My course has reached possessives. All seems straightforward enough, just one thing I was wondering. If you look at this sentence:
Càite a bheil am baile?
This to me means - Where is the town?
But if "am" is the possessive for "their" when used in conjunction with labials, then couldn't the same sentence also mean:
Where is their town?
If so how do you know which is meant?
Possessives Query
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Possessives Query
There's a lot of that happening in English too - you just don't notice, because you're used to it
Oileanach chànan chuthachail
Na dealbhan agam
Na dealbhan agam
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- Rianaire
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Possessives Query
With third person possessives which don't show the distiction between alienable and inalienable clearly though lenition etc, it's very common to resort to aige/aice/aca irrespective of whether the object theoretically falls into one or the other category of posession. So for clarity, càit a bheil am baile aca is not going to raise eyebrows from any native speaker.
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Possessives Query
I think it may be also "am baile-san" or "am baile fhèin" in the case of "their town".
But in the case of "the town", context is the only help: Càit' a bheil am baile as fhaisge?
But in the case of "the town", context is the only help: Càit' a bheil am baile as fhaisge?
Eilidh -- Luchag Bhochd