Rua

Archives: 2009-2010 · 2011 · 2012

Help wanted for updating Slovene templates

Hey Rua,

I know that you probably have a lot of work on your own and that you probably have little knowledge about Slovene, but you were the one editing or even creating most of the modules and templates, so I am turning to you in hopes of your willing to help update the modules.

I have recently updated Wikipedia articles about Slovene phonology (we're still deciding which changes should be included in the help page) and declension; conjugation will follow soon. The previous articles were really generalized and and left out many key features of Slovene. I have completely no idea about how to code, so I am in desperate need of help and I hope you would update the templates and modules so they would follow the updated articles. Your help would certainly be appreciated.

If you are up for the task, I'll explain more about what is needed to be updated – the new articles are way too long to force you to implement everything that is written there. Garygo golob (talk) 07:49, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Internal error

> Internal error > [421a41d1-baed-475d-bc37-3a4f5db6dbfc] 2024-01-25 09:14:02: Fatal exception of type "TypeError" I have that message if I try to Start a new discussion in your talk page. (So I was obliged to edit here in the header section.) --Wisdood (talk) 09:16, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

pehati

See my message in Talk:pehati. ə is not a valid letter in Slovenian language. --Wisdood (talk) 09:16, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

What source did you use? ПростаРечь (talk) 15:56, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Hello Rua, I saw that you created the West Frisian conjugation module, I would like to ask if you are able to add separable verbs to it.

Goeiedag, ik heb even geleden de vormen voor de tweede persoon enkelvoud in geval van inversie toegevoegd aan Module:nl-verbs. Mijn excuses als de implementatie een beetje primitief is. Misschien kan je een bot de extra vormen laten toevoegen aan de pagina's voor werkwoordsvormen? Groeten

Hey, Rua, thanks for adding the conditional pronunciation of <d> to module:se-IPA. I've read your user page, so I'll try to keep this short. Are you open to making more changes to the module?

I would like to make it work for compound words, but I don't know how to indicate the stress for those since there are then three stress levels I assume. Primary on the first syllable, secondary on the first syllable of every other part of the compound, and then tertiary on every other odd-numbered syllable of each part?

I'm not sure I understand your suggestion. Could you give some examples?

In any case, stress is more or less predictable when the foot boundaries are known (i.e. first syllable of every foot is stressed), but I don't think there is a way for an algorithm to accurately determine where those boundaries are, even for ones with four syllables. Take for instance buotveagalaš "all-mighty", which has four syllables, but whose syllable-per-foot count is divided 1-3 rather than 2-2.

Loan words like studeanta offer additional complications, i.e. having two feet instead of the expected one.

I think the best solution is just to allow the user to input how many syllables there are per foot (e.g. inputting something like 1,3 in the template for buotveagalaš or 1,2 for studeanta). Template:fi-pronunciation uses dashes for compounds to indicate where the stresses are (so something like spelling out buot-veagalaš with the template).

Maybe extra inspiration can be found in other templates (though I haven't looked through all of them myself)

Oh, that's actually a pretty neat solution! I hadn't thought of that yet.

My question was rather one of notation. To take the word álbmotjienasteapmi as an example. It's a compound of two words: one of two syllables and one of four syllables. How would you denote the pronunciation of this word in IPA, including stress markers?

If I'm reading your comments correctly, you want to distinguish between secondary and tertiary stress for long words like this. I would just transcribe all of the stresses beside the first one as secondary stresses, as I'm not sure how else to transcribe it.

For Western dialects (e.g. Kautokeino), I'd transcribe it like /ˈaːlːpmohˌjie̯naˌstea̯pmiː/ in broad transcription and [ˈɑːlɑ̯pmohˌjie̯nɑˌsteæ̯pmiː] in narrow transcription. The narrow transcription may not be relevant here, but I've added it for completion's sake. There are a few things to comment on:

• How my broad transcription differs from the generated output:
  • <t> is pronounced like /h/ at the end of the first lexeme
  • The consonant cluster <st> is completely after the syllable boundary instead of being split by it
• How my narrow transcription differs from both:
  • The vowel qualities: [ɑ] instead of /a/; [eæ̯] instead of /ea̯/
  • The glide vowel (typically transcribed as /ə/) in the cluster <lbm>

The stress marking as transcribed by the module is mostly correct in this instance, except the cluster being split by the syllable boundary.

