thing [other than a human] in the appositive genitive.

Thank you again for your help! This stuff is so fun! I’m getting better bit by bit!