Talk:Zeitworte
Latest comment: 12 years ago by Smurrayinchester in topic RFV
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I'm not a native speaker of German, but my understanding is that the part-of-speech terms which are compounds with Wort (like Umstandswort 'adverb') don't have the option of a plural form in -worte, only one in -wörter. Can anyone confirm (or disconfirm) Zeitworte? --Pereru (talk) 01:44, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
- The Leo online German dictionary gives only Zeitwörter as the plural in their entry for "Zeitwort", but then google books:"Zeitworte" does generate over 52K hits. Many seem to be masculine dative, but there are plural nominative uses showing up as well. Can anyone more knowledgeable chime in? -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 01:54, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
- I would imagine that as long as the plural Worte is in use, people will continue to also use that plural for compound words, based on analogy. That alone ought to be a reason to include it, even if not attested. (To compare, we would include firemen even if we could only find firemans, based on the fact that people will compare it with men.) —CodeCat 13:48, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
- Er? We specifically don’t include hypothetical plurals that are sent to RFV and found to be not attested.
- In this case, Zeitworte is attested, so let's include it with the appropriate
{{nonstandard}}tag and usage note. - de.Wikt, by the way, has only Zeitwörter, but de.Wikt is prescriptivist to the point of denying the existence of attested plurals if they aren't found in dictionaries. - -sche (discuss) 18:23, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
- When I browse through the b.g.c hits, I find very few examples of the plural Zeitworte that are more recent than the mid-19th century. I found two modern texts: [1] and [2] that use the plural Zeitworte (or its dative Zeitworten), but neither of them appears to be using it in the meaning "verb". Rather, in both cases it seems to just mean "word having to do with time". —Angr 18:41, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
- I would imagine that as long as the plural Worte is in use, people will continue to also use that plural for compound words, based on analogy. That alone ought to be a reason to include it, even if not attested. (To compare, we would include firemen even if we could only find firemans, based on the fact that people will compare it with men.) —CodeCat 13:48, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
- I've comprehensively cited it with six citations from 1719 through the present day, but as Angr notes, it's uncommon in modern works.
{{obsolete, now nonstandard}}? or{{nonstandard|dated}}? - -sche (discuss) 19:07, 20 June 2012 (UTC)- How common is it in older works? More common than today, perhaps, but if Zeitwörter was 20 times more common than Zeitworte even in the 18th century, then it's always been
{{rare}}. —Angr 18:36, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
- How common is it in older works? More common than today, perhaps, but if Zeitwörter was 20 times more common than Zeitworte even in the 18th century, then it's always been
I believe that the distinction of plurals by meaning as in our article is wrong and instead both forms can be used for all senses. See de:Wort. Matthias Buchmeier (talk) 10:29, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
- Duden says:
- Der Plural »Wörter« wird meist für Einzelwort oder vereinzelte Wörter ohne Rücksicht auf den Zusammenhang gebraucht:
- Der Plural »Worte« wird meist für Äußerung, Ausspruch, Beteuerung, Erklärung, Begriff, Zusammenhängendes oder bedeutsame einzelne Wörter gebraucht:
- They say the words are mostly used this way (Wörter for single or disconnected words, Worte for words that are dependent on each other for meaning). In other words, it sounds like they can be used either way, but it would seem a bit odd to do so (like referring to electrical antennae or the antennas of an insect). Smurrayinchester (talk) 11:46, 26 June 2012 (UTC)