Wiktionary:Entry layout/POS headers

This is a Wiktionary policy, guideline or common practices page. Specifically it is a policy think tank, working to develop a formal policy. Policies – Entries: CFI - EL - NORM - NPOV - QUOTE - REDIR - DELETE. Languages: LT - AXX. Others: BLOCK - BOTS - VOTES.

Introduction

In our jargon POS is shorthand for Part of Speech.

Flexibility

While some of the information below may represent some kind of "standard" form, it is not a set of rigid rules. You may experiment with deviations, but other editors may find those deviations unacceptable, and revert those changes. They have just as much right to do that as you have to make them. Be ready to discuss those changes. If you want your way accepted, you have to make the case for that. Unless there is a good reason for deviating, the standard should be presumed correct. Refusing to discuss, or engaging in edit wars may also affect your credibility in other unrelated areas.

The part of speech header in English

This is basically a level 3 header but may be a level 4 or higher when multiple etymologies or pronunciations are a factor. This header most often shows the part of speech, but is not restricted to "parts of speech" in the traditional sense. The classical parts of speech are:

• verb (speak)
• adverb (quickly)
• adjective (quick)
• noun (speech)
• pronoun (you)
• conjunction (and, but)
• interjection (ouch)
• preposition (on, at)

Additional commonly used grammatical headers are:

• proper noun (Russia)
• article (a, the)
• prefix (de-)
• suffix (-ness)
• combining form (-man)
• idiom (raining cats and dogs)

In addition to these headers, there are other descriptors that identify the usage of the entry, but which are not (strictly speaking) parts of speech:

• acronym (NATO)
• abbreviation (etc.)
• initialism (ABC)
• symbol (&, Ni, ♀)
• letter (k)

Certain oddities of the way in which numbers are used in English has led to the use of:

• cardinal number (one, ten)

Use of Verb form and the like

Use of Verb form has been routinely changed to "Verb" but is being discussed. Use of Noun form and Adjective form for other languages (they are inapplicable to English) is also being discussed.

Use of Ordinal number

The Ordinal number header is not currently used in English, but is used in Latin. It is proposed for use in English as well, but the discussion of merits/disadvantages has not yet begun.

Variations for languages other than English

Entries for terms in other language should follow the standard format as closely as possible regardless of the language of the word.

Some languages do have characteristics that require variation from the standard format. For links to these variations see Wiktionary:Language considerations.

Headers in use

The headers presently in use are described here, divided into four sections:

• Standard POS headers, used for English and all other languages as appropriate
• Standard level 3 headers that are not parts of speech.
• Other headers in use, often for languages other than English.
• Non-standard headers that are observed, but are deprecated and should be cleaned up.

The tables are presented in (some) logical order, from more to less significant. The headers in an entry should always be in (English) alphabetical order, except that non-POS headers describing characters or syllables should come first.

Standard POS headers

Header	Category	Notes
Noun	(language) nouns
Noun	(language) plurals	In languages, such as English, which do not decline nouns other than the plural form.
Noun	(language) noun forms	For languages, such as Russian, with noun declension.
Verb	(language) verbs	Verbs in the infinitive. (Or the standard lemmata form, in e.g. Latin)
Verb	(language) verb forms	Conjugated forms of verbs.
Adjective	(language) adjectives
Adjective	(language) adjective forms	For languages that decline adjectives, e.g. Japanese.
Adverb	(language) adverbs
Pronoun	(language) pronouns
Conjunction	(language) conjunctions
Interjection	(language) interjections
Preposition	(language) prepositions
Proper noun	(language) proper nouns
Article	(language) articles

Standard non-POS level 3 headers

Header	Category	Notes
Acronym
Abbreviation
Initialism
Contraction
Prefix	(language) prefixes
Suffix	(language) suffixes
Symbol
Letter
Idiom	(language) idioms	It appears that English idioms are categorized in (just) Idioms.
Phrase	(language) phrasebook, phrases

