Intro

I have a question regarding the use of (what might loosely be called) a genitive phrase to qualify an indefinite noun e.g. 'a house of the teacher'. This knowledge is needed in formulating the wording on a commemorative plaque.

(Note that my Irish is just to Leaving Cert level so forgive me if I have made any false assumptions in the following or if I used the wrong grammatical terminology.)


Genitive Phrase Qualifying a Definitive vs. Indefinite Noun

Take the following two expressions:

⦁ Teach an mhúinteora - the house of the teacher i.e. the teacher's house
⦁ Teach den mhúinteoir - a house of the teacher

In the first example, the qualifying genitive phrase 'an mhúinteora' means that the word 'teach' is a definite noun.

Whereas in the second example, the qualifying prepositional phrase 'den mhúinteoir' means that the word 'teach' remains indefinite i.e. the implication is that the teacher has more than one house.

(Note, while 'den mhúinteoir' is grammatically a prepositional phrase, it might loosely be thought of as a genitive phrase i.e. in a semantic sense.)

[As an aside, for the second example, you can alternatively say 'teach de chuid an mhúinteora', I think.]



English expression to be translated:

With the above in mind, I've been asked to translate the following brief line of text into Irish for use on a commemorative plaque (I've changed the words for the sake of anonymity but kept the grammatical structure).

Joseph Murphy - Founding Member and First President of Cork Debating Club

From a semantic point of view, the phrase 'founding member' in the above text would tend to be interpreted by most people as an indefinite noun phrase since there would typically be more than one founding member. Therefore, the phrase is implicitly preceded by the indefinite article i.e. it really means 'a founding member'.

On the other hand, the phrase 'first president' is implicitly a definite noun phrase since typically there would be only one president at a time. Therefore it really means 'the first president'.

So the text really implies the following:

Joseph Murphy - a founding member and the first president of Cork Debating Club

[This shorthand style, involving dropping of the indefinite and definite articles, is fairly common in English in the likes of newspaper headlines, and other such situations where brevity is valued. However my guess is that you can't similarly drop the definite article in Irish since this would automatically make the noun an indefinite noun.]


Long-Form Translation

As a first attempt at a translation, I have the following:

Seosamh Ó Murchú - Bunaitheoir de Chumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí agus Céad Uachtarán Chumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí

[I used 'founder' instead of 'founding member' for simplicity.]

The above obviously sounds stilted since 'Chumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí' is repeated.

This repetition is avoided in the corresponding English text due to reduction of parallel grammatical structures i.e. 'a founding member of Cork Debating Club and the first president of Cork Debating Club' is reduced to 'a founding member and the first president of Cork Debating Club'.

However, I don't think this reduction is possible in the Irish text since the two components 'Bunaitheoir de Chumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí' and 'Céad Uachtarán Chumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí' do not have the same grammatical structure - the first uses a genitive qualifier and the second uses a prepositional phrase qualifier.


Introduction of 'de chuid'

If 'cuid' was included, you get:

Bunaitheoir de chuid Chumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí agus Céad Uachtarán Chumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí

It might then be acceptable to reduce the above to the following:

Bunaitheoir de chuid agus Céad Uachtarán Chumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí

Although I'm not sure if you can leave 'de chuid' hanging like that.


Use of Possessive Adjective to Avoid Repetition

The following is an alterative approach at a translation:

Seosamh Ó Murchú - Bunaitheoir de [chuid] Chumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí agus a Chéad Uachtarán

(The possessive adjective 'a' above refers to the masculine noun 'cumann', so my guess is that 'a' - being masculine - lenites the word 'céad'.)


Use of 'Duine de':

The thought then occured to be to take the following approach.

Seosamh Ó Murchú - Duine de Bhunaitheoirí Chumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí agus Céad Uachtarán Chumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí

In the above you now have two genuine parallel grammatical structures (i.e. each of the two components contains the same genitive qualifier, being 'Cumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí'). Therefore, if I'm not mistaken, the above text can be reduced to the following:

Seosamh Ó Murchú - Duine de Bhunaitheoirí agus Céad Uachtarán Chumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí

I think the above is the neatest translation.


Introduction of Dates:

As a final modification, dates have to be included as follows:

Seosamh Ó Murchú - Duine de Bhunaitheoirí (1965) agus Céad Uachtarán (1965-1975) Chumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí

Does the inclusion of the dates disrupt the grammatical relationships in any way? I don't think it does.

Any feedback on this final translation attempt would be much appreciated.

Teach don mhúinteoir
"De" is never used as a surrogate for plain possessive genitive.
"De" is partitive only (or used in some other functions, of course).



Yes.
(Because of "cuid" it is partitive.)



It is more usual to avoid "céad" without any determiner, i.e. it is usually "an chéad" and the genitive is again supplanted by a prepositional phrase:
an chéad uachtarán le Cumann D. Chorcaí
or
an chéad uachtarán ar Chumann D. Chorcaí


I don't think so.



Usage of le or ar gives simple "air" or "leis"
an chéad uachtarán leis / air

I was in two minds whether to suggest anything, as to inscribe a memorial in a language the inscribers don't speak verges on pure tokenism. Were the debates in the CDC conducted exclusively in Irish? Was this person a Gaeltacht native?



I'm wondering if you can get creative and use the copula:

Labhrás, Thanks for the wonderful feedback. So the full text then would be as follows.

Seosamh Ó Murchú - Duine de Bhunaitheoirí Chumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí (1965) agus an Chéad Uachtarán leis (1965-1975)

Out of curiousity, could you instead use the following?

