Ólaim tae agus caife gan siúcra
I have a grammar gook that says "sa" causes lenition. So, the sentence should read
An dtófaidh tú siúcra sa thae?
And pronunciation should be adjusted accordingly.
Yes? No? Is the "t" "resisting" lenition???
Hi There,
Your friend is correct, 'sa' does cause lenition to the noun that comes after it (where possible)
'sa' wont cause any change to
words beginning with
d,t,s -
others that can never be lenited are
'sc,sm,sp,st'
'h, l, n,,r'
and
vowels
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Is maith liom mo tae nios mo gach rud eile. (I like my tea more than anything else).
My grammar book has "a seoladh ( her address) and a sheoladh (his address)". Is the word " a "an exception to the rule of no lenition of s? Also, Diia dhuit a Sheáin.
Interesting question here. Dia's Muire duit, a Mháire! It is true that you wouldn't lenite s or t after sa but there is a special reason for this, the famous DeNTaLS rule. That is, where DNTLS come together in certain contexts, they don't lenite. Hang on, I hear you say, there's no n at the end of sa! True, but sa is short for insan, so it behaves as if there is an n there. So it's don teangeolaí (for the linguist) or sa seomra, with no lenition. This rule also applies to comhfhocail, or combined words, like uimhirphláta (numberplate). When you have DNTLS coming together, as in bándearg, you don't lenite. Some people believe that DNTLS applies to adjectives, and that you should say bean dubh instead of bean dhubh but the Standard says otherwise. As for ordinary lenition without the DNTLS, as in mo sheomra, a shiúcra, a theach, these are just lenited like any other word. Incidentally, I would tend to say "mo chuid tae" (my part of tea) or "mo chuid caife". It just sounds better to me. Faberm, that's not a bad attempt but personally I would say "Is fearr liom tae ná rud ar bith eile" or just "Is é an tae is fearr liom!" Slán go fóill!