(Spoiler warning for anyone who's never read Goldilocks and the Three Bears. )

In Cinnín Óir agus na Trí Bhéar, from An Gúm, the text for when the bears come home is:

'Féach ar mo leite-se,' arsa Daidí Béar.
'Féach ar mo leite-se,' arsa Mamaí Béar.
'Cá bhfuil mo leite-se?' arsa Babaí Béar.

I'm reading it to my son and I'm emphasising "mo", but it feels weird putting the tonal emphasis on "mo" when there's an extra syllable there that's specifically for emphasising who owns the porridge. (I also find it a bit strange that Daddy Bear is emphasising his possession when he's not contrasting with anyone.)

Am I right to read these sentences as: (puts on bear voice) "Féach ar mo leite-se" ?

Could I read it like that and just leave out the "-se"? Or would that then be ungrammatical?

I can see the point of an emphatic -se/-sa in written Irish, but they seem redundant in speech. At least in this example.

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Pages I made:
(These are unfortunately offline for the near future, but they'll be back!)

• Teaching Young Kids Irish (It's just my notes, a work in progress.)
• CD transcript and translations for the book Learning Irish

It's the -se/-sa suffix you should emphasize with your voice, not the "mo"

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Aha.

That feels strange too, but if that's the rule, then that's the rule

GRMA

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Pages I made:
(These are unfortunately offline for the near future, but they'll be back!)

• Teaching Young Kids Irish (It's just my notes, a work in progress.)
• CD transcript and translations for the book Learning Irish

I'd say you shouldn't emphasize anything with your voice. The stress is on lei- of leite with or without -se:

without emphasis:
mo leite

with emphasis:
mo leite-se

mo is pronounced mə, -sa/-se is pronounced sə/s´ə, i.e. both with schwa-sound ə, so not really appropriate for stressing.
You can't say mo(:) or s´e(:) or sa(:) or anything like that.

It is just the occurence of -sa/-se which *is* the emphasizing.
To put stress on any syllable (except lei-) is Béarla.

This is of course very different from English or German .
I don't know for French but I'd think you would never put stress on words like "je" or "me" but use an extra "moi:" Moi, je m'apelle ...

This is what I learned as well. Just say the word as you would ordinarily say it, without any special emphasis anywhere. The suffix is all the emphasis you need, and it's incorrect to stress "mo."

Redwolf

you can stress -sa and -se. It's possible to put the stress on a schwa in Irish in certain cases, like this one.


aye, you can stress "je" in certain cases.
You could say "JE vais le faire" or "MOI, j'vais le faire", it's the same thing.

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

I did some searching and found four audio examples from Ros na Rún. In one, to my ear, the actress clearly emphasises the possessive adjective "do", not the "se".

The Line is at 3m47s: "tá cairde den scoth agat, ach is iad do chuid cairdese iad." (you have great friends, but they are your friends.)

Online at: http://www.tg4.ie/ga/player/baile/?pid=5652672359001

In another, I could be imagining it but I think there's an emphasis on the noun "vóta".

The line is at 12m17s: "Agus m'anam go bhfuil mo vótasa aige." (And he'll definitely get my vote.)

Here's the episode: http://www.tg4.ie/ga/player/baile/?pid=5626885678001

And I found two other examples where no part of the sentence is stressed

• "Tá mo cheannsa fágtha sa mbaile agam." (I left my one at home.)
• "is fearr mo léinese ná a bheith mall" (my shirt is better than being late)

And I checked Learning Irish and there's definitely no audio example of -se/-sa on the CDs.

...which brings me no closer to knowing how Daddy Bear should discuss porridge

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Pages I made:
(These are unfortunately offline for the near future, but they'll be back!)

• Teaching Young Kids Irish (It's just my notes, a work in progress.)
• CD transcript and translations for the book Learning Irish

I am not sure the translation really allows the stress that seems necessary. I doubt that Irish bears would repeat verbatim the same stress and words as each other. They would surely find some way to stress that their porridge was more interesting than the others as we would in English by stressing 'my' to an increasing degree.

I would have chosen something like

Féachaigí ar mo leite-se!
Féachaigí ar mo leite-se féin!
Agus féachaigí ar mo leite-se chomh maith!

I realize that having parallel structures is attractive for children's literature, but so is drama! Maybe my version isn't perfect but at least there is a feeling of increased drama, which I feel is necessary.

I will say, though, that it seems impossible to justify using "féach" instead of "féachaigí" here. What gives?!?

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ЯГОН ТОҶИК НЕСТ ИНҶО???

Yes in French it would - moi je.... srl - or - C'est moi qui..... which I think I'm right in saying, you can do the same in Irish - isn't it called fronting ? Is mise a ......srl

The -se/-sa makes the emphasis, there is no need to say it with stress.
I think when people do stress it differently they are copying English.