A strong noun is a phenomenon of more
conservative Germanic languages like
Icelandic, and also of
Irish, marked in each by case or number markings.
Icelandic
In the
Icelandic language, a strong noun is one that falls into one of four categories, depending on the endings of the ''characteristic cases'', i.e. the nominative and genitive singular and the nominative plural. For masculines this gives the following four-way split to be counted as strong:
:The latter two cases end in ''-s'' and ''-ar''.
:The latter two cases end in ''-s or -ar'' and ''-ir''.
:The latter two cases end in ''-ar'' and ''-ir''.
:Irregular but not a
weak noun.
For feminines this looks like:
:The latter two cases end in ''-ar'' or ''-r'' and ''-ar''.
:The latter two cases end in ''-ar'' and ''-ir''.
:The latter two cases end in ''-ar'' or ''-ur'' and ''-ur'' or ''-r''.
:Irregular but not a
weak noun.
Most neuters are strong, and end in ''-s'' in the genitive singular with the exception of ''fé'', genitive ''fjár''. Although strong neuters technically only belong to one category, it is a diverse group, so about a dozen paradigms are necessary to account for varieties and exceptions.
The weak neuters are so few, that a list suffices, to be found on the page for
weak nouns.
Irish
In the
Irish language
Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...
, a strong noun is one in which a noun maintains the same form of the plural in all cases, especially both the
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
and
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
plurals.
The strong-noun endings are ''-(a)í'', ''-ta/-te'', ''-the'', ''-(e)acha'', and ''(e)anna''. Certain other nouns that take plain ''-a'' or ''-e'' may be strong if the nominative and genitive plural are the same. All nouns ending in vowels in Irish are considered strong.
See also
*
Weak noun
*
Icelandic language
*
Irish language
Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...
Bibliography
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{{lexical categories, state=collapsed
Icelandic language
Nouns by type