Characteristics of the Irish language in AX Semantics
Fundamentals
In Irish, you need to know the number, gender, and case of a noun to form the accompanying adjectives, determiners, and pronouns correctly.
Irish has two genders for nouns: masculine and feminine. There are two numbers: singular and plural. Irish has four cases: nominative, genitive, dative, and vocative.
A notable feature of Irish is initial consonant mutation: the first consonant of a word can change depending on the grammatical context. The two main mutations are lenition (séimhiú), which inserts an h after the initial consonant, and eclipsis (urú), which prefixes a new consonant before the initial.
| grammatical name | values | examples |
|---|---|---|
| number | singular | fear mór (a big man) |
| plural | fir mhóra (big men) | |
| gender | masculine | leabhar mór (a big book) |
| feminine | bróg mhór (a big shoe) | |
| case (noun) | nominative | an fear (the man) |
| genitive | hata an fhir (the man's hat) | |
| dative | leis an bhfear (with the man) | |
| vocative | a fhir! (o man!) | |
| adjectives (noun) | after noun | fear mór (a big man) |
| verb tenses | present | Canann sé (he sings) |
| past | Chan sé (he sang) |
The standard order of an Irish noun phrase is:
preposition + determiner + numeral + noun + adjective
See for example:
ar na trí chloch mhóra
on the three stone big
PREP DET NUM NOUN ADJ
"on the three big stones"
Lexicon
Nouns
Irish nouns inflect for case and number. Nouns should be added to the lexicon with their grammatical gender, as gender determines adjective agreement and initial mutations. Irregular plurals and genitive forms should also be listed.
Examples
The basic lexicon entry for fear (man) contains:
- gender: masculine
- inflection table for case and number:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | fear | fir |
| Genitive | fir | fear |
| Dative | fear | fir |
| Vocative | fhir | fheara |
Adjectives
Irish adjectives follow the noun and inflect for gender, number, and case. The default position is "after noun".
Verbs
Irish verbs inflect for tense, person, and number. The most common verbs are encoded in our software. If a verb inflects incorrectly, you should add it to the lexicon.
Container settings
Determiner
Irish only has a definite article: an (singular) and na (plural). There is no indefinite article. The AX NLG platform supports the following determiners for Irish: definite, demonstratives (proximal, medial + distal) and possessives.
The definite article triggers initial mutations on the following noun depending on gender and case. For example, the singular definite article an causes lenition on feminine nominative nouns:
an fear (the man, masculine nominative — no mutation)
an bhean (the woman, feminine nominative — lenition)
Numerals
Four types of numerals are possible on the AX NLG platform: cardinal, cardinal as digit, ordinal, and ordinal as digit.
| cardinal | ordinal | |
|---|---|---|
| text | naoi lá (nine days) | an naoú lá (the ninth day) |
| digit | 9 lá (9 days) | an 9ú lá (the 9th day) |
For Irish, numerals trigger initial mutations on the following noun. Cardinal numerals are written out until 10 on the platform; above 10 the output is in digit form.
seacht gcarr
(seven cars)
vs.
11 carr
(11 cars)
Verbs
Verbs automatically agree with the subject in person and number. You will need to configure the tense. Two tenses are available: present and past.
Determiner switch
Determiners can be switched according to lexical information. If you set the determiner switch for a specific noun in the lexicon, it will automatically switch to another determiner when you add the determiner you intend to switch in the container. The container setting for Éire in the first example is: preposition="i", determiner is unset (blank), and case="nominative".
in Éirinn
(in Ireland)
In the second example, the container settings for Stáit Aontaithe (United States) are still: preposition="i", determiner is unset (blank), and case="nominative". However, the determiner switches from none to definite, because it is configured in the lexicon entry. Then the definite determiner automatically contracts with the preposition, so it becomes sna.
sna Stáit Aontaithe
(in the United States)
Note
If the lexicon entry of a country includes a switch from none to definite, there is still a way to use the country without the article. The determiner will always remain none by setting determiner=none in the container. Only an unset determiner (blank) triggers the switch from none to another determiner.