It is currently Wed 14 Jan 2026 4:35 am

All times are UTC


Forum rules


Please click here to view the forum rules



Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 4 posts ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Sat 27 Dec 2025 4:24 pm 
Offline

Joined: Thu 27 May 2021 3:22 am
Posts: 1722
Is this a correctly punctuated sentence?

Quote:
Bhí culaith éadaigh uasail air-sin, agus is é a bhí go piocaithe beárrtha, go cúmtha, córach, cothaithe, cumasach, dea-chroicin.


In English there is a test whether an adjective is a "coordinate" adjective. See https://kristenstieffel.com/when-to-use ... djectives/ :

Quote:
In The Chicago Manual of Style, Bryan Garner writes “The most useful test is this: if and would fit between the two adjectives, a comma is necessary” (CMS 17. 5.91), e.g., a charming and extravagant afternoon tea but not a small and purple hat.

If your eyes are glazing over at all this coordinate versus cumulative talk, you are probably not alone. Here’s a simpler way to think about it. If the adjectives come from one category, e.g, they are all opinion or observational, they need commas. If they come from different categories, they do not. So one ugly large old brown English straw garden hat takes no commas, but one ugly, cheap, garish hat does.


I'm not sure that English rules or usages apply to Irish, and I don't want "piocaithe beárrtha" to have a comma (maybe they are adjectives "from the same category"), but what about "cúmtha, córach, cothaithe, cumasach, dea-chroicin"? These are all from the same category too, right, but I'm wondering if you can have as many as 5 adjectives without a comma?


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sat 27 Dec 2025 4:34 pm 
Offline

Joined: Thu 27 May 2021 3:22 am
Posts: 1722
I've realised the rule must be the same as in English, and so these adjectives are coordinate.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun 28 Dec 2025 1:52 am 
Offline

Joined: Thu 22 Dec 2011 6:28 am
Posts: 476
Location: Corcaigh
djwebb2021 wrote:
I've realised the rule must be the same as in English, and so these adjectives are coordinate.


Why must the rule be the same as in English?

I think a lot of orthographic aspects of Modern Irish were still unsettled at the time that the Caighdeán Oifigiúil was first produced. I don't know if the CO even covers this kind of thing, but if it did I'd suspect it's the only such prescriptive source for Irish punctuation. I imagine a corpus based analysis of writings from the early 20th century would be inconclusive, not least because I suspect there was no one rule followed by any majority of native speakers when writing, but because I doubt editors would have respected their punctuation choices anyhow when reprinting and publishing such writings.

One of my biggest pet peeves is the frequency with which modern editors apply not only modern punctuation, but modern English punctuation and capitalisation to Old and Middle Irish texts, and still refer to the resulting works as "diplomatic editions".


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun 28 Dec 2025 5:23 am 
Offline

Joined: Thu 02 Nov 2023 11:42 pm
Posts: 656
Location: Denver, Colorado
I think that it Irish it applies more to the rythm of speech rather than the perscribed rules as are laid out in English, at least in this case.

_________________
I'm an intermediate speaker of the Corca Dhuibhne dialect of Irish and also have knowledge on the old spelling
Soir gaċ síar, fé ḋeireaḋ thíar


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 4 posts ] 

All times are UTC


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot], Google [Bot] and 396 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group