Copying/Duplicating Pages

I know there is an option to move pages but is there some way to move them without having the original page turn into a redirect? I need this because I have entered conjugation tables for all Macedonian verbs entered so far and I want to start adding aspect pairs now. However, I will also need to create new pages for the aspect pairs - so far I have been almost exclusively entering imperfective verbs and there are almost no perfective verbs as entries yet. As I create these, I want to have the definitions be exactly the same as the ones for the imperfective verbs - it would be silly if, for example, the definition of "убедува" is "to convince" whereas the definition of "убеди" is "to persuade". However, I don't want to retype everything individually because it will take a very long time. I also don't want to copy paste, because I want to be able to automatically paste the basic conjugation code (to not waste time on that) on every single entry and I haven't discovered yet how to copy two different things at once and then paste one or the other as I choose. P.S. I realize that for many aspect pairs, I won't be able to just have the definitions copied from the entry, because sometimes a change in aspect also leads to a change in meaning, but I will make the necessary changes in these cases. I just want to save time overall.

Unfortunately we don't yet have a good solution for this yet. Normally, to avoid duplication, we choose one specific form (the lemma form) and make all others link to it without full definitions. But that only works if there is always the lemma and it's always the same form. But for Slavic aspect it is different, as it's not clear what the lemma should be (either imperfective or perfective would make sense), and many verbs only have one of the two anyway.

So far, we've just copied the definitions. This may not be the best solution but it's all we have for now. An advantage is that some verbs in a pair may have slightly different meanings. In that case you need to have different definitions too.

If you want to discuss this further, you should start a discussion on the Beer Parlour, as I'm sure other editors will have ideas.

All right - I'll just stick to copying. By the way, I don't think that there is a need to have a lemma aspect form. I feel that aspect is an inherent category to each verb and that verbs in an aspect pair are equal in status. Also, I don't think that either aspect could be considered as more basic because the ways they are derived from each other are very complex. It's not as though there are imperfective verbs and then a suffix is added to them to make them perfective. Those are only some of the verbs. Very many, for example, involve simple vowel alternations.

Exactly, this is why it's hard to define this. There are also many cases in various languages where the same word occurs in a different form, but both are equivalent. We call them "alternative forms". In this case there is also a choice between two equal forms, so our practice is to choose the one that is used less as the "alternative" and the other one becomes the main form with the lemma. We haven't done this for all words though, there are some English ones like color and colour where both have full entries. There has been a lot of discussion and arguing about this situation, but no solution so far that enough people agree on.

Of course, for aspects, it's not quite the same, because these forms actually do have different meanings. The problem is that this distinction is often lost when translating into English to make a definition. So they appear to have the same meaning, but in reality of course they don't. They can't be used interchangeably like alternative forms.

I strongly agree about the distinction being lost in translation - I often have problems translating specific aspect forms. For example, "пипа" means to touch, but continuously, i.e. be touching, whereas "пипне" means to touch once, instantaneously. "опипа"/"испипа" in turn means to touch in the sense of finish touching, i.e. complete a process. I don't really know how to convey this effectively - I don't want to type it out like this in the definition line. It sounds clumsy and it's still somewhat unclear.

Then there are the other more specific aspects, such "попипа" which means to touch for a little while or touch a little bit, "допипа", which means to finish touching (e.g. after being interrupted), "распипа", which means to touch with enthusiasm and/or growing intensity, "изнапипа", which means to touch a lot and possibly too much, etc. It will be a real headache entering all of these specific aspect forms. I realize that all of these last ones won't be separate lemmas - I'll have them link bank to the imperfective or perfective base form. However, I will still have to explain what they mean. Do you think though, that I could just label them with terms like "terminative aspect of", "inchoative aspect of", "superlative form of", "delimitative aspect of", etc.? I suppose that those forms will capture the idea better than me making some awkward periphrastic descriptions in English.

These are not aspects in the way they are traditionally understood in Slavic languages. Rather they are verbs derived from other verbs. Dutch and German have lots of these verbs, look at Category:Dutch separable verbs and Category:Dutch prefixed verbs. We include separate definitions for all of those because the meaning is not always predictable. It's also not predictable which forms exist, they act as independent verbs. For example, slaan has beslaan and verslaan, but maken has only vermaken, not bemaken.

Yes, I am familiar with their presence in the Germanic languages, Hungarian, etc. They arguably exist in English as phrasal verbs too. Okay, I will deal with them when the time comes. I'll probably add some context label, a link to the base form, and a definition in cases where the context label is insufficient.