Genitive

[Cymro]

Hello all.

Does anyone know if a site where nouns are list in singular, plural, nominative, genitive etc.

I'm looking to find Genitive forms and having trouble.

I think that the genitive is used after "móran".
Could someone perhaps have a look at the phrases below?

many apples : móran ubhalan
many books : móran leabhar
many boys : móran bhalach
many children : móran páiste
many cities : móran baile-mòr
many days : móran là
many dogs : móran chon
many friends : móran caraid
many girls : móran chaileag
many houses : móran taigh
many men : móran fear
many tables : móran bhòrd
many women : móran bhoireannach

Thanks!

Cymro

[akerbeltz]

Ok let's make this a learning exercise

Think of móran as meaning multitude rather than many. To get you in the right mood. So, as in English 'a multitude of something' needs the something to be in the plural. Móran ùbhlan was close. So try and go over the list again and see what you might want to change.

The Faclair Beag lists the singular genitive and the plural nominative - that's all you need really in a dictionary as any other forms can be derived from those two.

[Cymro]

Thanks for your reply.

The link you provided has the following for 'girl' :

caileag
-eig, -an

You mentioned that it is possible to get the plural genitive based on this information.
Could you explain how?

Móran taing

[akerbeltz]

-eige actually

By knowing the rule. So normally only the genitive and the plural are unpredictable in many words (though certain endings always take certain genitive or plurals, making even that predictable). So the rule is (for regular nouns):
- the indefinite plural genitive is formed by taking the nominative plural and leniting it, irrespective of gender
- the definite plural genitive is the same as the nominative plural, preceded by the article nan/nam, irrespective of gender

Try it now

[Cymro]

Thanks.

This page gives a different rule :

http://www.reocities.com/alltandubh/Lea ... l#Genitive Plural

Can you help clarify this?

[akerbeltz]

That page is a messy description which does not clearly keep apart definite and indefinite plurals. True though, I forgot to mention that the above applies to nouns which form their plural by adding an ending. Those which slenderise (e.g. òran > òrain) have the genitive plural identical to the nominative singular e.g. balaich > taigh bhalach.

[Cymro]

OK, based on your advice, I corrected the forms to arrive at these:

too many friends : cus chàirdean
too many apples : cus ùbhlan
too many books : cus leabhraichean
too many cities : cus bhailtean-mòra
too many days : cus làithean
too many dogs : cus chon
too many girls : cus chaileagan
too many houses : cus thaighean
too many men : cus fhear
too many men : cus dhuine
too many tables : cus bhòrd
too many women : cus bhoireannach
too many children : cus phàistean
too many children : cus chlann

Please let me know if there are any forms you can see that are wrong.

Thanks!

Cymro

[Níall Beag]

Be careful with children.

"Clann" is always singular, even though it refers to multiple kids, so here the singular genitive should be used -- "cus cloinne"... or "cus chloinne", not sure which.

Except that actually you have to be more careful than that, as in conservative usage, "clann" is one of what we call the "universals". "clann" refers to all kids, or kids as a class, and when speaking about particular kids, you've often got to qualify it with the preposition "de".

[akerbeltz]

You got them all right, apart from the one Niall picked you up on and duine/daoine, should be cus dhaoine (slenderisation PLUS -e counts as plural by ending). Ach 's math a rinn thu!