Yes, I do say that if a phrase wasn't used or wasn't often used by pre-1940s Gaeltacht speakers, then it is not good Irish - and it doesn't make any difference what GGBC (compiled by learners in an English-speaking city) says.

I expect that "de chuid" has always been found in Irish. But I note that usage by Peadar Ua Laoghaire - zero. By Amhlaoibh Ó Loingsigh - zero. By Dónall Bán Ó Céileachair - zero. It would be relevant to ask which dialect it came from. The Nua-Chorpas can be searched, and displays results that assign a dialect, and it shows Ulster writers use it most, followed by Connaught and then Munster the least. That would be prime facie evidence that it is an Ulster phrase - at least a starting point for research.

The reason it is so often used by learners is shown in this very thread: learners wrestle with how to say "an X of the Y" and have fixed on "de chuid" as the phrase they reach for every single time. Native speakers have a wider range of phrases and don't have to say "de chuid" 100% of the time.

We don't have a king. Surely it should be fear de chuid na bannríne?

What are the Loyalists called in the Irish political context? Na dílseóirí? Lucht dílseach?

Djwebb, the occurrence you identify (from a bilingual site for Galway Technology Centre) is interesting.



It's interesting in that it is very similar to my situation i.e. it involves a definite noun phrase (in this case Galway Cultural Institute) being used to modify/qualify both a definite noun (the CEO) and an indefinite noun ( (a) co-founder) at the same time.

As an aside, I suspect they are wrong in assuming that 'the CEO of Galway Cultural Institute' would translate to 'an Príomhoifigeach Feidhmiúcháin do Institiúd Cultúrtha na Gaillimhe'. I would have thought that, instead of 'do', the genitive case should be used here (since you have a definite noun phrase modifying another definite noun phrase) i.e. i would have thought it should be Príomhoifigeach Feidhmiúcháin Institiúd Cultúrtha na Gaillimhe. (Although maybe my translation here does seem a bit unwieldy).

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Interestingly, here's another example from the same website of the use of 'do' as part of 'ball do', as opposed to 'bunaitheoir do'. Not sure if this is acceptable.



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While this website does seem, at first glance, to have good quality Irish, when I look more carefully, it seems to have a sprinkling of little grammatical mistakes here and there. Below is what seem's to me to be a fairly egregious example. I had to go the the English version of the webpage to figure out what they were trying to say here.

On the other hand, I did find a very small few websites with seemingly good quality Irish that contained either the search string 'b(h)unaitheoir do' or 'c(h)omhbhunaitheoir do' (all listed below).

http://caomhach.blogspot.com/2007/05/pl ... hange.html: Bunaitheoir do Médecins Sans Frontières, agus ansin Médecins du Monde, ab ea é

https://worldscholarshipforum.com/ga/fu ... -usa-2018/ - Bunaitheoir do thionscadail (a founder of projects). Interestingly the website also uses 'do' here: Ceannairí Domhanda do Dhéagóirí (Global Teen Leaders)

https://ga.opentran.net/cataloinis-gaei ... rigor.html Is é Rigor Mortis Sets In an tríú albam aonair le John Entwistle, a bhí mar bhunaitheoir do The Who. [seems to be a translation website]

https://www.gaois.ie/en/corpora/monolin ... Mode=exact Ba é seo an fear a bhí ina chomhbhunaitheoir do Ghaelscoileanna sa Deisceart

The last website listed above is that of Corpus of Contemporary Irish. ("The Corpus of Contemporary Irish is a monolingual collection of Irish-language texts in digital format. It consists of edited texts which have been published from the beginning of the 21st century onwards.") The text is ultimately from a book by Pádraig Ó Baoighill. Pádraig Ó Baoighill is a native speaker from Donegal, so this does lend credibility to the use of 'comhbhunaitheoir do'.

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(The search strings 'b(h)unaitheoir le' and 'c(h)omhbhunaitheoir le' yielded nothing.)

Finally, it turns out that there was an abundence of results using the the search strings 'b(h)unaitheoir ar' and 'c(h)omhbhunaitheoir ar' from sites that appeared to be good quality Irish. Below is a sample.

https://ga.leadershipinstitute.biz/5554-673 Bhuel, bhí a fear céile níos déanaí, Konstantin, ina chomhbhunaitheoir ar an mbanna seo sa bhliain 2000

https://ga.wikipedia.org/wiki/Se%C3%A1n ... _Ceallaigh Bhí sé ar dhuine de bhunaitheoirí Shinn Féin. Bhí sé ina bhall de Bhárdas Bhaile Átha Cliath... Bhí sé ina Leas-uachtarán ar rialtas an tSaorstáit... ...bunaitheoir ar Fhianna Fáil (a founder of Fianna Fáil)

https://ga.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reilig_Ghlas_Na%C3%ADon Seán Mac Giolla Bhríde - bunaitheoir ar Clann na Poblachta agus i measc na daoine a bhunaigh Amnesty International.

https://europa.eu/european-union/about- ... ioneers_ga ...agus a bhí ina bunaitheoir ar Phoblacht na hIodáile

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/todhchai-na ... 9955212809 Robert Mac Giolla Phadráig, Bunaitheoir ar an Talent Summit agus Príomhofigeach Trachtála le Sigmar Recruitment

http://www.potafocal.com/beo/?s=gleo ...agus í ina bunaitheoir ar chácas an Tea Party sa chomhdháil.

https://2016-2018.citizensassembly.ie/g ... eacht.html Tá an Dr Lohr ina comhbhunaitheoir ar Chumann na Soláthraithe Cúraim Ginmhillte

https://www.ucd.ie/icsf/ga/imeachtai/sr ... seiminear/ Ainmníodh Léacht de hÍde as Dubhghlas de hÍde, an chéad uachtarán agus comhbhunaitheoir ar Chonradh na Gaeilge (1893), an chéad Ollamh le Gaeilge in UCD (1909) agus an chéad Uachtarán ar Éirinn (1938).

