Irish Nouns

This book provides the first comprehensive source of reference on noun declensions in Modern Irish. Modern Irish nouns are divided into five declension classes, two genders, three cases, two major classes of plural formation, and by a rich variety of plural inflection suffixes. Each declension class contains subtypes which vary according to the quality of the final phoneme (vowel, palatalized consonant or velarized consonant). The addition of a determiner or preposition determiner combination can affect the pronunciation of the initial segment of the word. The form of the definite article to be used with a noun may vary according to its declension class, case, and number. Regular forms are described by rules describing these properties and the many exceptional and irregular forms must be described uniquely or in smaller groups. Even native speakers may find it hard to write correctly in standard Irish (an caighdean), their difficulties sometimes being compounded by widespreaddialectal variation.