Irish Grammar You Really Need to Know: Teach Yourself

Éamonn Ó'Dónaill

• Publisher: Teach Yourself
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781444189575
• eBook ISBN: 9781444189599
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Grammar & Punctuation
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Comprehensive and clear explanations of key grammar patterns and structures are
reinforced and contextualized through authentic materials. You will not only
learn how to construct grammar correctly, but when and where to use it so you
sound natural and appropriate. Irish Grammar You Really Need to Know will help
you gain the intuition you need to become a confident communicator in your new
language.

1

Irish spelling, accents and stress

In this unit you will learn about

• The alphabet

• Changes to the beginning of words (lenition, eclipsis)

• Long and short vowels

• Broad and slender consonants

• Word order

• Slendering and broadening

• Syncopation

• Word stress

• Yes and no in Irish

The alphabet

The letters of the basic Irish alphabet are:

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u

The letter v occurs in some loan-words:

veain (van)

vóta (vote)

The remaining letters (j, q, v, w, x, z) occur very rarely (they are mostly found in scientific and mathematical words).

Changes to the beginning of words (lenition, eclipsis)

In Irish (as in other Celtic languages), both the beginning and the ending of a word can change.

The change of form at the beginning of a word is caused by a preceding word. One such change is called lenition (or séimhiú in Irish) and the other eclipsis (urú in Irish). You will see many examples of lenition and eclipsis throughout this book.

Lenition

This change occurs to the following consonants:

b → bh

c → ch

d → dh

f → fh

g → gh

m → mh

p → ph

s → sh

t → th

The remaining consonants (h, l, n, r) cannot be lenited.

Eclipsis

This change occurs to both consonants and vowels.

Here are the consonants that are affected by eclipsis:

b → mb

c → gc

d → nd

f → bhf

g → ng

p → bp

t → dt

The remaining consonants (h, l, m, n, r, s) cannot be eclipsed.

t before vowels and s

t can be placed before an initial vowel. It is followed by a hyphen, except when the vowel is a capital letter:

t-a

t-e

t-i

t-o

t-u

tA

tE

tI

tO

tU

Insight

There is never a hyphen between t and an initial s:

Ts

n before vowels

n can be placed before an initial vowel. It is followed by a hyphen, except when the vowel is a capital letter:

n-a

n-e

n-i

n-o

n-u

nA

nE

nI...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Contents 
• Personal introduction
• 1 Irish spelling, accents and stress
• 2 Articles and nouns
• 3 The genitive case
• 4 Adjectives 1
• 5 Adjectives 2
• 6 Prepositions
• 7 Pronouns
• 8 The verb 1
• 9 The verb 2
• 10 The verb 3
• 11 The verb 4
• 12 The verb 5
• 13 The verb 6
• 14 The verb 7
• 15 The verb 8
• 16 The verb 9
• 17 Cardinal numbers
• 18 Personal numerals
• 19 Ordinal numbers
• 20 Adverbs
• 21 Relative clauses
• 22 Indirect speech
• Glossary of grammatical terms
• Appendix 1: Noun declension; adjectives in the genitive case singular
• Appendix 2: Names of people and places
• Taking it further
• Key to ‘Test yourself’
• Credits
• Copyright