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The last sample above is the most interesting since it contains the following text, which almost exactly parallels what i'm trying to say:



Note the text above uses a definite noun phrase (Conradh na Gaeilge) to modify/qualify both a definite noun (an chéad uachtarán) and an indefinite noun (comhbhunaitheoir) at the same time. The fact that the preposition 'ar' is used with both nouns being modified means that a reduction is enabled from the following more wieldy text: 'an chéad uachtarán ar Chonradh na Gaeilge agus comhbhunaitheoir ar Chonradh na Gaeilge'.

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This the current draft of my own text.



If I was to reword it using the preposition 'ar' as per the above, I would have the following.



The above does seem slightly more word-efficient.

Well, words like feidhmiúchán are totally made up by learners in Dublin. More natural would be something like árd-stiúrthóír. Fionntar as a noun meaning "an enterprise" rather than the abstract noun "risk, enterprise" is another made-up thing. Sósialtha - also not a natural word. "The needs" in the plural is not an riachtanais. It should be na riachtanaisí."Of" is not ó, and ó takes lenition anyway....

Yes, you're right the ar sounds better now you raise this point. I'm not a fan of the Standardised Irish, but if you're going for the Standardised Irish, then you need comh- with no síneadh fada. See https://www.teanglann.ie/ga/fgb/comhbh

Djwebb, thanks for that.

It did cross my mind that the word 'Comhbhunaitheoir' in the phrase 'Comhbhunaitheoir agus an Chéad Uachtarán ar Bhord Peile Dhúiche Ealla ' could end up being grammatically misinterpreted as standing alone (i.e. as if it were not qualified by the prepositional phrase 'ar Bhord Peile Dhúiche Ealla'), as indicated by the placement of brackets below:

{Comhbhunaitheoir} agus {an Chéad Uachtarán ar Bhord Peile Dhúiche Ealla}

...when my intention is as follows:

{Comhbhunaitheoir agus an Chéad Uachtarán} ar Bhord Peile Dhúiche Ealla

Nonetheless, I think it's fairly obvious from the semantical context as to what the intention is.

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That's very interesting to know. The question 'Cad is ainm duit?' is one that people learn at a very young age going to school and so people tend to think only of the overall meaning of the sentence without considering the purpose of each individual word.

Another thing that puzzles me about this question is the use of the word 'is'. The question word 'cad' typically acts a compound form of the copula i.e. it typically translates to 'what is/are?' Therefore the inclusion of 'is' in the question seems kind of superfluous, with 'Cad ainm duit?' possibly seeming more logical. By way of contrast, I've heard 'Cad é sin?' ('What's that?'). But I've never heard 'Cad is é sin?'.

Also, the standard reply might be 'Seosamh is ainm dom'. This also puzzled me since the the word 'is' is practically always the first word in a clause, so that the following might seem more logical: 'Is Seosamh ainm dom'. An exception would the 'is ea' construct, where 'is' is not the first word in the sentence. But in this case, the sentence might be expected to be: 'Seosamh is ea ainm dom'.

No, there is no rule that the copula is always deleted after cad. Rather, the copula is deleted before 3rd person pronouns. (And there is no such thing as cad me? It is cad é an saghas me?)

I think the phrase Seósamh is ainm dom could be understood as follows:

Is Seósamh is ainm dom -It is Joseph that is the name to me
Then the first copula is deleted.
The second copula is really a nested relative sentence - (is) Seósamh (a) is ainm dom.

Note that in Irish orthography there is no such thing as a is. Where the copula is in a relative clause, it is still is, but from the context you can work out if it is a relative copula.

In bean is ea í, the ea subpredicate pronoun comes in, as per O'Nolan's explanation, to stop the copula from standing next to the subject, which can't happen. In Seósamh is ainm dom, ainm is the predicate, not the subject, and in any case, is ea is only found in classification sentences.

In is é ainm atá orm ná Seósamh, ainm is the subject.

Okay. So, take a question like: 'Cad é an rud san?'. If the word é (the sub-subject, I think) is dropped (which I'm guessing it can be), does this then require the word 'is' to be inserted i.e. 'Cad is an rud san?' as opposed to 'Cad an rud san?' ? Also, take a sentence like 'Cad atá á dhéanamh agat?' - there is no 'is' after 'cad' here.

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-That makes a lot more sense to me now.


Interesting. I didn't realise that, for the direct relative form of the copula (present tense), the word 'a' is implied. But it does make more sense that way. Presumably it's dropped since it's a short vowel (or maybe I should say neutral vowel) where the next word begins with a vowel. On the other hand there are similar phonological situations (word comprising a short vowel, followed by a word begining with a vowel) where the word is still generally spelt even though it is not pronounced e.g. 'A Aoife' (addressing someone called Aoife), 'Níl a fhios agam'.

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I wonder if it would be legitimate to replace 'ainm dom' with 'm'ainm' e.g. 'Seosamh is m'ainm.' Grammatically it would still seem to be correct. But maybe it's a case that the use of 'ainm dom' in this situation is so well established that changing to 'm'ainm' would just seem strange.

My guess is that use is made of the relative clause to allow 'Seosamh' to come to the front of the sentence, thereby giving it the stress/focus. But what if you simplified the sentence by getting rid of the relative clause i.e. instead of '(Is) Seosamh is ainm dom' (It is Joseph that is the name to me), have 'Is ainm dom Seosamh' (Joseph is the name to me). I wonder if that would come across as odd.