I was not aware of the syllabification of <st>. Are there any other consonant clusters that behave that way?

In general I've had some difficulty finding detailed sources on Northern Sami phonology, which is why the template only describes the Kautokeino dialect. That's the only one described by a source I could find. If you know more, the Wikipedia article about Northern Sami could definitely do with some love.

When conjugating the past forms of archaic/dialectal Dutch gij-form, you often need to lengthen the last vowel of the stem, just like you do in the plural. ik kwam, wij kwamen; ik was, wij waren. As said, this also happens with the word gij. gij kwaamt, gij waart, gij zaagt, gij staalt, gij laast... There is an exception to this though, which most people aren't aware of. That is, if the stem ends with an alveolar plosive, you don't lenghten the vowel. gij zat, gij badt, gij tradt... This rule isn't followed by this bot though, it seems to me. First I found this article(https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aanbaadt#Dutch), which I corrected, but it seems this mistake has been made systematically among all such verbs in Dutch. I'm posting this here because I don't know how to remove pages like (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aanbaadt#Dutch) and because I think this is a problem that's better solved by reprogramming a bot.

Other examples of pages that need fixing are: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/traadt#Dutch https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bidden#Dutch

"source": I'm a native speaker of Flemish Dutch (tussentaal), where the gij-pronoun is still widely used.

Hello,
First thank you for the pages about declension of proto-indo-european suffixes, it is a huge work and a useful and instructive one.
I would be interested to know where you take these declensions from, I'd like to read the authors, books or studies you used as sources, in particular for the Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/-os page.
Thank you in advance,
Best regards
LitaElera (talk) 10:09, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

The purpose of including reconstructions in Wiktionary is not to posit them with some claim of certainty, nor is it to say “here is a theory the details of which are unilaterally agreed upon,” but rather more along the lines of “there is evidence for the existence of this, though as a reconstruction it is by nature hypothetical,” as disclaimers such as {{reconstruction}} are clear about.

I fear that you are letting your personal range of experience and particular set of opinions get in the way of constructive discussion. The theory of Altaic for one is certainly not unilaterally accepted either, nor are the particulars of the phonetics of Proto-Sino-Tibetan or Proto-Afro-Asiatic, or even Old Chinese—hell, there is still much disagreement about PIE—but in the same sense that settling on a particular phonological model for the time being shouldn't prevent Wiktionary entries for these languages from existing, neither should disagreement about families like Altaic prevent there from being any inclusion of them, as is evident already. If the assumption is that there is something inherently wrong in describing such hypotheses, what is it that is wrong? This is not a matter of whether a scholarly interest exists (it most certainly does) nor a matter of whether there is consensus among any subset of scholars working on the areas in question (there is); instead, you are in danger of now turning it into an issue of neutrality. You did not provide any rationale for the deletions either in prior discussion or retroactively (and I can only guess that your expectation was that I come to you). Other than useless deletionism I do not see any grounds for it. It is not in the same ballpark as modifying or deleting PIE paradigms in favor of alternative models: in this case your choice has been to wipe the (only) information out of existence without hesitation. Regardless, I can only hope that future incidents of this form do not take this path.

I suppose the reason for deleting them is that the reconstructions are founded on poor scholarship using questionable methods which very few people believe. Other than that, the entries are fine, I guess...

“poor scholarship”

Such as what? And in what sense? Quality? (If so, what specifically?) Quantity? (If so, I agree that it is lacking. But there has been a considerable amount of work done since over century ago.)

“questionable methods”

Again, such as what?

“very few people believe”

That may be so. Sadly very few people, relatively speaking, have any knowledge of or interest in comparative linguistics. But, assuming you are referring exclusively to comparative linguists, I would like to know what counts as “very few”. Not that I am contesting that there are few: I would simply like a genuine reference point on which to base the observation of how many of the whole agree with the methodology used and conclusions drawn, and which whole. I don't expect that there have been many surveys on comparative linguists' opinions at large; however, as for the number of linguists who have worked on the areas in question, is it any less than for protolanguages such as those of Sino-Tibetan, Afro-Asiatic, Austronesian or “Altaic”? In each case the picture is overall the same: two, maybe three, large works which are regarded as the standard, separate and collaborative efforts among a handful of well-known names, and other small contributions by a larger number of lesser-known names. (Of course this description then also leads to the issue of defining “well known”: how much?, and, more importantly, by whom?) Whether the opinions of those who do not study these areas is just as relevant as the opinions of those who do is another question, though perhaps more relevant to the philosophy of ways of knowing. Both you and Rua are evidently very experienced, in the areas relevant to what you have studied, but there seems to be no objective manner in which to discern whose beliefs matter to what—other than the principle that Wikimedia administrators are granted the unquestioned last word!

