Vocative. The vocative plural is like the nominative plural; as, duine m. a man, n. p. daoine, v. p. dhaoine.
Final a or e in all the singular cases of polysyllables is occasionally cut off, especially in verse; as, leab bed, teang tongue, coill wood, cridh heart.
Of the Initial form of Nouns.
In nouns beginning with a consonant, all the cases admit of the aspirated form. In the vocative singular and plural the aspirated form alone is used, except in nouns beginning with a lingual, which are generally in the primary form, when preceded by a lingual; as, a sheann duine old man. Nouns beginning with s followed by a mute consonant have no aspirated form, because s in that situation does not admit of the aspirate. In nouns beginning with l, n, r, a distinction is uniformly observed in pronouncing the initial consonant, corresponding precisely to the distinction of primary and
aspirated forms in nouns beginning with other consonants. This distinction has already been fully stated in treating of pronunciation.
The general use of the singular and plural numbers has been already mentioned. A remarkable exception occurs in the Gaelic. When the numerals fichead twenty, ceud a hundred, mile a thousand, are prefixed to a noun, the noun is not put in the plural, but in the singular number, and admits no variation of case. The termination of a noun preceded by da two, is the same with that of the dative singular, except when the noun is governed in the genitive case, and then it is put in the genitive plural[[38]]; when preceded by fichead, ceud, &c., the termination is that of the nominative singular; thus da laimh two hands, da chluais two ears, dà fhear two men, fichead làmh twenty hands, ceud fear a hundred men, mìle caora a thousand sheep, deich mìle bliadhna ten thousand years[[39]].
CHAPTER III.
OF ADJECTIVES.
An adjective is a word used along with a noun, to express some quality of the person or thing signified by the noun.
Adjectives undergo changes which mark their relation to other words. These changes are made, like those on nouns, partly on the beginning, and partly on the termination, and may be fitly denominated by the same names. The changes on the beginning are made by aspirating an initial consonant. The numbers and cases, like those of nouns, are distinguished by changes on the termination. The gender is marked partly by the initial form, partly by the termination.