Template talk:nl-decl-adj

Changing the order

The tabel would look a lot tidier if the order would be:

predicate	groot
neuter indef	groot
neuter def	grote
common sing	grote
plural	grote
partitive	groots

Jcwf 22:48, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I've put the predicative at the top, but I'm not sure putting neuter first would make things better, since common gender is used a lot more than neuter in Dutch. --CodeCat 11:15, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree with Jcwf on this: the inflected forms should be kept in the same block of rows otherwise interpreting the table gets very confusing. Ordering things on the basis of frequency applies only to definitions. In general (for any language), if inflection tables were ordered by frequency instead of by grammatical considerations, then they could become jumbled up and harder to read.   AugPi 15:39, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, it would be like riding a pair of horses at the same time (which is done, say, in circuses, probably, but not to be done casually at home). If the rider's left foot is on one horse and the rider's right foot is on another horse, and if the horses happen to diverge, then the rider falls to the ground, with possibility of injury. So here, since the horses do diverge, the table should focus on the grammar and dispense with frequency-of-use considerations.   AugPi 16:18, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

But the inflected forms don't even form a single unit other than that they look the same. The original table actually did focus on the grammar because it listed common before neuter, as is done in all other declension tables. Now neuter comes before common which seems to me to be counterintuitive and not at all clearer. —CodeCat 16:25, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

And on closer inspection, the information is even downright incorrect. There is no separate attributive form in the superlative. een grootst huis does not exist. —CodeCat 16:28, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the indefinite attributive superlative, per your last comment. As for your first comment: what does it matter whether neuter gets listed before or after common? Grammatically it makes no difference. As for relations to other languages, here it doesn't matter, because we are focusing on grammar considerations of the Dutch language. As for the inflected forms not forming a single unit: when I look up lyrisch in the woordenlijst, it gives me a single inflected form: lyrische. On another note, when you widened to the declension table to full width, you didn't even bother to also widen the NavBar to full width, and the columns of the table were unbalanced, because the left column was all bunched up into a knot, flushed towards the left side of the table: it's as if you were being downright careless.   AugPi 16:46, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Developmentally, het meisje comes before de vrouw, and semantically speaking, most things in this world are neuter (unless, of course, you are a Freudian), for example, de tafel is semantically neutral even though gramatically "common". And from the point of view of evolutionary biology, non-gendered (think "neuter" (but not as in "neutered"/"impotent", more as in "asexually potent")) organisms existed long before some gendered organisms began to show up, just as unicellular (think "singular") organisms came before multicellular (think "plural", pluricelular) organisms.   AugPi 16:51, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

No this was how it was intended. The names could be bunched up on the left so that there would be more room for the terms themselves. And I never widened the bar to the full width. The last revision before you started editing today had it at a fixed minimum width of 42 em. If it didn't look like that for you, then I think you may need to update your browser. —CodeCat 16:59, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Since the table had been widened to full width, the NavBar should have been widened to full width, not remain at minimum width of 42 em, is what I'm saying, but it's already done now, so let's not argue (any further)...   AugPi 17:05, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the nl-decl-adj table was your original idea, and it is working more than fine now (like a charm, actually), so let's not argue any further...   AugPi 17:08, 22 June 2010 (UTC)