User talk:Duncan MacCall/Archive 2

Philistine

Not yet, but some of the definitions on philistine need to be moved to the capitalized page, so it won't be a redirect once that happens. --EncycloPetey 02:56, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I see. --Duncan 03:03, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

sibilant

When you added this Czech translation [1], you marked it as "masculine". I didn't think Czech adjectives had an inherent gender. When you mark the gender of a word inside the {{t}} template, you are saying that it has only that gender, which is why we don't usually mark the gender of adjectives (because their gender can vary). --EncycloPetey 19:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I thought it important to tell the user to which of the genders the form applies to (most Czech adjectives indeed have gender-dependent suffixes, though a not-insignificant minority ends the same regardless of gender), so that the user is not mislead by being at en-wikt and supposing that if no gender is given the same form applies to all. Or do you mean that it should be done like "{{t-|cs|sykavý}} {{m}}", as inserting the gender in the template categorizes it wrongly or something like that? --Duncan 02:35, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Spanish, Latin, an most other languages that inflect have gender-dependent endings for their adjectives. We generally do not mark the "gender" of an adjecitve in a Translation table because the gender is mutable with the change of ending. The reason we mark gender of nouns is that nouns have fixed gender (in almost all cases). When I come across an adjective marked for gender, I wonder whether the complete form of the adjective changes in other genders. If only the ending changes, that's normal and the listed form should be the lemma. It isn't relevant to the Translations section to know whether an adjective is m, f, m and f, c, or n. It will certainly have additional forms provided on the word's entry. --EncycloPetey 19:47, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

A lemma is whatever form a dictionary decides is the primary form for looking up that word. For most langauges and words, we use the singular form of the noun as the lemma, the masculine singular adjective as elmma, and the infinitive of the verb as lemma. However, this can (and does) vary with language and between various dictionaries. On Wiktionary, the lemma is where most information about that word (in all its forms) is placed. So, we would give a full definition and information at the English verb (deprecated template usage) be, but not repeat that information on the entries for (deprecated template usage) am, (deprecated template usage) are, (deprecated template usage) is, (deprecated template usage) was, (deprecated template usage) were, etc. A lemma is just the primary spelling/form to look up information for a particular word. --EncycloPetey 20:12, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Prepositional Pronouns

Hi Duncan, I was just working on the article on aig, because I thought that the inflected forms could be presented much better - they are not just derived terms, they are a system, and although each form should have its own article, the system should be charted here properly, including the emphatic forms. Anyway, I had started to make a better form of table to present this and then I noticed that you have a template you use for prepositional pronouns and I am probably messing with it. So I will back off and leave it to you. However, can I suggest that you look at what I have started to do at aig and incorporate it into your template? There are only a limited number of prepositions which have these inflected forms, and they should all be presented in the same way. I am new here so I will let you decide. --Doric Loon 11:43, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, is that better? --Doric Loon 15:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, I've done air as well. Please check these. I notice that in the articles on the emphatic forms you have written that the suffix -san, -se etc means -self. I think you are right that highlanders often translate it this way, but only because in Highland English, "himself" is an emphatic form of "him". For most English speakers this is misleading, since it suggests that these are reflexive pronouns. I am not aware they can be reflexive, and that certainly isn't their main use. The other thing I have been playing around with today is the particles cha, nach, gu etc, and their combination with bheil, eil, robh. That was a real mess. Someone had written, for example, that cha is a verb. I hope I have tidied those up, but perhaps you can follow me around and see I haven't done anything stupid. Not doing any more tonight anyway. Best, --Doric Loon 23:18, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips on format etc. I have a lot to learn there. You are right: the translation -self is sometimes right. --Doric Loon 20:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

kick

Hi, opening the Translation tables at Verb for editing I came across this at the second table: <!--It is probably best to give examples here to illustrate how to translate this meaning-->. The French and German translations really give examples, but is this approved use of Trans tables? --Duncan 18:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

No. That idea was abandoned. The examples should be placed on the pages for the French and German translations, not in the Translations tables. --EncycloPetey 02:13, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Battle of Frogs and Mice

I have created batrachomyomachian (it's hard to determine a "standard" capitalisation, because this is very rare in English). I'd never heard of this parody before and I'm quite sure English has no simpler term derived from it. Equinox 00:10, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