Debated POS level 3 headers

Header	Category	Notes
Number	(e.g.) Kurdish numbers	No consensus has been reached on which of these six headers should be used or the category names.
Numeral	(e.g.) German numerals
Cardinal number	(e.g.) fr:Cardinal numbers	Should be Number or Numeral with {{cardinal}} on the definition lines as appropriate. (?)
Ordinal number	(e.g.) fr:Ordinal numbers	Should be Number or Numeral with {{ordinal}} on the definition lines as appropriate. (?)
Cardinal numeral	(e.g.) fr:Cardinal numbers
Ordinal numeral	(e.g.) fr:Ordinal numbers

Other headers in use

These headers are usually language specific. (Some may be moved to standard or deprecated later, or left here as language specific.) Mostly these are not POS, but other level 3 headers used as is Symbol for individual letters, characters, or for CJKV languages, syllables and readings. (Other headers in use may be added to this table regardless of the warning above note to modify this policy page without a vote; the appearance of a header in this table is not strict policy.)

Header	Category	Notes
Personal pronoun		E.g. moai.
Adjective or Adverb		E.g. quite.
Proper adjective		E.g. Dutch.
Determiner		E.g. all, each, little, most, whichever.
Demonstrative determiner	Czech demonstrative determiners
Clitic		E.g. 'm 'd 's 't
Infix		E.g. -bloody-.
Counter	Japanese counters	Count word, used for plural forms. (should also be other languages that use count words)
Kanji	Japanese kanji	Used for the single character entries, gives the readings and compounds.
Kanji reading		Used in hiragana entries that are readings of single kanji.
Hiragana letter	Japanese kana
Katakana letter	Japanese kana
Pinyin	Mandarin pinyin	Used for individual character syllables. Never for words.
Han character	Han characters	Used in Translingual and Vietnamese for single characters
Hanzi		Used in Chinese languages for single characters
Hanja		Used in Korean for single characters
Proverb	(language) proverbs	Used in Chinese languages and one Spanish entry.
Expression		Used variously; should probably be Phrase, Idiom, or Proverb
Adjectival noun	な-Adjectives	Japanese "quasi-adjective", probably should be Adjective.
Quasi-adjective	な-Adjectives	Japanese, probably should be Adjective.
Particle	(language) particles	CJKV languages, and some others; see tok, ne.
Infinitive particle	Icelandic particles	Used once, in að
Possessive adjective	Russian possessive adjectives
Verbal prefix	Russian verbal prefixes	Should be Prefix with verbal on the definition lines as appropriate.
Postposition	Postpositions	Estonian, Hindi, Finnish, Urdu, Turkish ...
Prepositional article		e.g. Spanish del
Phrasal verb		And even Intransitive phrasal verb (go away) or Transitive phrasal verb (churn out).
Participle		Used in some Russian entries.
Interrogative auxiliary verb		e.g. have
Pronominal adverb		e.g. daarna
Adnominal		e.g. in 東
Abstract pronoun		used (only?) in same
Conjunction particle		Latin que and ve only
Root		Used in Hebrew, may be useful in others (Arabic)

Non-standard, deprecated headers

These headers are deprecated, but are in use. Note that deprecated does not necessarily mean they were wrong in the past, only that they should not be used now.

Header	Category	Notes
Noun form		Should be Noun
Verb form		Should be Verb
Adjective form		Should be Adjective
Nominal phrase		Should be Noun, or in some cases Phrase or Idiom
Noun phrase		Should be Noun, or in some cases Phrase or Idiom
Verb phrase		Should be Verb, or in some cases Phrase or Idiom
Transitive verb		Should be Verb with {{transitive}} on the definition lines as appropriate.
Intransitive verb		Should be Verb with {{intransitive}} on the definition lines as appropriate.
Reflexive verb		Should be Verb with {{reflexive}} on the definition lines as appropriate. Used in some French and Spanish verbs.
Cmavo		This is a Lojban word, should probably be Particle
Romaji	Romaji, Japanese romaji	Should be replaced with the POS header(s).
Hiragana	Hiragana, Japanese hiragana	Should be replaced with the POS header(s).
Furigana	Hiragana, Japanese hiragana	(not even a script form) Should be replaced with the POS header(s).
Compounds		Appears in single character CJKV entries as a level 3 heading, probably in most cases because an appropriate level 3 heading (e.g. Kanji or a standard POS) is missing. If used, should be level 4, under the character heading.