Talk:-erlei
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German. Neither in common understanding nor etymologically analyzed so. See -lei, of which this is a duplicate created by a Briton of moderate German proficiency. -lei is a noun, by spelling a suffix and only for the reasons that follow a derivational suffix. Identically functioning synonyms are -gestalt (diesergestalt, welchergestalt etc., which one does and would not create as one knows well the noun Gestalt, but even less so one would create -ergestalt), -hand (solcherhand, mancherhand … from Hand), -art (mancherart, welcherart … from Art), -schlacht (allerschlacht; retained from Middle High German -slaht, -slahte, obsolete as the noun is not used in New High German, only Geschlecht). The part in between is the inflectional ending -er of adjectives in the feminine genitive singular (no entry for it here; it is to be seen as interfix -er- with a different etymology when recognizing the succeeding part as suffix, the interfix is else mostly from neuter plural noun inflection endings).
The syntactic category of what results is originally attributive noun phrase, which can also come in front of a noun in German as is well known; also adverbial noun phrase. With the living nouns such formations can also come after the noun and thus disprove that they are adjectives since attributive adjectives in German need to precede the noun; such formations would just not be spelled in one word. Männer solcher Art ←→ solcherart Männer, and no reason why not: solcher Art Männer. The same is not bearable for -lei which does not have a corresponding independently of this construction used noun, one will hardly say: Männer solcher Lei (except perhaps in very early New High German), and only therefore and because they most frequently precede nouns while attributive noun phrases more often succeed nouns, in German, formations with all the said morphemes are considered adjectives.
But the recognition of the noun as a morpheme is yet well alive, as some nouns in such suffixes are independently alive and the feminine genitive singular adjective ending is still used. So -erlei is a dispreferrable analysis (an understanding not employed by the language community) and therefore -erlei added to -lei after the former had been created is not an “alternative form” but no real form altogether. And of course and at least Category:German words suffixed with -erlei should be emptied and its content pages put to Category:German words suffixed with -lei. Fay Freak (talk) 02:19, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
- Recategorize and (when Category:German words suffixed with -erlei is empty) Delete (and also the empty cat). May I suggest adding an etymology section to -lei that also explains how this is got to be suffixed to genitive forms of adjectives so that -erlei is a recurring ending? --Lambiam 15:57, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
- "Neither in common understanding [...] analyzed so" isn't correct. -erlei is present in several modern grammars (including Duden and PONS, see the entry for a bit more). So at the very least, -erlei should exist and point to -lei. --2003:DE:373F:4031:3515:67E:BD2C:B01B 19:31, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
The case that -erlei is synchronically a suffix is sound. Sufficient changes have been made to the entry.
RFD-kept —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 13:56, 20 October 2023 (UTC)