tír mór
Irish
Alternative forms
- tír mhór
Etymology
Literally, “big land”. The noun tír (“land”) is feminine in modern Irish, so lenition of the adjective mór (“big, great”) is expected and sometimes encountered. The standard form tír mór lacks lenition because tír was originally neuter, and adjectives are not lenited after neuter nouns. The lack of lenition has led Ó Dónaill’s dictionary to assign masculine gender to this phrase, but the only attested genitive is the unambiguously feminine na tíre móire.[1] It is therefore preferable to consider the phrase feminine but with irregular lack of lenition on the adjective.
Declension
Declension of tír mór
Second declension
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Bare forms:
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Forms with the definite article:
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Synonyms
- míntír
- mórthír
Mutation
| Irish mutation | ||
|---|---|---|
| Radical | Lenition | Eclipsis |
| tír mór | thír mór | dtír mór |
| Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs. | ||
References
- “tíre móire”, in Historical Irish Corpus, 1600–1926, Royal Irish Academy
Further reading
- G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “1 tír”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
- Dinneen, Patrick S. (1904) “tír”, in Foclóir Gaeḋilge agus Béarla, 1st edition, Dublin: Irish Texts Society, page 737
- Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “tír mór”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
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