Category talk:French invariable nouns

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Category:French invariable nouns

I think that the name of the category is misleading. It seems to be used for nouns that can be either masculine or feminine and that's not what an invariable noun is. {{fr-noun|mf}} might be to blame. —Internoob (Talk|Cont.) 21:29, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

You are right. oasis is invariable (it's a rule in French for -s, -x and -z words), but almost all nouns currently in this category are variable. Lmaltier 21:37, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The category:French invariable nouns seems to be of little interest (most such nouns will be words ending with s, x or z). A category French nouns which can be either masculine or feminine is very interesting, but only if it excludes words such as Abkhaze, i.e. nouns which are used as masculine ou feminine nouns depending on the gender, because these nouns are much too numerous and would hide interesting cases... This category exists on fr.wikt: Noms multigenres en français. Lmaltier 19:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

There's at least a little debate over what (deprecated template usage) invariable means. From example the plural of oasis is oasis, but it does have a plural. But some nouns can never have a plural and it's nothing to do with what letter they end in. Like numbers (cinq yes, cinqs no) names of letters (thêta yes, thêtas no) and given and surnames (in English you could pluralise Emma for example, but never in French). So I prefer to differentiate between a singular and plural with the same spelling and a noun that can't have a plural. I suppose the only couple of examples that come to me in English are sheep and salmon. You can't tell me that there is no plural of sheep, can you? Mglovesfun 22:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm now a sysops, so I've removed the troublesome parameter in {{fr-noun}}. I'm certainly not against renaming the category, finding a good way to fill it up will be much harder than that. Mglovesfun 08:42, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, [[Category:French epicene nouns]] might be ok since we have one for masculine and feminine nouns. Invariable in this contexte is borrowed from the French invariable, meaning that it doesn't accept any inflections. Mglovesfun 08:51, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, in French, "invariable" words are words always written the same way, whatever their use. oasis, toujours, et are good examples. Note that some surnames can be pluralized in French (e.g. les Bourbons, because it's a royal family). Lmaltier 09:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

RFC tag has been removed. --Volants 14:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)