Old Irish/Morphology/Nominal Proclitics and Particles

A general guide to clitic and particle morphemes, allomorphs and morphosyntactical structures in Old Irish noun phrases.

The Vocative Particle

Nouns in the vocative are always preceded by the vocative particle a^L (var. á^L), e.g. a ḟir ‘o man’. There is no inflectional variation in the particle and it only lenites.

The Dual Numeral

Nouns in the dual are always preceded by the dual numeral.

The masculine form of the dual is da^L (var. dá^L) in the nominative, accusative and genitive, e.g. da ḟer ‘two men/of two men’.

The neuter form of the dual is da^N (var. dá^N) in the nominative, accusative and genitive, e.g. da n-armm ‘two weapons/of two weapons’.

The feminine form of the dual is di^L (var. dí^L) in the nominative and accusative, e.g. di thúaith ‘two tribes’. The feminine form of the dual is da^L (var. dá^L) in the genitive, e.g. da thúath ‘of two tribes’.

The masculine, neuter and feminine form of the dual is dib^N (var. díb^N, deib^N) in the dative, which is always preceded by a preposition (or a combination of a preposition and the article), e.g. la dib n-armm ‘with two weapons’.

The dual never applies to nouns in the vocative; the plural form of the noun is used instead.