tlumit and ztlumit

Hi, I think that when a perfective form is derived from an imperfective one, as is the case with ztlumit and tlumit, the imperfective form should be the main entry. Further cases: dělat versus udělat, zpívat versus zazpívat and vyzpívat, sekat vs posekat, mračit se vs zamračit se, jet vs přijet and dojet, nést vs donést. By main entry I mean the one that has the definitions, while the secondary only links to it. Thus, I would have created tlumit as the main entry. In any case, the more basic form should have definitions, even if these should be replicated in the derived form. The rationale behind this choice is that the more basic, less derived form is chosen as the lemma form—the form that carries the substantive information. What do you think? --Dan Polansky 13:52, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it's hard to make general rules - consider donést, which is sometimes the perfective form of nést (Donesl to až na konec cesty), sometimes of donášet (Donesla jí tu zprávu ještě za tepla), while the perfective of donášet is sometimes donosit rather than donést (V kolik hodin to donosíte? said to sb who's delivering something - and the imperfective of donosit is more usually nosit...), to say nothing of the all the other perfective forms primarily deriving from nést. On the other hand in the case of tlumit and ztlumit you are right, I admit I created it like that just because I was handling the latter first, so I'll "redirect" them - and hopefully won't forget to take more care about "this aspect of aspects" in the future ;-).--Duncan 15:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I am not saying that every single derived form should only contain a redirecting definition; what I am saying is that each base form should have a full entry. While dovážet can be defined by redirecting to dovézt, dovézt should better have a full entry, just like vézt. --Dan Polansky 10:16, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, when you put it like this I certainly agree. --Duncan 10:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

The gender of c

Hi, I propose that you avoid adding the gender of c to Czech adjectives. AFAIK Czech does not have the gender of common, for which this is supposed to stand, unlike, say, Swedish.

For reference: W:Grammatical gender, and specifically W:Grammatical_gender#Common_and_neuter.

Correct me if I'm wrong, ideally with a reference to a source. --Dan Polansky 11:36, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh hell, so this is what "common gender" means? I thought it stood for forms which are the same in a given language regardless of gender... Well, you live and learn (perhaps I should use the Scottish proverb for this: Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in nae ither :-( ) --Duncan 23:30, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

At first, I liked what you did at oční, using {{cs-adj|g={{m|f|n}}}}. Giving it more thought, though, I realized that it is only the non-declined form "oční" that is indifferent about gender. Consider "Jdu k očnímu lékaři" and "Jdu k oční lékařce" or "očního lékaře" and "oční lékařky" or "očního bělma" and "oční rohovky". I do not see how to handle this; of course, this information should at some point be stated in an inflection table. German adjectives at English Wiktionary state no gender, such as schwarz. The Czech Wiktionary states no gender at adjectives, such as cs:aerobní. Another model, however, is provided by Spanish alegórico. --Dan Polansky 22:45, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Why not treat this by three inflection tables, or one devided into three parts? Anyway, sooner or later we'll even have to handle nouns which may be of more than one gender - rada comes to mind, although at this time we don't have the "pane rado" sense yet. Alternatively, I would see giving no gender ( {{infl|cs|adj}} ) as the lesser evil when compared to only giving the masculine one (current {{cs-adj}} ) for these - while the latter is not, technically speaking, incorrect, it's certainly misleading the user. --Duncan 23:08, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

• A model inflection table for the adjectives with the so called soft declension such as jarní is at W:Czech declension. I like the inflection table from W:Czech declension#Soft declension: it is compact and easy to overview.
• As regards the inflection line of adjectives with soft declension: It seems to me that instead of {{cs-adj|g={{m|f|n}}}}, it would be better to stay with {{cs-adj}}, also to avoid future possible migration, as the markup {{cs-adj|g={{m|f|n}}}} is suspect to me in its complexity; what it effectively marks is that the adjective is a soft-declined one. Every lemma entry of a Czech adjective is for all the genders; that holds true also of the entries with hard declension. Put differently and specifically, the entry of mladý also represents mladá and mladé; the declension of all three genders should be present at mladý. If you want to, I can let {{cs-adj}} default on empty gender instead of on the masculine gender, so the inflection lines of adjectives will have no gender marked per default. The same effect can also be achieved using {{cs-adj|g=}} with soft-declined adjectives. --Dan Polansky 08:23, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

(1) Yes, the inflection table at W:Czech declension#Soft declension looks quite good. (2) The idea that declensions for all three genders should be at the lemma entry sounds reasonable to me, so we could possibly even use W:Czech declension#Hard declension. (3) I tried {{cs-adj|g=}} at oční and it worked, so I think I'll stick to that (with multiple gender adjectives) - no need for changing {{cs-adj}}. I don't mind if we don't have any gender where the form is the same for each of them, I'm just opposed to having one without informing that the form applies to the other two as well. --Duncan 19:06, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: "I'm just opposed to having one without informing that the form applies to the other two as well." Sounds good.