I would be delighted, anyway, if Rua has any input to add.

If the community approves of the addition of those languages, and assigns them a language code, then you are free to add entries.

Ah, thank you!

I understand the issue now: One must first request a code, and hope the dice roll in their favor.

Hopefully the opposite logic won't then be invoked, i.e. “Why create a language code for something with no entries?”

I don't know a single linguist who regards Nostratic as anything more than a bad joke. I think you're aware that there might be a reason almost nobody takes it seriously. But yes, it's definitely the work of a shady cabal of Wiktionary administrators trying to keep the truth locked away...

Well, it sounds like you might benefit from expanding your knowledge of linguists then. :)

As for your implication that I regard this as some sort of conspiracy, thanks for the laugh! In reality, though, work on the theories of such families as Nostratic and Indo-Uralic continue regardless of what Wiktionary or Wikipedia have to say on them (which are, respectively, nothing and almost nothing).

People working on these theories is not the same as these theories being accepted as mainstream. I've seen enough hooey from the Nostratic camp to make me quite leary of anything coming from there.

Hello, I saw you created this template that I'd like to translate in French (mainly for Hungarian conjugation tables but it'd surely have many other utilities), do you know how I could ? It seems it was made in Lua and I absolutely don't know this language, wouldn't there be any way to copy it without having to code (I think just like with )?

Thanks in advance!

Hey. I've seen that you've deleted that module with the reason "No longer needed, can rely on default rules". How do I activate those default rules for Romanian then? The links are not green when I go to a Romanian entry with missing inflected forms.

For that, you have to edit the template itself so that includes the information needed to make the acceleration work.

Can you give me some pointers as to how I can achieve that? Is there a guide? When I look through Module:de-noun which powers {{de-decl-noun-n}} and the likes for which acceleration works I don't see anything relating to acceleration.

Module:nl-adjectives#L-275 shows how the acceleration is added.

I saw that the page quédatelo exists and has been created by your bot (good work by the way!). However there is no page for the word quédatela, which in theory could be created by the bot as well. (I only don't know Spanish grammar very well, so I couldn't tell if there are any hurdles to this.)

Hi!

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Thank you. /Johan (WMF)

18:14, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

First time I hear such a thing. The abbreviations gen. et spp. are standard in botany and so used now in thousands of Wiktionary entries. The purpose is in particular to signify whether an organism name names just some species in the genus (which may be varying and not always certain), when one would use only “spp.”, or also the whole genus and various species in the genus; sometimes (in recent languages) it is only a technical term for the genus while species are always denoted with specific names or circumlocutions “X genus plants”. Due to the distribution of Pimpinella saxifraga, *bedrьnьcь means this particular species, and also, because there are a few other less important Pimpinella species in Eastern Europe, the term surely was extended to other species (back then already; because there is no specific reason either why it would have been restricted to a current understanding of a particular species), to denote a broader concept corresponding to what we now understand as botanical genus, as well as a concept of analogically denoting other species, therefore “genus and species” “and especially …”. But the genus Pimpinella does not have an English name, except ambiguous and now rare in this sense pimpernel – I searched in various fashions to find one, and Wikipedia at w:Pimpinella does not know a name either –, only individual species under it, which I gave for Pimpinella saxifraga, it is burnet saxifrage. What is there to clarify anyway if taxonomical names are given?

