Talk:-land

RFD 2014

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-land

This is certainly widely and productively used, but it seems to me just the noun land used as the final element in compounds. The picture is somewhat complicated, though, by its use to evoke comparisons to Disneyland and the similarly-named sections of that place such as Tomorrowland. A usage note will need to be added to land, if this is deleted. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:29, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion, there are two different suffixes (if you wish to interpret them as suffixes). One is used for real or fictional country names and is pronounced with a reduced vowel /lɪnd/ or /lənd/. The other (which I'm less inclined to consider a suffix) is used for fantasy lands or other themed lands, such as Disneyland, la-la land, Gatorland, etc. and pronounced without any vowel reduction as /lænd/. --WikiTiki89 00:01, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

My hunch is that the first group are those that have become fused into a single unit and lost their connection to the constituent words, so that there's nothing to interfere with the rules for vowel reduction in unstressed syllables. The second group are still perceived as being made up of separate units, each with their own pronunciation that's independent of the compounds themselves. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:21, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Historically, yes. But the reduced version of -land is still productive and I'm sure everyone that uses it is aware of its connection to land. --WikiTiki89 00:24, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Being aware that Finland came from Finn + land isn't the same as considering it to still be Finn + land. You can find the same phenomenon with other pairs such as fireman and wingman. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:41, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

You're right, it's not the same thing, but people still do consider Finnland to still be Finn + land. If you were to create a fictional country called "Entzland", you'd probably pronounce it /ˈɛntslɪnd/ rather than /ˈɛntsˌlænd/, and you'd probably pronounce Entzman /ˈɛntsmɪn/ rather than /ˈɛntsˌmæn/. Essentially, I think the pronunciation with the reduced vowel is definitely a suffix, while I can't really decide about the pronunciation with the unreduced vowel. --WikiTiki89 00:59, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Do speakers consider "Finland" to be "Finn" + "land"? They've dropped one of the "n"s. And IME they use the same range of pronunciations (/lənd/, /lᵻnd/, but not /lænd/) for the final syllable of "Finland" as for "England" and "Holland", which cannot be analysed even on a superficial level as compounds in modern English, because there are no words "Eng" or "Hol" in modern English. In contrast, I have heard "Greenland" — which is superficially analysable as a compound — pronounced with /lænd/ (as well as with /lənd/ and /lᵻnd/). It seems to me that Chuck's hunch is correct, and Finland is among those words "that have become fused into a single unit and lost their connection to the constituent words, so that there's nothing to interfere with the rules for vowel reduction in unstressed syllables".
Note that I'm not convinced that any of the words that have been mentioned so far ("England", "Holland", "Finland", "Greenland", "Disneyland") support having "-land" as a modern English suffix. - -sche (discuss) 01:58, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree that Finland is no different than England or Holland, except that in the cases of England and Holland, people don't generally know what "Eng-" or "Hol-" is. With "Scotland", "Finland", "Iceland", etc. the connection is clearer. I do not think that at the subconscious linguistic level people consider "Finland" to be "Fin(n)" + "land", but at the conscious level many people certainly do. Also, you forgot to consider "Entzland" (pronounced /-lɪnd/) and I would like to know whether you would consider such a word to be evidence of a suffix if I were to find citations of such usage (not necessarily with Entz- as the base). I know that such usage is very productive, especially among children playing games where they pretend to live in a fictional country. I'm sure it has been used in fantasy novels, although I don't know how to go about looking for such citations, and it would be hard to determine the intended pronunciation. --WikiTiki89 02:19, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I would expect Entzland to be pronounced /-lænd/, actually, like "Disneyland". Regardless of pronunciation, I would consider it and other 'nonce' coinages like the ones Metaknowledge found of "-landia" to support the idea that "-land" is a suffix. And such uses do, I agree, exist; several books speak of being google books:"in fuckland"/"in sexland" or "in Catland", for example. To my surprise, "in Johnland" and "in Jackland" aren't attested. - -sche (discuss) 03:38, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

