Doesn't this mean: "The long grass is green"?
Pingback from Twitter Trackbacks for Irish Word a Day - Glas - Green - Focal an Lae - Irish Word a Day - Talk Irish [talkirish.com] on Topsy.com
I'm a total beginner but in the phrase as presented, both adjectives are "attributive"... that is they add attributes to the object grass...ie long green. (fada glas)
But in jaicmac's phrase only long (fada) is attributive. Green (glas) becomes predicative..ie it's part of the predicate of the sentence. Wouldn't that require that glas be declined... ie have it's spelling changed to indicated it's changed function in the sentence?
Dunno really just applying the theory I've already learned...
..hhmmm... trying to cement my knowledge here...
The case is nominative and the noun masculine, so I looked it up. The spelling of glas stays the same. It would be the same if the case were dative. Though glais, glaise, glasa are all legitimate declined spellings depending on intended meaning and use.
Had the sentence been vocative or genitive (eg grass of green) then it's possible it should be spelt glais...so féar glais.
So féar glais would mean grass of green
and féar glas would mean green grass
On the other hand I might have totally got the wrong end of the stick....