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 voc are always preceded by the voc 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 du are always preceded by the du numeral.

The masc form of the du is da^L (var. dá^L) in the nom, acc and gen, e.g. da ḟer ‘two men/of two men’.

The neut form of the du is da^N (var. dá^N) in the nom, acc and gen, e.g. da n-armm ‘two weapons/of two weapons’.

The fem form of the du is di^L (var. dí^L) in the nom and acc, e.g. di thúaith ‘two tribes’. The fem form of the du is da^L (var. dá^L) in the gen, e.g. da thúath ‘of two tribes’.

The masc, neut and fem form of the du is dib^N (var. díb^N, deib^N) in the dat, 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 du never applies to nouns in the voc; the pl form of the noun is used instead.