On another note, I've created two declension tables for adjectives while writing my previous post. You can see them in action at jarní and mladý. --Dan Polansky 19:20, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, wanted to add the former to oční but you beat me to it ;-) --Duncan 19:24, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Equinox

Because you voted last time, I'm informing you of Wiktionary:Votes/sy-2009-03/User:Equinox for admin.—msh210℠ 17:59, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Offline for a week

More precisely, from afternoon UTC of 29 March to evening or night UTC of 3 April. --Duncan 23:31, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

tabiya

I'm unwilling to base a definition on Everything2, since it is also a type of wiki, and a non-collaborative one at that. However, it appears that indeed what defines the tabiya is not that the game starts can be moved there (though I guess it can be so by agreement between the players), but rather it marks a point in an opening when a sequence of streamlined moves comes to an end and play can actually diverge. I'll go and update the definition. Circeus 22:23, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

uilleann pipes

Could you look at the etymology for this word? It is scheduled to be Word of the Day on the 15th. --EncycloPetey 19:53, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I had a look at a few sites and AFAICT it's all right, uillinn being the Irish singular nominative and uilleann the singular genitive, but why not ask Leftmostcat? After all it's ga, not gd. --Duncan 20:16, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Because Leftmostcat hasn't edited since 31 March; he comes and goes. You, on the other hand, are perpetually around and working hard. --EncycloPetey 20:28, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. --Duncan 20:34, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

User_talk:Stephen_G._Brown#Slivovic

Since you know Czech and Slovakian so well, I thought I'd give it a shot. User:Mallerd (Zeg et es meisje) 12:52, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. (Funny feeling, though, contributing to a version in a language you know nothing about ;-)). --Duncan 13:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

BTW it might or might not also interest you that it's also traditionally considered the national type of spirits in w:nl:Moravië. --Duncan 14:11, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I thank you, Duncan. I have added the information concerning Moravia as well. Have a good evening :) User:Mallerd (Zeg et es meisje) 16:48, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

source for rank

This should answer your question. [2] Parthian Scribe 20:10, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

British-American

Thank you very much for those pages. I knew some of them formerly but have totally forgotten. Sincererly and thanks, again from a closer country:), --Ferike333 20:56, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Szívesen. --Duncan 20:59, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

marshmallow

Děkuji vám. Then it was just me. ;) Ferike333 17:48, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Re:Nincs mit

Yes, nincs mit means you're welcome but it's informal, you'd use it only amongst friends or on the web (so you're OK to say it to me, it is not informality, I'd use it so). But if you need to be formal, you'd say (nagyon) szívesen /(very) gladly/ or kérem which is a bit archaic and means the same as your prosím. The latter I'd never use. By the way, if you want to say a formal thank you in Hungarian, you'd say köszönöm (szépen) /I thank it (nicely)/, or informally kösz(i) to which you might get a very very informal reply, szivi which is slang, non-standard and unacceptable to say to older or to those you do not know. Note that the formal phrases do absolutely not need a formal personal pronoun or a formal verb conjugation, nor informals do need informals, it just depends on your relation to the one you're saying it to and on your mood to express yourself. Hungarians can care a lot in these things :) By the way, where did you get this phrase from? I couldn't find it on Wiktionary, yet. Ferike333 19:08, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Szívesen! It's nice of you to remember that old memories so precisely. Chiefly if they're in connection with Hungary :) No, the term Slovakian Hungarian is not controversial and normally should not be, so it isn't for me, but nowadays (I claim) there are some groups, we call them hungarists, for whom it would be - long story. By the way, in Hungarian, we have two words for Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, German, etc. One refers to the natonality (by own feeling or sometimes by citizenship), and the other to the location. The former one is simply the name of the nation, the latter form is made from the name of the actual country with the suffix -i, so we can differentiate these two things very well. So they would be called szlovákiai magyarok in Hungarian. If you live in Czechia, then you're a csehországi cseh but this phrase sounds obviously strange. We mainly use these double adjectival structures when we are talking about the parts of the former Hungary, which are inhabited by Hungarians, e.g. (or erdélyi - Transylvanian) magyarok, ausztriai magyarok, ukrajnai (or rather kárpátalji - Trancarpatian) magyarok, szerbiai magyarok, etc., while a simple Romanian, Austrian, Ukrainian and Serbian would be called szerb, ukrán, osztrák and román. Sorry for being so long but since you mentioned ;) Did I write Děkuji vám well? Sorry, I don't know much Czech however I understand a bit through Russian (e.g prosím). Ferike333 16:04, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

"ráno"

Hi, I would like to add a gloss to ráno that indicates the time range of "ráno", behind the definition "early morning". But frankly, I am quite unsure about the time range that "ráno" is supposed to denote. Do you have an idea?

