Irish -(a)i/ocha suffix (fwd)

[Andrew Carnie]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 00:17:14 +0100
From: "[Default] Maitias Mac Cárthaigh" <maitias at iol.ie>
To: CeltLing <CELTLING at MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Irish -(a)i/ocha suffix (fwd)

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Scríobh Andrew Carnie:
 
> > Can anyone
> > put their finger on the exact meaning of this morpheme
> > (or on crannaiocha in particular).

Scríobh Dennis King: 
> It's an alternative plural:
> 
> Mar a deir O/ Se/ e/ fe/in, "is fe/idir -i/ocha a chur le
> focail aonsiollacha dar cri/och -nn, -ll, -rr, in ionad an
> chaolaithe." (lch. 12)
We (I'm writing from Corca Dhuibhne) use it a lot with
"poll" and "barr" as well. We also use "poill", but I can't imagine
saying "bairr", I wouldn't even know how to pronounce it.

By the way, the diphthong disappears with these plurals.
"Crann" is /kraun/, but "crannaíocha" is /kra'ni:x@/;
"poll" is /paul/, but "pollaíocha" is /po'li:x@/.
But there's still a lengthened vowel in the regular (palatalised) plurals:
"crainn" is /kri:n'/ and "poill" is /pi:l'/.
(We don't distinguish /N/ or /L/.)

> -ai/ocha is really a combination of two separate plural
> endings, -i/ and -acha, just as the plural -anta in uaireanta
> is composed of the endings -anna and -ta;
Out of interest, these endings all come from Indo-European
stems. These were basic word roots with extra bits added on to give
them more definite meanings; the endings of declensions
were added on last (like genitive singular or accusative plural).
Because of the way Irish developed, the stems tended to
dissapear in the basic (nominative singular) form of a word,
but to reappear in other forms.

Words like "file" used to end in a lenited dental (-dh-);
in the plural, the form was "fileadha". As time passed,
this came to be pronounced -í, and is now so written.
The plural ending -acha has its origin in words like "cathaoir",
that used to end in a -ch, which reappears in genitive "cathaoireach"
and plural "cathaoireacha".

Those endings spread out a lot in late Middle Irish
to words where they didn't belong historically,
presumably, as Dennis said, for clarity's sake:
> These longer plurals seemed to be favored mainly for their
> clarity.  I've notice that those whose written Irish is
> generally very standard will often shun a proper dictionary
> plural like "ailt" (= articles) in favor of the more natural
> "altanna".
But I'm not so sure about preferring them. "Crannaíocha" 
and "pollaíocha" and the like are kind of slangy;
"crainn" and "poill" are definitely higher register.

Maitias Mac Cárthaigh