Vitaee wrote:
But why would "m'iníon an chroi" be wrong?? Would that actually be "the heart of my daughter"??
It is grammatically impossible.
Both
mo (
m’) and
an chroí would refer to
iníon. This is impossible in Irish.
In English, "my daughter of the heart" is grammatically permitted, but not so in Irish.
Every noun can take only one possessive ("mo") / definite genitive attribute ("an chroí"), not two or more.
Both "mo" and "an chroí" are ways to make the noun "iníon" definite (my daughter / the daughter ...), but only one way is permitted, "my the daughter ..." doesn't make sense.
In English this phrase is to parse as
[my
[daughter of the heart
]]In Irish "m’iníon an chroí" would be parsed as
[mo
[iníon
] an chroí
] -> obviously nonsense.
So,
iníon mo chroí (the daughter of my heart) is the best alternative.