⦁ Bunaitheoir le Cumann Díospóireachta Chorcaí

[Or would it have to be 'do' instead of 'le'?]

------

On a related note, I have one final question. It concerns the translation of something in the following style:

⦁ James O'Rourke - Mallow and Cork footballer

The word 'footballer' above is an indefinite noun, so that it effectively reads as following:

⦁ James O'Rourke - a Mallow and Cork footballer i.e. a footballer of Mallow and of Cork

--

I think the following translation would be wrong since 'peileadóir' here is a definite noun:

⦁ Peileadóir Mhala agus Chorcaí - the Mallow and Cork footballer i.e. the footballer of Mallow and Cork (i.e. as if he was the only such footballer)

--
Would the use of 'le' work as follows?

⦁ Séamus Ó Ruairc - peileadóir le Mala agus le Corcaigh

If the above is correct, would it be more normal to omit the second occurrence of 'le', as follows?

⦁ Séamus Ó Ruairc - peileadóir le Mala agus Corcaigh

[Or again, would it have to be 'do' instead of 'le'?]

djwebb2021,You're overwhelming me with choice now. I particularly like the following.



...only he wasn't the only founder. Maybe you could use 'do chomhbhunaigh'

--

I also like this.



I wonder if you could also use 'le' instead of 'do' in the above.

--



I take your point but is 'cúpla focal' better than no 'focal' at all? Take public buildings built in, let's say, the 18th and 19th centuries. Their facades are occasionally inscribed with some Latin text. I assume the purpose of this was to convey an air of learnedness or nobility. Did the fact that most passersby wouldn't be able to read the inscriptions negate the intention of the builders?

OK, Caoilte, I see your point of view.
I like the


but I would wait for Labhrás to comment first, as he is expert in Irish.

Please note the following:
The Standardised Irish (made up by a committee in Dublin) does not have any síntíocha fada on comhbhunaitheoir. And it has diospóireacht, with no fada on the first i, although the i is certainly long in Cork Irish, as Amhlaoibh Ó Loingsigh had díospóireacht.

Cóṁ-ḃunuiġṫeóir do Ċumann Díospóireaċta Ċorcaiġe, agus Céad Uaċtarán air

And yes you can have do chómhbhunaigh. Usage of do as a relative particle is older-style.

I see céad and an chéad as both possible (but my impression on that may be because there are many copular sentences where the definite article can be left out if the noun is defined in a later cause, of the type is é céad duine é ná X, so you may want an chéad where it's not a copular sentence).

Do ċóṁ-ḃunuiġ Cumann Díospóireaċta Ċorcaiġe ar a raiḃ sé ’na Ċéad Uaċtarán

Yes, this is a nice one as well (if Labhrás agrees).

The reason I have 'na here (which is the usage of Peadar Ua Laoghaire) is that the pronunciation of what others write as ina is just na. I don't know for sure what the other dialects have, but suspect it is just na in all dialects, unless speaking at "thee cat sat on thee mat" speed.

Also note that the older script had a hyphen after prefixes like cómh-.

I was aware of the 'eo' versus 'eó' thing. My opinion is that the síneadh fada should have been retained if the vowel is long. Maybe they were just trying to save on ink.

I didn't realise that 'díospóireacht' was also spelt 'diospóireacht'. Actually Ó Dónaill's dictionary gives the main entry as 'díospóireacht', with 'diospóireacht' given as a variation.

I also didn't know that the vowel in 'comh' was originally spelt with a síneadh fada but Dineen's dictionary does indeed have a síneadh fada here, although he doesn't use a hyphen after it. Ó Dónaill doesn't generally have the síneadh fada for 'comh' but I have come across 'cómhaoinitheoir' - maybe he retained it only for words beginning with a vowel.

As an aside, Irish 'cómh' is cognate with Latin 'com' (as far as I'm aware) and can also be seen in English words borrowed from Latin, along with its variants 'con', 'cor', 'col', 'co'. I found out only relatively recently that broad vowels preceding 'mh' are actually nasal vowels in Irish but that the corresponding non-vasal vowels have now almost fuly replaced nasal vowels, apart from very conservative speakers.

Is the relative particle 'do' the Munster Irish version of 'a' in the offiical standard?

I should add that it is not a case of dropping the síneadh fada in eó to save ink. The fada wasn't originally there. The most historic spelling of eo is without the fada. However, writers of Cork Irish including Peadar Ua Laoghaire wanted to show the pronunciation, as there are words with a long ó in the pronunciation of such words (i.e. most words) and also a handful of words with a short o (leogaim, eochair, seo). So in words like bunuightheoir, the fada is added by dialect writers to show the pronunciation: bunuightheóir. As Muskerry Irish was very nearly accepted as Standard Irish in the 1900-1950 period, this would have been the orthography had it not been changed.

The "Standard" relative particle 'a' is a worn-down version of 'do'. Both are found in traditional Cork Irish, but 'do' tends to be used more frequently in the past tense, because use in the past tense is reinforced by the fact that 'do' is also a perfective particle. But you can find 'do' in all tenses less frequently. An fear a bhí ann. Or an fear do bhí ann.

Nasalisation is not a noted feature of Muskerry Irish today, although Peadar Ua Laoghaire stated he had it. Peig Sayers had clear nasalisation. Yes, traditionally there was a difference in pronunciation between lá and lámha, and ní and nímhe and all similar. Ua Laoghaire stated that áth ("ford") had a nasal vowel, for some reason, and Peig Sayers has very strong nasalisation in the word oíche.