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number of languages in the Indo-European family are inflected. Irish is one, but so are Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Russian and a few others. What this means is that to show slight changes in meaning, a word will go through certain changes. These changes happen when a group of one or more letters are added to the most basic form of the word.

Both nouns and verbs go through these changes. But the words we use for each are different, and the letters added are different. Nouns and verbs are two different kinds of words. Verbs are about actions and nouns are about things. To describe things we talk in terms of how many and what kind (number case and gender). To describe an action we talk about when it happened (tense), who was doing it (person) and how many were doing it (number).

To make sense out of all these choices and changes, people look for similar kinds of words and put them together into definite groups. So we have groups of similar nouns and we have groups of similar verbs.

Noun Groups

In Greek there are three noun groups. In Irish, German and Latin, there are five. These groups are often called declensions. The word comes from Latin. The Irish word for it is díochlaonadh (declining). In Irish, as in Latin, the words are grouped by the way they show posession. But, even though this genitive form may be the same for all these words, there may be other differences. So there are often smaller groups within each group to show the different kinds of plurals. The first, second and fourth declensions were described in chapter one.

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• all have the genitive form -a

• slender consonants become broad before the -a.

There are 5 types of plural

1. -a

   cleas	cleasa	cleasa
   gamhain	gamhain	gamhna

2. -(a)í

   agent nouns with -éir, -óir, -úir
   abstract feminine nouns with -acht

   siúinéir	siúinéara	siúinéirí
   bádóir	bádóra	bádóirí
   táilliúir	táilliúra	táilliúirí
   dochtúir	dochtúra	dochtúirí
   saighdiúir	saighdiúra	saighdiúirí
   áilleacht	áilleachta	áilleachtí
   beannacht	beannachta	beannachtaí
   iasacht	iasachta	iasachtaí
   buachaill	buachalla	buachaillí

3. -anna

   one syllable words

   bláth	blátha	bláthanna
   cath	catha	cathanna
   dath	datha	dathanna
   sruth	srotha	srothanna
   tráigh	trágha (trá)	trághanna (tránna)

4. -acha

   nouns ending -ir

   altóir	altóra	altóracha
   anam	anama	anamnacha
   onóir	onóra	onóracha

5. -ta

   bliain	bliana	blianta
   gleann	gleanna	gleannta

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genitive is the same as nominative

words that end in vowel diminutives that end in -ín agent words that end in -í, -aire feminine abstract nouns that end in -e and are formed from adjectives some loan words

two types of plural

1. -í

   nouns that end with vowel and diminutives -ín

   aiste	aistí
   file	filí
   iascaire	iascairí
   mála	málaí
   tiarna	tiarnaí
   cailín	cailíní
   sicín	sicíní
   ticéad	ticéadí

   exceptions: words that end in -le or -ne with plural -te

   baile	bailte
   míle	mílte
   léine	léinte
   léinte (líne)	línte
   tine	tinte

   irregular plurals:

   duine	daoine
   oíche	oícheanta
   teanga	teangacha

2. -the

   -í or -aoi

   í becomes i before -the

   gréasaí	gréasaithe
   gadaí	gadaithe
   croí	croithe
   dlí	dlithe
   ní	nithe
   rí	rithe
   laoi	laoithe

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irregular nouns

genitive ends in broad consonant -ach, -d, -n[n]

special dative form

three types of plural

1. slendering

   caora	caorach	caoirigh	caoirigh
   comharsa	comharsan	comharsain	comharsain
   cú	con	coin	coin
   fiche	fichead	fichid	fichid
   lacha	lachan	lachain	lachain

2. genitive singular + -e (and syncope)

   abha	abhann	abhainn	aibhne
   gabha	gabhann		gaibhne
   cara	carad	caraid	cairde

3. -acha

   a. -il, -in, -ir

   gs -ach

   riail	rialach	rialacha
   cáin	cánach	cánacha
   cathair	cathrach	cathracha
   cathaoir	cathaoireach	cathaoireacha
   láir	lárach	láracha

   b.relationships

   athair	athar	athreacha
   máthair	máthar	máthreacha
   deartháir	dearthár	deartháracha

   irregular:

   deirfiúr

   deirféar

   deirfír

   deirféaracha

   teanga

   teangan

   teangain

   teangacha

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The same way groups are formed from changes in nouns, a similar kind of group exists for verbs. They are usually known as conjugations. The term comes from Latin. The Irish use "Réimniú" which means "grade" or "range". It is probably simplest to think of this as the verb group. Latin has four of these, and Spanish has three. Irish is the simplest with only two.