My wild guess would be six to ten o'clock, or from the sunrise to three hours after sunrise, or something of the sort. I do realize that the time range probably varies with speaker and context, and yet, I wish I had a better idea of what "ráno" refers to. --Dan Polansky 14:16, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid the usage of "ráno" is much too varying, depending on the speaker and the context, to be explainable in a gloss - I think even a Usage note would be comparatively lengthy. Of course, there are definitions to be found, like the one in the Czech Wikipedia, namely "úsek mezi průchodem slunce obzorem a poledníkem místa" (allegedly from Ottův slovník naučný), but I believe such defs smell to high heaven of prescriptivism. AFAICT, some people decide whether it is or isn't morning at a particular time by "how many o'clock" it is (so that eg 6 am is/isn't a morning for them regardless of the time of year), what matters for others is when the sun rises (so that it's immaterial whether it's 4, 6 or 8 am); most people are kind of "combining" these two; in all cases this is affected by the person's opinion about what is the "normal" or "natural" time for getting up; and hardly anybody feels that "at this very minute it stopped being ráno and dopoledne began".

To sum it up: Personally I believe that the very vagueness of "early morning" is in this particular matter the best way of conveying the meaning. I'm afraid I disappointed you, but that's the way I see it. --Duncan 17:20, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

(FWIW: My own interpretation of "ráno" would be approximately like this: From the time I get up, provided it's at least about 3 or 4 am, depending on the season; until the time when it's well after sunrise, I've already had at least one coffee and two ciggies, but not later than about nine or ten, depending on the season and on when I got up. Not much helpful, is it? :-( )

Thanks anyway. The time range for "ráno" is fuzzy, but that does not prevent it from being defined. I'll see what I can come up with at some later point. --Dan Polansky 13:49, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

gd-noun

Seeing all the hard work you've been doing reminded me that we didn't have a {{gd-noun}} template, so I created one. You can see it in use on àros, and I'll be writing documentation in a moment here. Let me know if you encounter any problems with the template. It will function even if the gender, genitive, and plural parameters are all missing. --EncycloPetey 21:22, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Actually I'm using a "quasi-template" of my own I've made here, but I'll change it accordingly, it's more WT-like. --Duncan 21:53, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

The documentation should be done now. If you come up with better (real) examples to use in the Quick Guide section, then please replace the invented examples. --EncycloPetey 21:58, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll put there some more suitable examples next week. I've two questions, though:

• Many masculine nouns in Gaelic have identical genitive singular and nominative plural, eg ceann - can the template be tweaked to display it like "genitive and plural cinn" instead of "genitive cinn, plural cinn"? (Words of this sort make genitive plural differently, so it's usual in Gaelic dictionaries to point this out.)
• Much less often, but now and then I come across a word with three possible genitives or three possible plurals. (Bùth is the only one I know of that has even four recognised plural forms.) Thus, can the options for {{{{gen3}}}} and {{{{pl3}}}} be added?

Thanks, --Duncan 22:57, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

The gen/plural being identical should be simple to add, and I think I can set the template to accommodate a triple genitive and plural. --EncycloPetey 12:57, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, I don't think I mentioned it, but the {{gd-noun}} template is "accelerated". This means that if you have your preferences set correctly (and the entry isn't too weird), you can usually generate the "form of" pages by clicking on the linked word and saving. If your preferences are set correctly, the link will appear green instead of red (assuming you aren't red-green colorblind). --EncycloPetey 13:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Wow, that's cooool! --Duncan 14:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Nice, huh? Thank User:Conrad.Irwin who developed the process, and many langugaes already have accelerated templates (you'll notice more green links now that you've turned on that preference). You do still have to be sure the generated form isn't nonsense, however, it takes away all the cutting and pasting and such. If the accelerated pages need some special modifications in the way they're done, you'll probably have to ask Conrad. I'm not quite skilled enough to handle that end of things yet. Also, the accelerated page may need hand editing for pages where the same form is both genitive and plural, etc. --EncycloPetey 14:08, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

That's all right, luckily I'm the kind of guy who takes quite some before deciding he knows some new feature well enough to start skipping the "preview stage" ;-) .--Duncan 14:16, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I think {{gd-noun}} now handles a triple genitive. Please give the template a try on an entry with one, and perhaps test it out on another double genitive and a standard entry to be sure I didn't break something. --EncycloPetey 14:14, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

It's OK, I tried them all and they all work as they should, thanks. --Duncan 14:31, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Good. I've used the same code to permit three plural forms, and this is ready to be tested. --EncycloPetey 14:39, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Works as well, I had one pre-made, so to say, at sròn and it worked even "backwards" ;-) .--Duncan 14:44, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

The template now handles cases where the genitive and plural are identical. I've assumed that in these cases, there will only be one genitive and plural. The acceleration in these cases generates a "genitive" form-of page, which would then have to be modified by hand to also be a plural form-of page. If this situation is common enough to want the template to generate a combination genitive/plural form-of entry, then you'd have to ask Conrad for help setting that up, since I do not know how to do so. --EncycloPetey 15:24, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

All right, I'll do that (it never happens with feminine nouns but very often with masculine ones). Thanks a lot again for all that effort, I'm sure it'll help (not only) me a lot in the future! --Duncan 15:43, 6 July 2009 (UTC)