As I said in my first post here, I think there is a difference between using -land as a real or fictional country name, and using it as the name of a fantasy land, which is what I would consider "fuckland" and "sexland" to be. "Entzland" would be be pronounced /-lænd/ if it were some fantasy land entirely devoted to Chuck Entz (including as a metaphor for Chuck's mind), but it would be pronounced /-lɪnd/ if it were a fictional country that happened to be named after Chuck Entz. I did happen to think of a citeable example: Dunland, from Tolkein's fictional universe of Middle Earth. --WikiTiki89 03:55, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Tolkien isn't a good example, because he worked very hard to fit his human- and hobbit-language inventions seamlessly into the body of existing European onomastics. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:30, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

But Tolkien isn't the only one who uses it. He was just the most obvious place for me to start looking. Also, Tolkien doesn't say anywhere how the word is to be pronounced, and yet I am confident that most readers would naturally pronounce "Dunland" as /-lɪnd/. As I said, this is even used by young children, but unfortunately children don't tend to publish the games they play in durably archived sources. --WikiTiki89 04:37, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

The Land of Oz has "Hiland", "Loland", and "Noland". --WikiTiki89 05:44, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

However, "in Kevinland" and "in Bobland" get a few hits each. bd2412 T 03:56, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how the fossilized combinations (if even formed in English rather than Middle English) provide any evidence supporting -land. Combinations alter pronunciation. Delete and redirect to the first of the senses in [[land]] that are clearly used in the kind of combinations under discussion. DCDuring TALK 13:37, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't using the fossilized combinations (such as England, Finland, etc.) as evidence. My evidence so far has been fictional lands from 20th century novels (so far only two, but I can find more, and this isn't even an RFV). --WikiTiki89 16:26, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

But why would you consider it a suffix when land is a standalone word? Many standalone words are used in combinations. DCDuring TALK 21:47, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Because "land" as a standalone word is not pronounced /lɪnd/. --WikiTiki89 21:58, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

That's not a criteria that we've been using. I don't see any advantage in doing so now. Are you saying that it is a settled manner among lexicographers that altered pronunciation of a word in a compound thereby makes it essential that the term be presented as an affix? So waistcoat would imply waist- and -coat? DCDuring TALK 22:48, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Not necessarily, but it is evidence in favor it being a suffix. Waistcoat is completely irrelevant because neither waist- nor -coat is or has ever been productive (at least in the altered pronunciation). --WikiTiki89 22:56, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

• What of the pronunciation colloquially spelled as weskit? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 00:18, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

  That's the one I was referring to. --WikiTiki89 00:22, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Based on the examples now in the entry, and those discussed above, I lean towards keeping -land (/lænd/, /lᵻnd/, [lænd], [lənd], [lɪnd]). It seems comparable to -man (/mæn/, /mᵻn/, [mæn], [mən], [mɪn]). - -sche (discuss) 23:00, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Keep -/lənd/, -/lɪnd/. Due to its phonetic characteristics, I consider it to be a suffix rather than the word land compounded, but one that retained an etymological spelling. It’s not rare for independent words to become suffixes (-ly, -like, Western Romance future and conditional tense desinences, etc.).

Then there’s the productivity issue. I don’t know if -/lənd/, -/lɪnd/ has been used to form enough words in Modern English to comply with the different interpretations of the CFI, but I’m of the opinion that suffixes should be included if they carry meaning (which is the case here), even if they are only present in inherited terms. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 23:27, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Definitely keep, productive or not, it's a valid suffix. -ship and -dom are even less productive. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:24, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Delete. It's about as much a suffix as "-house" is in "outhouse" or "doghouse". Productiveness does not alone make a word suffix, does it? It does not need to mean more than that the word "land" is productive as headword of closed compounds. We may need a definition or two under "land" starting with "As headword of compound, used to…". --Hekaheka (talk) 06:42, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

It's not only the productiveness, but also the different pronunciation. --WikiTiki89 06:44, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

• Keep per Wikitiki, and because it is well known that -land can be appended to anything to indicate the land being of that thing (cowboyland, geniusland, dinosaurland, etc.). bd2412 T 20:47, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Some users seem to think "land" is only a suffix if it is pronounced with a reduced vowel. Is the same true of -man? A lot of the words it lists as examples of itself are only ever pronounced with full vowels, IME; others, like newsman and lawman, can be pronounced with either a full vowel or a reduced vowel. Do we need two numbered etymology sections at those entries, with identical content, like this? Or can we admit that the suffix "-land" sometimes has a full vowel? - -sche (discuss) 21:17, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• Keep per BD Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 21:59, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Kept. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

--Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)