Talk:ἀπό-

RFM discussion: February–March 2016

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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ἀπό-

Ancient Greek prefix. Request for move to ἀπο-. Since the oxia won't always appear in the same place, the oxia shouldn't appear on the prefix, right? Pinging LlywelynII, Saltmarsh, Angr, and Erutuon (the non-bot users who have edited ἀπό- hitherto). — I.S.M.E.T.A. 13:53, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

@I'm so meta even this acronym: Why not move it yourself? --kc_kennylau (talk) 14:15, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

@kc_kennylau: I wanted consensus to do so first. I'm not 100% confident when it comes to Ancient Greek, so I wanted agreement beforehand. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 14:29, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that prefixes shouldn't have accent marks. If you look through Category:Ancient Greek words prefixed with ἀπό- you'll see that not one single word listed there actually has an ό. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:13, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

A search at LSJ for words beginning with ἀπό shows many (7+ pages) beginning with ἀπό', but a search for ἀπο seems to yield all of those in the first search and 36 additional pages with no diacritic.

Why couldn't we have both, with the dominant one as a main entry, possibly with a brief explanation of the situation and the other as a redirect. DCDuring TALK 16:50, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

That would work too. It should be moved to ἀπο-, but there's no reason to uncheck the "Leave a redirect?" box. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:58, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

I support the move. It's only by chance that the omicron in some compounds with ἀπο- has an acute, not due to any inherent accent belonging to the prepositional prefix. Accent is generally either recessive or on the ultima; when it's recessive, there's a chance of accent falling on the omicron (if the ultima is short and the omicron is in the antepenult). Accent falls on the alpha in rare cases, apparently (in ἄποδος "give back!", though the form ἀπόδος is also listed; not sure when each is used). So both ἄπο- (ápo-) and ἀπό- (apó-) could be brief entries that point readers to ἀπο- (apo-). — Eru·tuon 20:30, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Sure, if most of the words using this prefix at LSJ are given without the accent, it makes sense (a) to have it at the unaccented form or (b) at least redirect from there. The prefix by itself should have the accent there, just like the preposition, nuh? What do the other dictionaries list it as? or do we have any general policy regarding treatment of accented prefixes? — LlywelynII 07:59, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

LSJ doesn't list prefixes; not sure about other lexicons.

Maybe this is information you already have, but here's my reasoning. In English, each part in a compound usually has its own accent. That's why Lieutenant Barclay in Star Trek: The Next Generation incorrectly said méta-thésis. He was applying the English stress rule: accent on first syllable, on each part of the compound.

Not how the Greek rules work. Only one of the last three syllables can have accent, even in compound words (at least according to the established rules of accent...). Accent is random: it can be based on the accent of the last element in the compound, or not. But prepositions are never the last element in the compound, so they always give up their right to have an accent when they become a prefix. So, ἀπό has its own accent as an independent word, but as a prefix it has no accent of its own. Different from English, where únder has accent on the first syllable whether it's a preposition or a prefix (únder-stánding). — Eru·tuon 08:57, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

A couple of points: (1) Prefixes are bound morphemes: they don't stand by themselves, so in Ancient Greek they don't have their own accent (even some free morphemes don't have accents of their own in grc). The preposition ἀπό (apó) has a stress of its own, but the prefix ἀπο- (apo-) doesn't. (2) It was Data who said "méta-thésis"; he was talking about the mispronunciation of Lt. Barclay's name as "Broccoli". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:42, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Oops, you're right, it was Data talking about Barclay. Perhaps I need to rewatch TNG. :-) On your other point, are English disyllabic prepositional prefixes then not bound morphemes, because they have their own accent? — Eru·tuon 18:28, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't draw that conclusion. English stress rules are different from Ancient Greek accent rules. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:10, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

@kc_kennylau, Angr, DCDuring, Erutuon, LlywelynII: The trouble with including entries — even redirects — for ἄπο- (ápo-) and ἀπό- (apó-) is that doing so would encourage linking to those non-morphemes, which would lead to derivations being split between three different derivations categories (namely the correct Category:Ancient Greek words prefixed with ἀπο- and the erroneous Category:Ancient Greek words prefixed with ἀπό- and Category:Ancient Greek words prefixed with ἄπο-) and is likely to give the wrong impression of why the oxia is in the place that it is (which, as Erutuon explains, is nothing at all to do with the prefix, and is rather due to the rules of the Ancient Greek recessive accent). — I.S.M.E.T.A. 02:15, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't feel like that's a huge danger. Irish suffixes generally appear in two forms, one after "broad" consonants and one after "slender" consonants, e.g. -óg and -eog, yet we have just one Category:Irish words suffixed with -óg. If anyone's tempted to add a word to the nonexistent Category:Irish words suffixed with -eog, the fact that it's a red link is probably reminder enough to categorize it under the alternative spelling instead. Surely once Category:Ancient Greek words prefixed with ἀπό- is deleted, its redness will also be reminder enough to people to use Category:Ancient Greek words prefixed with ἀπο- instead. It's not as if we have masses of inexperienced newbs falling over themselves to add Etymology sections to Ancient Greek entries. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:10, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

