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 Nominative Case

The nominative case (tuiseal ainmneach) is the citation form of the word. That is, when we are 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 current nominative case derives from two different cases; the old nominative and the accusative. Originally, the nominative showed which noun was the subject (ie. acting upon something else), and the accusative showed which was the object (ie. the noun having the action done to it). The accusative's form was rarely distinct from the other cases. Sometimes it was identical to the nominative, others, to the dative. Since the forms were always the same as other cases, it could be confusing for speakers what was meant. Because of this, the difference between the nominative and accusative eroded, creating the modern nominative case.

Despite this, the new case still performs the functions of both the original nominative and accusative. For example, we use the common case to cover both 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. This is fine because Irish almost always uses VSO word order(verb, subject, object) and thus context will tell us what's happening. This is in contrast to other languages, such as German, where nouns must change to show this. I will add a German example for comparison using der Präsident 'the president' and der Bär 'the bear', to illustrate. But, if you don't speak German, this example is not important. It only highlights how Irish might be different in this regard to more common languages.

• Der Bär sieht den Präsidenten - The bear sees the predsident
• Der Präsident sieht den Bären - The president sees the bear

Another use of the historical accusative case was to turn a noun into an adverb. This use still survives today and has been assimilated into the nominative. To see this, 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 recedes a kilometre from the town at low tide

Here, 'tamall', 'bliain', 'suas an cabhsa', and 'ciliméadar' behave like adverbs describing the action occurring in the sentence. In the first two examples, the two bolded nouns describe the time the action took place. eg. How long did he stay/sit there? a year/a while. In the second two, the nouns describe 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.

There is also a similar use of the nominative case roughly equal 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 nominative case, attributive adjectives and articles must be in specific forms to reflect not only the case but also to match the noun's gender and number too.

The Article

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'. The article 'an' has different effects depending on the noun's gender among other things. Here are two tables to visualise these changes.

The Article - Consonant initial Nouns

	singular		plural
masc.	an		na
fem.	anᴸ

The Article - Vowel initial Nouns

	singular		plural
masc.	anᵀ		naᴴ
fem.	an

The superscript letters next to some forms of the article represent their mutation effects, eg. L signifies lenition, H aspiration, and T t-prefixing. A brief explanation of these terms can be found in the references at the foot of the article.

Examples:

• Masculine: an teach, an t-athrú, an cúl - the house, the change, the back
• Feminine: an chuil, an ghal, an aiste - the look, the steam, the essay
• Plural: na daoine, na haistí, na hathruithe, na cúil - the people, the essays, the changes, the backs

An important rule to remember in regards to lenition is the DNTLS rule. This rule covers which consonants don't take normal lenition (and also eclipsis, but that's not applicable here) from the article. D,N,T,L, and R don't receive lenition, and S receives its own mutation. In the case of S, it becomes eclipsed by the /t/ sound and the result is written ts, with the s being silent. eg. sráid 'a street' becomes an tsráid 'the street' (said 'an tráid').

Adjectives

As well as this, adjectives also change form to agree with their noun's gender and number. Let's look at the adjectives mór 'big' and maith 'good' in their different forms before introducing some rules on what changes need to be applied.

Mór

	singular		plural
			broad	slender
masc.	mór		móra	mhóra
fem.	mhór

Maith

	singular		plural
			broad	slender
masc.	maith		maithe	mhaithe
fem.	mhaith

As we can see, feminine adjectives take lenition, and plural ones gain an -a or -e ending from their root form. As well as this, plural adjectives are lenited if the noun's plural ending is a slender consonant (ie. a palatalised one). eg. Mná maithe 'good women' but fir mhaithe 'good men'. Adjectives only change (decline) when they're directly attached to a noun, so we say fir mhóra but tá na fir mór 'the men are big'.

Summary

	singular		plural
			broad	slender
masc.	∅		-a/e	lenition & -a/e
fem.	lenition