A Guide to Irish Cases

Intro

Different languages have different strategies for showing the relationships between parts of a sentence. In English, we tend to use small, 'filler' words and word order as tools to show these relationships; for example, when we want to show the spacial relationship between two objects, we use prepositions like 'on', 'below' or 'beside' depending on what best suits the relationship. Or perhaps when we want to show how one object is related to another, we put the two words together, like in the phrase 'grammar guide', the first word is describing some aspect of the second one, in this case it's showing what kind of guide it is. However, in some languages there is an extra variable that helps to show listeners these relationships; grammatical case.

What are Cases?

Cases are different forms of the same basic word that emphasise different roles the word has in the sentence, ie. Whether it's acting or is being acted upon, whether it's being affected by a preposition, whether it's related to another noun or not, etc. These forms can be relatively minor changes (cúblálaí 'manipulator'; an cúblálaí, a chúblálaí, an chúblálaí) or they can be fairly different (bean 'woman'; an bhean, a bhean, na mná), what underpins them all is that there is some change to the noun between the different forms.

In Irish there are 3 cases that all have their own jobs and provide different pieces of information about the state the noun is in. These are the common case (an tuiseal ainmneach), the genitive (an tuiseal ginideach) and the vocative (an tuiseal gairmeach).

• Whether a noun is singular or plural does not affect what case it is in.

The Common Case

The common case (tuiseal ainmneach) is the citation form of the word. That is, when we are simply naming the concept of something, for example, when listing dictionary entries. It is by far the most common form of the noun you will see in Irish

Usage

The common case descends historically from the merger of two different cases; the nominative and the accusative case. Originally the nominative showed which noun was the subject (ie. performing an action) and the accusative showed which was the object (ie. the noun having the action done to it), forming a system where the main grammatical distinction between nouns was whether they were the subject or the object. However, the accusative's form was rarely if ever distinct from that of the other cases, for some nouns it was identical to the nominative and for others it was identical to what's called the dative. As such this lead to it becoming subsumed by the nominative case to eliminate confusion and to regularise the paradigm, causing the two cases to merge into what's now the common case.

Despite previous instances of the accusative now being governed by nouns in the nominative form, the role of the accusative did not die out but rather became part of this new case's jurisdiction. for example, we use the common case to cover both the role of the subject and object as can be seen below.

• Feiceann an fear an bhean - The man sees the woman
• Feiceann an bhean an fear - The woman sees the man

No matter who is seen by whom, both bean 'woman' and fear 'man' stay the same and do not change. The reason they do not have change case is because the order of the words is fixed in simple sentences like this, the verb comes first, followed by the subject or the 'doer', and then finally by the object or the direct recipient of the action. This is in contrast to many other languages, such as German, where depending on the role of the noun as either subject or object it will change form. This is not how Irish behaves and it is for this reason that I've chosen the term 'common case' over the more traditional, latin-based designation of the 'nominative case' in order to avoid confusion due to its role as both subject and object in this kind of sentence. Nonetheless, I will append a German example for comparison using the German translation of man 'Der Mann' and the woman ' Die Frau' for the sake of clarity.

• Der Mann sieht die Frau - The man sees the women
• Die Frau sieht den Mann - The woman sees the man

(As we can see, when 'Mann' is the subject the word for the is 'der', but when it's the object this becomes 'den')

Another use of the historical accusative case was to turn a noun into an adverb, this use still survives today and has been assimilated to the common case. In order to see what I mean we must look at a few examples:

• Shuigh sé tamall ar an bhinse - He sat on the bench a while
• D'fhan sé bliain sa Ghaeltacht - He stayed a year in the Gaeltacht
• Tá'n pub suite suas an cabhsa ón ollmhargadh - The pub is located up the lane from the supermarket
• Tránn an fharraige ciliméadar ón bhaile le lag trá - The sea receeds a kilometre from the town at low tide

In these examples, tamall 'a while', bliain 'a year', suas an cabhsa 'up the lane', and ciliméadar 'kilometre' are behaving like adverbs that describe the action ocurring in the sentence. In the first two examples the two bolded nouns are describing the length of time the action took place. eg. How long did he stay/sit there? a year/a while. In the second two the nouns are describing the distance the action takes place over. eg. How far does it receed? a kilometre, Where is it located from the supermarket? up the lane, etc.

Lastly, there also exists a similar use of the common case being roughly equivalent to the English preposition 'per'. For example, some such phrases:

• Bhí siúl trí chéad ciliméadar an uair ar an ghaoth inné - The wind was at a speed of 300 kilometres per hour yesterday
• Beidh trí iontráil an chatagóir ann ar deireadh - There will be three entries per category in it by the end
• Cá mhéad atá ar na ticéidí? Cúig euro an duine - How much are the tickets? 5 euro per person

Morphology

When in the common case, attributive adjectives (teach mór, mór is an attributive adjective because it's attached to teach 'a house') and articles (eg. an, na) must be in specific forms to reflect not only the fact the noun is in the common case but also to match the noun's gender and number too.

For example, there are two forms of the definite article in the common case; an for singular nouns, and na for plural ones. As such we say an fear 'the man' but na fir 'the men'. Additionally, the article 'an' will cause lenition (also known as a séimhiú) on a feminine noun, eg. an pheil '(Gaelic) football' and an bhean 'the woman' but an fear 'the man' and an tábla 'the table'. However, there are special rules for this process in regards to the consonants d,n,t,l,s. D, n, t, l don't get lenited after the article, and s gets mutated to t. eg. an dáil 'the council', an tsráid 'the street' & an leac 'the slab'. In the case of words starting in a vowel nothing is added. To summarise:

• Common feminine nouns: an + lenition (séimhiú). eg. an Cháisc 'easter', an mhaidin 'the morning', an ghal 'the steam'
• DNTLS: an + no change. eg. an deoch 'the drink', an tír 'the country', an nead 'the nest'
• Vowel: an + no change. eg. an aiste 'the essay'

In the case of masculine nouns, an does not trigger any effects on nouns beginning in a consonant. However it does add a t prefix to words starting in a vowel, eg. an t-éacht 'the feat'. This is important to be aware of and to use as failure to add this prefix is only correct for feminine nouns, noetheless it remains a common error in non-native speech.

• Consonant initial nouns - an + no change. eg. an fear 'the man', an sruthán 'the stream', a ceol 'the music'
• vowel initial - an + t-. eg. an t-iasc 'the fish', an t-ólachán 'the drink' (a euphemism for alcohol)

Lastly, for the plural article 'na' the only change it causes is a h prefix to vowel initial nouns, eg. na hulcabháin 'the owls'.

• Consonant initial nouns - na + no change. eg. na seansálaithe 'the chancers', na múinteoirí 'the teachers', na creidimh 'the beliefs'
• Vowel initial nouns - na + h. eg. na hathruithe - 'the changes', na hamhráin 'the songs'

In the case of adjectives, the rules are much simpler. Masculine attributive adjectives, that is adjectives that are attached to nouns, receive no changes from their citation forms (eg. tábla mór). Feminine atributive adjectives are lenited (eg. bean mhór). And finally, plural adjectives receive either a final -e or -a dependingon the adjective (eg. daoine maithe, dromchlaí sleamhna). On top of this plural adjectives become lenited when the plural noun they're bound to ends in a slender consonant, eg. (daoine maithe, but fir mhaithe).