Where the noun groups showed the gender, case and number of something, the verb group will show the tense, person and number of the action. Also the pieces which are attatched are mainly put at the end, where with nouns they often were put in the middle of a word as well.

Most of the verbs seen so far belonged to the first conjugation (or verb group). Often these were verbs whose stem, the most basic part without anything added, were only one syllable in length.

The stems of verbs in this second verb group always have at least two syllables. There are two kinds of these verbs:

1. Stems that end with -(a)igh, (which sometimes gets spelled -(a)í )

2. Stems that end with -il, -in, -ir, (-is?). These will have syncope when the ending is added.

Remember syncope? We saw syncope before when a few nouns of the first decension dropped a few letters when they added the change that showed posession.

So words like obair (work) became oibre (of work) when adding the -i-,-e and dropped the -ai- between b and r because of a change in stress.

Also in pronunciation, a shift in stress can cause you to drop a short unstressed syllable. So tirim is pronounced [tr'Im'].

The name for this dropping of a syllable (usually to get another) is called "syncope". [sin-ku-pee] The same thing happens with these verbs.

So add -(a)ím to:

cosain- it becomes cosnaím,
oscail- becomes osclaím
imir- becomes imrím and so on....

This actually isn't very difficult because there are more similarities than differences. Most of the forms of the second conjugation are exactly the same as the first. The difference is mostly in the future and conditional tenses, where instead of having endings with -f(e)a- they become -(e)ó-

for example:

ceannaím		I buy	ceannód
diúltaím		I refuse	diúltód
osclaim	(oscail-)	I open	osclód
fógraim	(fógair-)	I announce	fógród

Though the future for both kinds of verbs in this group is the same, the verbal nouns are separate.

Verbs ending in -(a)igh (-í) switch to -(i)ú to make the verbal noun.

diúltaím	→	diúltú
cruinním	→	cruinniú

Verbs ending in -il, -ir, -in add a -t to the end

cimlím	→	cimilt
seachnaím	→	seachaint
fógraim	→	fógairt
labhraim	→	labhairt
osclaim	→	oscailt

there are a few of these also:

imím	→	imeacht
ceannaím	→	ceannach

The future and conditional tenses look like this:

imím (go away)

future						conditional
sg.	1	imeod	pl.	1	imeoimíd	sg.	1	d'imeoinn	pl.	1.	d'imeoimís
	2	imeoir		2	imeoidh sibh		2	d'imeofá		2.	d'imeodh sibh
	3	imeoidh sé		3	imeoid		3	d'imeodha sé		3.	d'imeoidís

osclaim (open)

future						conditional
sg.	1	osclód	pl.	1	osclóimíd	sg.	1	d'osclóinn	pl.	1.	d'osclóimís
	2	osclóir		2	osclóidh sibh		2	d'osclófá		2.	d'osclóidh sibh
	3	osclóidh sé		3	osclóid		3	d'osclóidh sé		3.	d'osclóidís

Since these are verbs of more than one syllable, it should be noticed that all of these words are stressed on the second syllable.

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The posessive pronouns mo and do ("my" and "your") are combined with the prepositions do "to" i "in" le "with" and ó "from" in the following way.

	do	i	le	ó
mo	dom "to my"	im "in my"	lem "with my"	óm "from my"
do	dod "to your"	id "in your"	led "with your"	ód "from your"

all of these words lenite the next word. If the next word begins with a vowel then the last d becomes a t: dot, it, let, ót.

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