The Fog of Terminology

Symbols

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Why all these brackets? Linguists have come up with these three different brackets to get around having to literally say all the time whether some word you are citing is in normal spelling or phonemes or something else. It simply saves time and typing. Angled brackets are used for giving words or sentences in "normal" orthography. For example: <a' ghaoth a tuath is a' ghrian> <the north wind and the sun>

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Square brackets indicate phonetic transcription. For example: [əɣˈɯːiatˈua s̩ əʝɾˈiːən̴̪] [t'n̩ˈɔːʷθ wɪnd ɛ̈n t'sʌn]

Terms Used

Adjective

buadhair - a word category which describes nouns, eg: green, big, sleepy.

adverb

co-ghnìomhair - a word category which modifies the verb, eg: cordially, feverishly, slowly.

1. (Originally) easily identifiable in English by the -ly ending.
2. Temporal adverbs express concepts of time, e.g. yesterday, lately, directional adverbs express movement, e.g. upwards, downwards, and locational adverbs express location, e.g. up, downwards.

aspiration

analachadh - a puff of air either before or after a consonant. If it comes before the consonant it is often referred to as pre-aspiration.

dental (sound)

fiaclach - a sound which is produced with the tongue and the teeth, eg: Engl. the, though.

feminine

boireann - a noun class. Gaelic nouns are distributed into two groups according to their different behaviour in terms of grammar (eg lenition.)

labial

bileach- a sound which is produced using either both lips or one lip and the tongue, eg: Engl. bark, puddle, murky

lenition

sèimheachadh - a process by which the nature of a stop consonant is changed to a fricative. A stop (eg Gaelic p t c) is produced by blocking your speech tract at some point (eg at the lips for p) and then suddenly releasing. A fricative is produced by constricting the vocal tract without closing it off (eg narrowing the lips for Gaelic f.) Do NOT confuse this with aspiration, which is an entirely different process, although sometimes people confuse these two terms.

phrase

fràs - a number or words which form a sort-of independent structure larger than simple words, but smaller than a full sentence.

preposition

roimhear - a word category which expresses relations of space, time and modality, eg with, through, during, under.

velar

co-chòsach - a sound produced with the back of the tongue and the velum, ie the part of the palate involved in making English g, k.