Hi, I have a grammar question which I hope more experienced learners will be able to help me with.

I'm currently working through Lesson 7 of Ó Siadhail's "Learning Irish" - it's not my first textbook, as I have been teaching myself Irish for more than 10 months on Caighdeán Oifigiúil materials, but it's the first systematic approach for me to any specific Irish dialect.

In the text for Lesson 7, I found this sentence:

Níl siad soibhir cé go bhfuil go leor feilméaraí soibhir agus [i]daoine uaisle anseo.[/i]

which is translated within the book as "They are not rich although there are lots of rich farmers and gentry here". The first instance of soibhir should be then predicative, and the second instance attributive.

Also, a few sentences later:

Bíonn cait dhall mar sin go minic.

It is translated within the book as "Blind cats are often like that", which implies an attributive meaning.

Now, that same lesson explains within the grammar points that attributive adjectives in the plural take a final -a/-e and have their first consonant lenited when following nouns that end in a slender consonant. This seems to be broadly consistent with what I knew about adjectives and their behavior in CO grammar before, so far so good. However, would one not expect to find feilméaraí soibhre and cait dhalla according to this rule? The text does not give any additional explanation for this, and I can't seem to find any other reason for the lack of a final -a/-e in this case, especially considering that daoine uaisle follows the rule verbatim in the same first sentence. Is it a dialectal feature I don't fully grasp? Is there something else I am missing?

I'll be grateful for any help. Thanks in advance.

I don't know if it is a typo or a dialectal thing, anyway as far as I know in Standard, Donegal and Munster Irish you'd have cait dhalla...

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

Just a few thoughts...
As was said already, 'cait dhalla' for me would be correct for 'Blind cats are...'.
If you were saying 'Cats are often blind like that',
then 'Bíonn cait dall mar sin go minic' or perhaps 'Is minic a bhíonn cait dall mar sin' for me would be OK.
But, 'Blind cats are often like that' = 'Bíonn cait dhalla mar sin go minic' or 'Is minic a bhíonn cait dhalla mar sin' or 'Bíonn cait atá dall mar sin go minic'

The first sentence:
"They are not rich although there are lots of rich farmers and gentry here".
..for me would go, with the dialect words in ():
Níl siad saibhir (soibhir) cé go bhfuil go leor feilméirí (feilméaraí) saibhre (soibhre) agus daoine uaisle anseo.

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Bí cinnte de go nglacfaidh triúr le gach aistriúchán a thabharfar.
Be sure to get three in agreement with a translation given.

Regarding feilméaraí soibhir, I found this on pg. 22 of An Teanga Bheo, Gaeilge Chonamara:

"Ach uaireanta fágtar aidiacht dhéshiollach san uatha: rudaí aisteach, scéalta álainn, daoine saibhir."

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Roibeard

Thank you for your help, everyone.

Lughaidh, I'd considered the possibility of a typo, but the audio reading of the text sounded pretty unambiguous about the wording, so I was left pretty confused.

Roibeard, I'm not sure if I understand the quote correctly since my Gaeilge is still a bit shaky: according to the explanation, in the context of Conamara Irish, a two-syllable adjective in the plural may sometimes be left in the singular form? That would certainly explain the soibhir instead of soibhre. I'm still a bit confused by dhall instead of dhalla, but at this point that may be a feature of the Cois Fhairrge Irish that is featured in the book.

Braoin, I had the same thought, in the sense that I assumed the "blind" in the sentence could have a predicative meaning instead of an attributive one, but the translation provided in the book seems to be explicitly attributive, and an attributive meaning makes more sense in context - i.e. "Tá an cat cineál dall anois ach tá sé glic go leor mar sin féin. Bíonn cait dhall mar sin go minic. Tá cait spéisiúil mar sin." - translated as "The cat is sort of blind now but he is cunning all the same. Blind cats are often like that. Cats are interesting like that."

Thanks again. Any additional ideas are more than welcome!

Sorry about that. I should've given some context. But yeah, you've got the meaning right. That explanation was from the chapter on adjectives, in the section on adjectives in the plural. I couldn't find anything in that chapter that would explain cait dhall, though.

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Roibeard

Wolfsblut, it's clear. You don't need the plural of attributive adjectives in Cois Fhairrge.

Feilméaraí soibhir - this is right.
Cait dhall - this is right too, with the addition that lenition of the adjective is required because it comes after a plural noun ending in a slender consonant (which is not the case with feilméaraí soibhir).

So it would be:

feilméaraí dall
cait shoibhir