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Latest comment: 3 years ago by Thadh in topic Eclipsis

Eclipsis

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@ThaesOfereode: Do I understand correctly that it is entirely predictable that forms like nan, nam and gan don't insert an n- before the following vowel, or should I elaborate on that in the footnotes? Thadh (talk) 11:59, 27 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Thadh: Say more; I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're asking after. ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:36, 28 March 2021 (UTC)Reply
@ThaesOfereode: The third-person plural possessive prepositions (i.e. nan/nam, gan/gam and an/am) trigger eclipsis of the succeding noun if it starts with a consonant, but don't trigger the nasalisation (adding a n-) if it starts with a vowel. My question is the following: Is this predictable (so, does any word that triggers eclipsis and ends on a nasal consonant not trigger nasalisation) or is it just these prepositions, in which case I need to add a note about this? Thadh (talk) 11:12, 28 March 2021 (UTC)Reply
@Thadh: Only the possessive pronouns ùr "your" and àr "our" trigger eclipsis, as far as my data tells me, and they both call for the n- insertion (e.g., ùr n-athair "your (pl./frm.) father", àr n-athair "our father"). Where did you see those cause eclipsis? ThaesOfereode (talk) 19:48, 28 March 2021 (UTC)Reply
@ThaesOfereode: Well, Gaelicgrammar gives this. Unfortunately it's very difficult to search for any verification, since eclipsis isn't written nor always spoken. I have found some more references to this, though: [1], [2], [3]. We could alternatively avoid mentioning the mutation, since it's not present in all dialects, but since it's present in most, I believe it is worth a mention. Thadh (talk) 20:16, 28 March 2021 (UTC)Reply
@Thadh, ThaesOfereode: The assertion at GaelicGrammar.org/Eclipsis that àr bean is pronounced as if spelled àr mean in some dialects is very interesting as it means that eclipsis really does exist in SG; I had never heard that before. I did know about voicing/prenasalization of stops after nan/nam but I consider that a phonological sandhi effect rather than a morphosyntactic mutation like lenition, because that voicing seems to happen after any unstressed proclitic that ends in a nasal consonant, including the masculine nominative singular an (which is historically not expected to trigger eclipsis). But àr and ùr don't end in a nasal consonant, so that mutation can't be phonological. Since it isn't written, though, there's no real way to incorporate it into dictionary entries. If someone felt like creating Appendix:Scottish Gaelic mutations (following the examples of Appendix:Irish mutations and Appendix:Welsh mutations), that would be a good place to discuss the ways in which eclipsis pops up in SG. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:48, 29 March 2021 (UTC)Reply
@Mahagaja: As of now, I've added eclipsis in the dictionary entries by adding triggers eclipsis (see {{gd-prep}} and nam) and am inclined to add pronunciations with {{q|eclipsed}} after I'm finished with the inflection tables. Even so, an appendix may be a good idea. Thadh (talk) 21:16, 29 March 2021 (UTC)Reply