Corpus Perspectives on Some Irish Gaelic (Pseudo-)Partitives

Abstract

Irish Gaelic is rich in partitive and pseudo-partitive structures, and this paper intends to discuss certain variational aspects of some of these based on corpus and lexicographical data. The structures to be covered are the following: (Type A) Quantifier + glottonym in the genitive; (Type B) Nouns denoting body parts with cuid ʻpart, portion’; and (Type C) Personal numerals in a partitive structure. Based on Koptjevskaja-Tamm’s classification (2001), A) and B) can be considered pseudo-partitives, while C) is a true partitive. As literature on this topic is scarce (but see Bayda 2018 and Kane 2015), the new data provided here are collected from dictionaries (especially the New English-Irish Dictionary – NEID – at focloir.ie and Ó Dónaill’s Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla [Irish-English Dictionary] – FGB), and the Corpus of Contemporary Irish. The focus of this research is to study the variation that is present or is expected to be present in these structures in contemporary usage, and to give possible reasons for the variation if it was attested.