Talk:acchiappa-

RFD discussion: January–August 2023

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Italian pseudo-prefixes: acchiappa-, copri-, guardia-, lava-, porta-, salva-, taglia-

(Notifying GianWiki, SemperBlotto, Ultimateria, Jberkel, Imetsia, Sartma, Catonif): There is a discussion farther up this page concerning porta-. User:Imetsia created several of these forms on the theory that certain other dictionaries identify them as prefixes. The problem is that they clearly aren't prefixes; they are simply imperative forms of verbs in verb-object compounds. I recently went and cleaned up all such compounds to use {{it-verb-obj}}, and the corresponding categories (such as Category:Italian terms prefixed with copri-) are now empty. We need to delete these forms along with the now-empty categories. The theory that they are prefixes seems very weak to me; there is nothing about these that distinguishes them from the zillion other verbs also used in verb-object compounds (see Category:Italian verb-object compounds, which now contains 1,102 entries) other than possibly that they are more common. Verb-object compounds are highly productive in modern Italian and AFAIK there are no particular restrictions on the verbs that can appear in the first part of the compound other than they are (usually) transitive. Benwing2 (talk) 22:55, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

BTW guardia- is a special case; this is not a verb but rather a noun (I already deleted guarda- before realizing that User:Imetsia might object to the deletion), but the same reasons for deletion apply. Benwing2 (talk) 22:57, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

I have used some of those myself, chiefly because, after seeing some Etymology sections I worked on edited to include those, I assumed there was some kind of consensus about using them. I personally see no reason not to delete them. — GianWiki (talk) 09:00, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

@Benwing2, @Imetsia: I think the category Italian verb-object compounds is what makes most sense. Some of them are lexicalised (like portafogli, segnalibro, etc), but the system per se is a productive one, and you could virtually create any verb-object compound (they often do in video games and TV commercials), even the most absurd ones. I think some dictionaries give the verbal components when they happen to regularly appear with a specific meaning in lexicalised compounds. For example guarda- (or its variant guardia-, which is only phonetically identical to the noun, but it's basically a mistake so common that became normalised): there is no reason why guardaboschi uses guarda- and not, say, sorveglia, becoming then sorvegliaboschi. So, in a way, there is a degree of lexicalisation of what verb is used with what meaning in compounds. This might be worth indicating, but I guess we could do that under the verb itself?

@Benwing2: I never thought of the first element as an imperative, to me it's more a 3rd person singular, so guardaboschi literally is "(the person who) protects the woods". — Sartma ^{【𒁾𒁉 ● 𒊭 𒌑𒊑𒀉𒁲】} 09:40, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I second Sartma they aren't imperatives, though the third person singular has -e where these have -i (eg: apri-, reggi-). It's no particular form of the verb, just the stem: cf. also how the same -i- appears when suffixing -tore. This likely derives from the Proto-Romance -ĭ-/-ī- merger in [ˌσσˈσσ] position. Catonif (talk) 18:02, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

@Sartma, Catonif This is fine with me; I assumed they were imperatives based on the -i in -ere and -ire verbs (and notice that pulire uses pulisci-, e.g. in pulisciorecchi, puliscipenne, etc.) but the text of {{it-verb-obj}} doesn't assert any particular form for these verbs. As for the lexicalization, sure, that is normal as native speakers tend to follow the lead of existing terms when coining new ones, and we could definitely include that as a usage note or whatever in the entry for the verb itself. Benwing2 (talk) 20:01, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

@Catonif: Oh, true, they're just verb stems. Makes much more sense. — Sartma ^{【𒁾𒁉 ● 𒊭 𒌑𒊑𒀉𒁲】} 09:52, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I follow the same logic as you and I'm inclined to delete them all, but I'll defer to the native speakers. I've seen these defended more than once (e.g. at Talk:porta-), and they are included in Italian dictionaries for some reason. Ultimateria (talk) 01:51, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

@Benwing2: The category structure seems redundant to Category:Exocentric verb-noun compounds by language (the descriptions are almost identical). —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 12:54, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

@Al-Muqanna Agreed; I think verb-object compounds makes more sense here because even some of the English ones don't have a noun as the second element (e.g. catch-all, come-hither). Undecided whether the word exocentric should be present but it seems redundant; hard to see how there could be an endocentric verb-object compound. Benwing2 (talk) 20:04, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I think just verb-object is better (and certainly easier to understand), agreed. I noticed the "exocentric" one because I went to check pickpocket as an obvious English example and saw there was already a category. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 20:07, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree with removing the prefix entries (except for ones that could be seen as irregular, if those exist). Verb-object makes sense in general as a description, but as discussed earlier, not so much for a minority of examples such as buttafuori (where "fuori" is neither a noun nor an object). Is the current etymology section for that word an accidental oversight, or is the idea that even though it's not really composed of verb + object, it will be categorized as a verb-object compound to group it with other similar compounds? Strictly speaking, it seems more like what it and the others have in common is being "exocentric verb-initial compounds", but using that might be trading comprehensibility for accuracy...--Urszag (talk) 00:33, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

@Urszag I put it there intentionally on the theory that fuori, while not exactly a direct object, is definitely a complement of the verb, which is in the same ballpark as an "object" (and might actually be viewed as a kind of object depending on the grammatical theory). This distinguishes such compounds from those in the CAT:Italian verb-verb compounds category, where both verbs are in apposition. I also avoided putting cases like scrivimpiedi and dorminpiedi in the verb-object category; these are rather univerbations of phrases "sleep/write on [one's] feet". We can correct the language of the category description to emphasize that the object might not always be a direct object, while keeping the category name; how does that sound? Benwing2 (talk) 00:53, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

@Urszag: With an article in front of it, everything becomes a noun: il dentro e il fuori. ;-) (but yeah, in that case it should be an adverb, since it comes from "buttare fuori" (to expel)) — Sartma ^{【𒁾𒁉 ● 𒊭 𒌑𒊑𒀉𒁲】} 08:18, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I would keep these, for reasons I've explained before. (Links for when the pages are archived: 1, 2). Imetsia (talk) 00:16, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

As I noted on the discussion for porta-, the decision to delete these entries is very wrong. On the merits, I would still like to see these entries in existence. However, as a big believer in stare decisis, I will now vote to delete in the name of consistency (given that we have already decided to delete porta-). Imetsia (talk (more)) 20:48, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

RFD-deleted. Imetsia (talk (more)) 20:48, 5 August 2023 (UTC)