Hi! First I just wanna say I don’t get on this (awesome) site as often as I should (my Internet provider doesn’t recognize the domain, and I have to manually turn the internet off and go through cellular), and I just saw that my previous question on lenition now has 35 replies! Wow! I will definitely get on reading through all those soon, and thank you to everyone!

But for today, I was wanting to write “dog collars” in Irish. “Dog collar” is “coiléar madra” … so I’m guessing that the plural is “coiléir madraí” (since it should logically be “collars of dogs,” not “collars of a dog.”

Just to be sure though, I tried looking it up online, and found several different versions, including a Wictionary entry that claimed that the plural is “coiléir mhadra” … which seems wrong in two ways to me: 1) it’s saying “collars of a dog” … and 2) genitives of slender-ending plural masculine nouns aren’t supposed to be lenited if the genitive noun is a living thing. …

Can anyone please shed some light on what is correct here? I have a feeling my instinct on this is right, but I want to be sure. Thank you!

I believe it is coiléir madraí, and the rule about lenition or non-lenition of animals in the genitive actually relates to the situation after feminine singular nouns. It is not (explicitly) stated in GGBC as applying after masculine plural nouns. You could make the assumption that it applied, but in any case GGBC does say that all masculine nouns with a slender consonantal ending in the nominative plural are followed by lenition. But it doesn't give many examples. Examples in Gaeltacht literature where this is not the case are plentiful. Coiléar is a rare word in Irish - as the collar on a man's shirt is cába.

How many dogs are in "dog collars"?
Í don’t think a plural is necessary at all: coiléir m(h)adra

Thank you both. And, good point, Labhrás, about there’s only one dog in dog collars. I didn’t think of that.

In researching today, I found that the Caighdeán Oifigiúil does explicitly state not to lenite a noun that’s a living thing (or part of a living thing) after masculine nouns on slender consonants, and A Grammar of Modern Irish by Pól Ó Murchú seems to imply the same, so I definitely feel more confident about that aspect.

But in my research, I accidentally dug up a different (semi-unrelated) question. …

The Caighdeán Oifigiúil states: “Ní shéimhítear an dara hainmfhocal más sa ghinideach iolra atá sé.” (“The second noun is not lenited if it is in the plural genitive.”) … It states that as a lenition exception after both the rule about leniting the genitive after singular fem. nouns, and after the rule about leniting the genitive after masculine nouns on slender consonants…but…

In both “A Grammar of Modern Irish” and http://www.nualeargais.ie/gnag/gramadac.htm , no such exception is mentioned…as a matter of fact, on Nualeargais, they even give a couple of examples in the section on lenition of genitives that appear to outright break that “rule” (like punt phrátaí )..”prátaí” is in the plural genitive.

So, do either of you (or anyone else) know which is more acceptable/“correct” when it comes to Standard Irish? For example, would “ an tsailéid phrátaí ” (of the potato salad) be correct? Thank you! I’m working on a larger project about lenition, and I want to make sure I understand.

Hey, guys, I actually think I may have just found an answer to my 2nd previous question (though I’m not 100% sure): so basically I went to the German version of Nualeargais (since I’ve heard it’s more complete) and used Google Translate, and according to it, (in Standard Irish) an indefinite plural genitive as a modifier is never lenited, but that traditionally, it is lenited, just not after group nouns. E.g. buíon buachaillí (a troop of boys).

Sound like a got it right?

Rosie, Labhrás here is the person who wrote both the English and German editions of nualeargais

Oh, wow! That’s so cool! No wonder he knows so much!

I'm sure Labhrás is right on the singular madra - because "dog" is fundamentally adjectival in the noun phrase "dog collars". It not a question of how many dogs. But when the genitive of the indefinite qualifier has a more adjectival feel, then it is more likely to take lenition: coiléir mhadra.

It'd be interesting to know if this is used in irish to refer to priests' collars - but I think that is mainly an English thing to call them dog collars, and so if this were used in Irish, it might be under English influence, if at all. I mean: priests' collars would be cábaí, but would they be cábaí madra? I think that would just be béarlachas....

EDIT: just seen on focloir.ie that priests' collars are called bóna sagairt.

I have the same problem – well, I don’t believe it’s my Internet provider, and it’s not just the domain, I can’t establish any connection to the forum’s IP address – so it seems to me there is some issue with the forum’s hosting (or some other network stuff in the middle) that blocks connections from some networks.

(I myself work around it by using a proxy server whenever I use the forum – or, if reading it from my phone, by using mobile data, that works for me too)

Hey, Thanks for the insight, djwebb2021! This helped me.