It is bewildering that you even expect that every plant name has an English name. This is not the case, the more you remove yourself geographically from English-speaking countries, and even in English-speaking countries at some level of detail – for even at the genus level, taxonomy may have been and still be controverted and not manifest to the unequipped observer, this especially true for the Apiaceae family. Cervaria rivini the Ukrainian бедри́нець (bedrýnecʹ) also means has a lot of synonyms, as you see on Wikispecies, and it took me some time to find the English vernacular name I have for it on the Ukrainian page, which is obscure and not understood by anyone, so actually any taxonomical name is understood better than English. Where you come from, in Indo-European studies, one often contents oneself with vernacular names, but this is bad practice, this is in more particular fields scolded in reviews: “As a general note I would like to mention that it is recommendable to add the Latin nomenclature to English plant names”. But not the reverse, where an English term often may not exist. I have quite a mass of Arabic entries now where an English vernacular does not exist, obviously some local desert plants, and as I have amplified to you it is principally possible for every vernacular name of an organism that an English name does not exist, and additionally often that any existing translation would need translation itself. It is just unlikely to occur that you can reconstruct something specific as far back as Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Semitic that does not well translate to a vernacular name. For anything in the Common Era it is easy to encounter that one discerns quite distinctly a concept a word which has no vernacular correspondence – well-known but far away enough to lack reflection in our working language.

I would have said difficult to read because a bit wordy, but worth it.

My bot replace L4 "Derived terms" with L3, but "Derived terms" shouldn't be L3. Would you add definitions for the two entries?

back in Dec 2016 yoj removed a passage I'd added ... see https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=rewilding&oldid=prev&diff=41970230 . I've updated rewild and seeking your input as to whether this is what you intended --> https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=rewild&type=revision&diff=63650802&oldid=61167576 . Thanks.

This doesn't look correct either, but I'm a bit confused what exactly you intend here. Is rewilding in this sense a verb or a noun? And what does it even mean?

I think this is the right way, most likely: https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=rewild&type=revision&diff=63655518&oldid=61167576

Yes, that looks good.

Why do you keep reverting my edits like at Special:Diff/63127477? These are very important since they show that the words are not just reconstructed, but actually attested in various forms, which is very useful for learners. All you are doing is making the site harder to use by requiring more clicks to arrive at a given page and making information harder to find.

Hello, I saw you removed the “alternative forms” in the article for tveir. Just to be clear, I fully agree with you on that they aren’t alternative forms. I added it simply to show the inflection in the various descendants trees, such as on Proto-Germanic *twai. Putting {{l|non|tvær|g=f}}, {{l|non|tvau|g=n}} next to {{desctree|non|tveir|g=m}} would place them underneath the whole descendants tree. If you know a solution to that, I'd be happy to hear it.

I don't have a solution, but I'm not sure if we should be showing inflections in descendants trees anyway.

Good point. I’ll move the inflections to their appropriate descendants trees.

Special:Diff/62915018 Special:Diff/62915023

Yes, you changed the ordering of the languages around for no reason.

I changed a {{desc}} to {{desctree}} and along with that ordered them alphabetically (which others and I often do) instead of a random order.

But that order makes it inconsistent with every other (West) Germanic page, which use a north-to-south ordering for West Germanic. This is also the order given on WT:AGEM.

This thread would not exist had you linked WT:AGEM or WT:AGMW in the edit summary, as I was not aware this order is not random and prescribed; I have edited the pages.

Both of these words are from PIE root *krewh₂-, thus they are related. So why did you revert my edit?

That's incorrect, there's no way that *hraiwą can come from a root *krewh₂-.

See Kroonen's etymological dictionary of proto-germanic, p. 242. As I added in the etymology, it comes from (irregular) metathesis of *krów-yom > *króy-wom > *hraiwą.

That's very ad-hoc don't you think?

Perhaps, but it fits semantically and there's a reliable source for it.

Even linguists can have strange ideas. I think this would be good to bring up at WT:ES.

Regarding this change that you have reverted: https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Module:gmw-nouns&diff=next&oldid=62456532

...the use case is this entry: Reconstruction:Proto-West_Germanic/krūci.

Yes, and I think that entry shouldn't have been created in the first place.

Hi Rua ! Did i-mutation for 'e' carry over into PWG from PGmc ? For instance, I see that in the *jestu (“yeast”) Inflection table that the Dative singular and Nominative/Accusative plurals have *jestiwi instead of *jistiwi. Is *jestiwi correct for these cases ?

I'm not sure, but I vaguely remember Ringe saying that alternations within a paradigm were eliminated. Maybe it was levelled in different directions though in different languages?