franc 91 wrote:
Just to go back to the original question - this is what you find on page 20 of 'Teach yourself Irish' (the 1960 edition)
The prefixed h:
One other initial change must be noted. The gen. sg. fem. and the nom.pl. of the article prefix h to a following initial vowel: na habhann "of the river"; na huain 'the lambs".
h is also prefixed as follows:
(a) to nouns after the fem. possessive a "her"; after the numerals trí, cheithre, sé and after tarna "second" and ordinals ending in ú; after the prepositions go and le (1), and after the negative copula ní: a hiníon 'her daughter", trí huaire "three times, an tarna huair "the second time", go hÉirinn "to Ireland", le hór "with gold", ní hea "it is not", ní hamhlaidh "it is not so";
(b) to adjectives after chomh "as, so" and go (forming adverbs): chomh hálainn"as beautiful", go holc "badly";
(c) to verbs in the passive-impersonal after all particles ending in vowels, and in the imperative after the negative ná: ní hitear " is not eaten"; ná hól! "do not drink", do hólaidh "was drunk".
(1) le prefixes n to the verbal nouns ithe "to eat" and ól "to drink".
There are just a few simple generalizations that can be made about the prefixed h-:
Any "proclitic" word of the type that could be expected to cause some sort of mutation (determiners, monosyllabic prepositions, copular forms, preverbal particles, etc. – all the usual suspects) adds the prefixed h- to a vowel if both of the following conditions are met:
(1) The triggering word ends in a vowel (
chomh is pronounced [xo], so it counts as ending in a vowel).
(2) The triggering word does not trigger either lenition (séimhiú) or eclipsis (urú).
If there are any exceptions to this, I'm not aware of them.
_________________
There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting.
—John Millington Synge, The Aran Islands
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
