Case: case
Case is an inflectional feature of nouns and other parts of speech (adjectives, verbs, articles) that mark agreement with nouns.
In Irish four cases are used: common (which covers nominative and accusative case), vocative, genitive and dative. These cases are labelled respectively as Nom (common), Voc, Gen, and Dat.
Nom: common case
The common case in Irish can apply to both the nominative case and acusative case (as they are the same form). This word form is used for subjects and objects of a clause, and predicates of a copula.
Examples
Subjects:
- Tosóidh an cheolchoirm ar 8pm “The concert will start at 8pm”
- Bhris an bord ina dhá leath “The board broke into two halves”
Objects:
- Cuireann Paul an píosa seo chugainn “Paul offers this piece to us”
- D’ith sí an dinnéar “She ate the dinner”
Predicates:
- Is láithreán uafásach é seo “This is an awful site”
- Is múinteoir é “He is a teacher”
Voc: vocative case
The vocative case is used to mark a noun as being the addresse. It is preceded by the particle a (see PartType). The vocative case triggers lenition.
Examples
- ‘Slán leat, a Dhoráid! “Goodbye, Dorád!”
- A dhaoine uaisle “ladies and gentlemen”
Gen: genitive case
The genitive case indicates possesion or ownership. Its use is similar to the use of ’s in English. Other use cases include describing the composition of an object, compound nouns, objects of a compound preposition, and objects of a verbal noun (see VerbForm).
Examples
- dearadh an stáitse “outlook of the state”
- mac an fhir “the man’s son (lit. son of the man)”
- an Aontas Eorpaigh “the European Union”
Dat: dative case
The dative case is used with most simple prepositions in Irish. In standard Irish, the dative form is identical to the common case.
Examples
- in Eireann “in Ireland”
- sa leabhair “in the book”
Case in other languages: [am] [apu] [arr] [bej] [bg] [cs] [el] [eme] [en] [es] [ess] [et] [fi] [ga] [gn] [grc] [gub] [hu] [hy] [ka] [kmr] [koi] [kpv] [ky] [mdf] [myu] [myv] [pcm] [pt] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sv] [tl] [tpn] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urb] [urj]