ABSTRACT
The nouns in a sentence identify the participants in the event specified by the verb. At least one noun, the subject, is generally present in any sentence. Nouns have certain inherent grammatical properties, which are reflected in their own forms as well as in the forms of any modifiers associated with them in the noun phrase. The chapter describes the categories of gender, number, and case, as they are reflected in the forms of Irish nouns. Each noun has an inherent gender, known as masculine or feminine; these designations are strictly grammatical classifications and do not necessarily reflect the biological status of the noun’s referent. Plural suffixes are often accompanied by other changes to the pronunciation and spelling of the noun. In addition to a noun itself, noun phrases may contain other elements, including articles and other determiners, descriptive adjectives, other nouns qualifying the head noun that the phrase identifies, prepositional phrases, and sometimes also whole clauses.
