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The dual form is identical in form to the dative singular; depending on noun class, the dual is therefore either the same in form as the common singular (the nominative-accusative, Class 1 nouns, Class 3 and Class 4 nouns), or have a palatalised final consonant in nouns of Class 2 and Class 5.
Welsh has two systems of grammatical number, singular–plural and collective–singulative. Since the loss of the noun inflection system of earlier Celtic, plurals have become unpredictable and can be formed in several ways: by adding a suffix to the end of the word (most commonly -au), as in tad "father" and tadau "fathers", through vowel affection, as in bachgen "boy" and bechgyn "boys", or ...
use of singulars or special forms of counted nouns, and use of a singulative suffix to make singular forms from plurals, where older singulars have disappeared; Examples: Irish: Ná bac le mac an bhacaigh is ní bhacfaidh mac an bhacaigh leat. (Literal translation) Do not bother with son the beggar's and not will-bother son the beggar's with-you.
In Breton, the article has both definite and indefinite forms. This is unlike other Celtic languages, which have only definite articles. The definite article is an before dentals, vowels and unpronounced h, al before l and ar elsewhere. Examples of this include an tan "the fire", al logodenn "the mouse", ar gador "the chair".
Nouns show singular and plural number in Manx. Plurals can be formed from the singular by adding an ending, most often -yn (lioar "book", lioaryn "books"). Other endings include -aghyn, -ee, or a consonant followed by -yn. Sometimes a plural ending replaces a singular ending, as in the case of -agh becoming -ee or -eeyn or of -ee or -ey ...
Forms of the masculine singular relative pronoun *yo- can be found in the first Botorrita plaque: The form io-s in line 10 is the nominative singular masculine of the relative pronoun from Proto-Indo-European *yo-(Sanskrit ya-, Greek hos), which shows up in Old Irish only as the aspiration for leniting relative verb forms.
The analytic forms are also generally preferred in the western and northern dialects, except in answer to what would in English be "yes/no" questions, while Munster Irish prefers the synthetic forms. For example, the following are the standard form, synthetic form and analytical form of the past tense of rith "to run":
Singular examples are from beirid "to bring", for which apparent "metathesis" appears. Plural examples are for benaid "to strike". A form of suidigidir "to place" is used to demonstrate the -th conjunct singular ending being converted to -d in multisyllabic words. Coronal consonant assimilation nassa[e] fo·cre(s)s (unattested) fo·cres(s)a