 the declension of irish nouns, the definite article, and the adjectives is discussed on this page. (for pronouns, see irish morphology.) ==nouns== ===gender=== nouns in irish are divided into two genders, masculine and feminine. while gender should be learned when the noun is learned, there are some rules that can be followed: in general, words ending in a broad consonant are masculine, while words ending in a slender consonant are feminine. there are some exceptions, mostly dealing with specific endings and suffixes; for example, words ending in  and  (with a slender  and  respectively) are masculine, while words ending in  (with a broad ) are feminine. this leads to some unexpected gender assignments, such as  "girl" (masculine) and  "boy scout" (feminine). ===case=== irish has four cases: common (usually called nominative, but it covers the role of an accusative as well), vocative, genitive, and dative. ====nominative==== the nominative is used in the following functions: # sentence subject #: "the cat is drinking." # sentence object #: "seÃ¡n broke the window." # predicate of the copula #: "he is an idiot." # object of the prepositions  "without" and  "up to" #: "without the money" #: "up to the time" ====vocative==== the vocative is used in direct address, and is always preceded by the particle , which triggers lenition. (in spoken irish this particle is often omitted, especially before a vowel sound.) the first declension is the only declension in which the vocative is distinct from the nominative. * "where are you, son?" * "seÃ¡n, come here!" ====genitive==== the genitive indicates possession and material of composition: * "the man's hat" * "the woman's children" * "the bishop's candelabra" * "a ring of gold, a golden ring" * "shoes of leather, leather shoes" the object of a verbal noun also requires the genitive: *{{lang|ga|ag caitheamh
Declension Irish_grammar