@Aɴɢʀ: I'm not so sure. If the prefix itself were blue-linked, I would take that to be a sign that the derivations category should also be created. The Irish -óg and -eog aren't analogous, because those are two forms of the same suffix; the Ancient Greek ἄπο- (ápo-) and ἀπό- (apó-) are not forms of ἀπο- (apo-), because the oxia is in no way part of the prefix. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 20:02, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Your point w/r/t redirects misleading editors w/r/t categories seems entirely mistaken.
More importantly, the conversation above was reaching the conclusion that ἀπό- (apó-) is prima facie illegitimate, not that it had a separate meaning. Were they mistaken? — LlywelynII 14:53, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

@LlywelynII: AFAICT, no one in this discussion believes that ἀπό- (apó-) has a separate meaning from ἀπο- (apo-). The (IMO mistaken) belief held by some (again, AFAICT) is that ἀπό- (apó-) and ἄπο- (ápo-) are alternative spellings of the prefix ἀπο- (apo-). As Erutuon has explained, where the oxia goes has nothing to do with the prefix, and is rather down to the rules of the Ancient Greek recessive accent. At this point, I think we're all agreed (pace, perhaps, yourself) that ἀπο- (apo-) should be lemmatised; the discussion now, I think, concerns whether ἀπό- (apó-) and ἄπο- (ápo-) should exist as redirects thereto. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 01:45, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Does anyone have any thoughts about the situations which would lead to the use of ἀπό- (apó-) and ἄπο- (ápo-)? Are there any? DCDuring TALK 01:56, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

@DCDuring: As Erutuon wrote above (in his post timestamped: 20:30, 27 February 2016), “Accent is generally either recessive or on the ultima; when it's recessive, there's a chance of accent falling on the omicron (if the ultima is short and the omicron is in the antepenult).” Epistulâ citato, he mentions ἄποδος (ápodos, “give back!”) as an example word where the oxia falls on the prefix's alpha in combination; this is merely an application of the same rule of the recessive accent, mut. mut., viz "[the] accent fall[s] on the [alpha] if the ultima is short and [alpha] is in the antepenult" (such a situation is rare because it only occurs in trisyllables). — I.S.M.E.T.A. 02:12, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

This is a dictionary. It is not a model of languages, except in support of its function as a dictionary. It has users. In what situation would a user get something out of the redirect? DCDuring TALK 02:38, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

@DCDuring: I misunderstood your earlier question. Re "In what situation would a user get something out of the redirect?", I don't know; copying and then pasting into the search box the first three letters of a given word? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 03:25, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

That sounds like it might happen. So why not have the redirects? DCDuring TALK 03:34, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

@DCDuring: The thing is, that user would need to remember to add a hyphen after those first three letters, which means that that user would have to have a pretty good idea that those first three letters constitute a prefix. How likely is it that a user will know that those first three letters constitute a prefix without knowing anything about what that prefix means? For someone that unfamiliar with Ancient Greek, I would think that the best (and perhaps only) indicator that those first three letters constitute a prefix would be their being linked to independently in an Ancient Greek entry's etymology section. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 00:41, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

I would expect a wide variety of levels of knowledge of Greek, of questions being addressed, and even of basic computer skills among users. Redirects are cheap and abundantly used in other modern online dictionaries. So why not? DCDuring TALK 00:48, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

@DCDuring: For the reasons I gave in my post above (timestamped: 02:15, 1 March 2016). — I.S.M.E.T.A. 01:35, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

That seems somewhat far-fetched and, in any event, the consequences are not horrible. This monument to correctness that we are building does need to have users who find it useful. DCDuring TALK 02:12, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ @DCDuring: IMO, the scenario I outlined is not as far-fetched as the circumstance in which someone actually uses these redirects.
What form will these redirects take? Hard redirects? Full alternative-form entries? Will they be listed in the Alternative forms section of ἀπο- (apo-)? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 14:28, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Users found those forms so readily that the prefix was created at those forms of the word. Of course there should be redirects. For that matter, there should be redirects from our standard romanized form of the Greek letters, but that's an entirely separate kettle of fish. — LlywelynII 20:53, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

@LlywelynII: With all due respect, your "proof" isn't very convincing, since it was you who created the entry for that prefix two years and seven months ago. "Of course there should be redirects." is pure assertion, devoid of any argumentation. Your desire to have Romanisation entries for Greek terms is far more justifiable from the point of view of accessibility than is your desire to have these redirects, given that a user unfamiliar with Greek is really quite likely to come across Romanised Greek terms (especially if they're mentioned in the running text of some other, Latin-script language). — I.S.M.E.T.A. 22:02, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

• Support moving. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:58, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

@Μετάknowledge: Thank you. Where do you stand on the issue of whether or not to have redirects from the two forms with the oxia? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 23:36, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

From my experience with Special:WantedCategories, I would say that the most likely scenario is that people will create what they want to create regardless of link color. What's more, if the form they're using is a redlink, they're just as likely to assume there's no prefix entry, and create one. That will mean not just a bluelink and multiple categories, but multiple lemmas, as well. The deletion message for this form may deter them, but there would be no such message on the form with the initial accent. Usually, we avoid redirects for most entries for the reason that they would discourage page creation in cases where some other language has a term with the same spelling. In this case, we want to discourage page creation, so redirects are a good idea. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:14, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I concur with Chuck. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:00, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ @Chuck Entz, Metaknowledge: Very well; the consensus seems to be in favour of redirects (by which I assume hard redirects is meant). What's the best way to handle cases of incorrect categorisation brought about by users calling ἀπό- (apó-) and/or ἄπο- (ápo-) as etyma? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 15:23, 18 March 2016 (UTC)