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[kittydesade]

A very few attributive adjectives do not follow the noun they modify but are prefixed to it, causing lenition on the noun (except where it si blocked between similar consonants). The two most frequent of these are sean "old" and fior "true", which also normally occur as predicates.

Tá sé sean. He is old.
seanfhear, an old man
Tá sí sean. She is old.
seanbhean, an old woman
Tá an scéal fíor. The story is true/real.
fíorscéal, a real story

Síor, constant or continual, is not used as a predicate, but is a prefix, especially common with verbal nouns: síorchasaoid, constant complaining. Other prefixes function as attributed equivalents of other adjectives.

Bhí an lá go dona. The day was bad.
drochlá, a bad day
Bhí an lá go deas. The day was nice.
dea-lá, a nice day

In these compounds, the prefixed adjective noun compound are treated as one word and the adjective, being the first syllable, receives the main stress.

Still other prefixes are attached to adjectives for intensified meaning. An- or very, and ró or too/excessively are perhaps the most common. Others include rí- or exceedingly, barr- or excellent and fíor- or really

an-mhaith, very good
róthuirseach, too tired
rídheas, very very nice
barrmhaith, exceptionally good
fíorálainn, truly beautiful

With these intensifying prefixes, a stress accent falls equally on both the prefix and the word to which it is attached.

Both an- and dea- are always followed by a hyphen. The other prefixes are not, unless prefixation brings two vowels or two identical consonants together.

ró-óg, too young
droch-cháil, bad reputation

When an- is prefixed to a predicate adjective requiring go, go may be omitted or retained.

Tá sé an-mhaith. It is very good.
Tá sé go han-mhaith. It is very good.

THe other prefixes always replace go and do not occur together with it. An- may also be prefixed to nouns, to mean a particularly noteworthy (usually, but not necessarily, good) specimen:

Bhí an-oíche againn. We had a great night.
An-fhear! What a guy!
An-aimsir. Quite the weather.

Other words may also be used to qualify or intensify adjectives. These, however, are not prefixes, are written as separate words, and do not cause mutation. A few examples are sách (sufficiently), iontach (extraordinarily), and uafásach (terribly). Iontach and uafásach are adjectives in their own riht, but in this usage are just adding intensity to other adjectives.

Tá sé sách fuar. It's cold enough.
Tá sí iontach deas. She's really very nice.
Tá sé uafásach te. It's awfully hot.

Others like these include réasúnta (reasonably) and cuíosach (fairly) and cineál (somewhat, sort of).


And that's all the adjectival rules and oi. Meanwhile I seem to have done a page I've already done, over again in Russian. Self, you are on page 86 next time, remember that.

Ugh, I need to return all my library books, I can't renew them, and I don't have any of my notes written up for the goddamn essay I checked them out for. Which I guess means checking them out again later, except, argh. On the other hand, that takes four books off my already excessively large to-read list. Yes, I'm skipping all of them in favor of reading the new Dresden Files book. Don't judge me.

Argh so many things to do! Half of them household things since I only got half the cleaning I wanted to do done this weekend. On the other hand it was the major half, moving mattresses and doing bed covers. Seriously, if you've never stripped the mattress cover off a Tempurpedic that fucker is a bitch to get off and on again. But the bed was made and everything and. The boy brought home the weed wacker from his parents' place, all we need to do is gas it up and replace a spark plug and we should be good to go to get a bunch of stuff whacked down! That won't necessarily help the poison ivy, but hey.

Stuff. Things. No, I got nothing else. Except a whole lot of too much energy and not enough time to direct it where I want it to go, blegh.