Vitaee wrote:
Would I lenite or eclipse Banrion if I put "With the Queen" into Irish?
Technically, the definite article would cause lenition and the pronoun would cause eclipsis, but I assume that one would take priority here.
I don't disagree with anything Labhrás has said, but I think it's necessary to clarify a few things, as I don't think the kernel of your query was addressed.
In instances of
preposition +
definite article +
noun, the initial mutation required by the
preposition +
definite article takes precedence over the initial mutation required by the
definite article alone.
In this case,
le +
an +
banríon =
leis an mbanríon (except in Ulster and Achill Irish, as Labhrás has mentioned).
Note that the initial mutation required by the combination of
preposition +
definite article is not necessarily the same as the initial mutation the
preposition would cause without the article. For example, compare:
le +
Aoife =
le hAoife but le +
an +
banríon =
leis an mbanríoni +
gairdín =
i ngairdín but i +
an +
gairdín =
sa ghairdínLabhrás wrote:
There's no pronoun. There's a preposition: le, which has a special form before the article: leis.
This is, of course, identical to the prepositional pronoun, 3rd singular, masculine form of the preposition,
le, so the conflation of the two is reasonable. However, given its usage here, it can only be, as Labhrás has said, the special prepositional form used before the article.
Labhrás wrote:
All this doesn't depend on gender:
an bhanríon -> leis an bhanríon/mbanríon
an bád -> leis an bhád/mbád
I think Vitaee was referring to instances of
definite article +
noun, in which case the noun's gender certainly would require lenition for feminine nouns.