Page:Irish Made Easy - Shán Ó Cuív.pdf/38



We have now got a certain amount of material to work with, and we can proceed with our grammar lessons. Let us take the article, There is no indefinite article in Irish. Whenever a noun is indefinite, as in the case of the English, a bird, an apple, a or an is not expressed. A son, for instance, in Irish is mac, and a hedge fál without any article. The definite article is sometimes “an” and sometimes “na,” the “a” being pronounced like the “a” in the first syllable of abroad. An is the singular form, and na the plural. We shall not mind the plural for the present, but give examples of definite and indefinite nouns in the singular. We have:—

An mac, an fál, an gé, an cró, an cúl, an rúm, an siuc.

Mac, fál, gé, cró, cúl rúm, siuc.

We now know that there is no indefinite article in Irish. The verb precedes its nominative in Irish, and the adjective follows