Category talk:Serbo-Croatian imperfective forms

RFDO discussion: November 2013–December 2014

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Category:Serbo-Croatian imperfective forms and Category:Serbo-Croatian perfective forms

These seem redundant to Category:Serbo-Croatian imperfective verbs and Category:Serbo-Croatian perfective verbs. Apparently those categories were never created, which is strange as most other Slavic languages do have them. Compare Category:Slovene imperfective verbs and Category:Russian imperfective verbs. Also note that the categories up for deletion are categorised as lexical, meaning they are considered by their meaning/connotation rather than grammar. I think that's a bit strange. —CodeCat 23:05, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I think they should they be moved, rather than deleted and entries formatted accordingly, if it makes it any easier. We should invite Ivan Štambuk (talk • contribs). Category:Imperfective forms by language (and perfective) are only used by Serbo-Croatian, Category:Imperfective verbs by language used by other Slavic languages + Georgian (Ukrainian and Belarusian were modeled from Russian, anyway). Bulgarian and Macedonian verbs could also be categorised by imperfective/perfective, nobody bothered, though. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:26, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Perfective/imperfective distinction is lexical (i.e. meaning-based), but I don't see how is that relevant. Those categories are supposed to contain alternative forms only, i.e. not full-blown entries, but those that have {{perfective form of}} and {{imperfective form of}} as their definition lines. Yes They should also categorize in Category:Serbo-Croatian imperfective verbs and Category:Serbo-Croatian perfective verbs but it's useful to have them as well. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 23:35, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

IMO, it's a grammatical difference, not lexical, even if Serbian or Croatian grammarians haven't describe it yet (I really don't know). There are substantial differences in usage and forms between perfective and imperfective, which are similar but not the same across Slavic languages, e.g. absence of present tense for perfective verbs, e.g. написа́ть (napisátʹ) has no present but писа́ть (pisátʹ) does, future tense for imperfective is made using auxiliary verbs (e.g. бу́ду писа́ть) but perfectives are solid (e.g. напишу́) (Ukrainian has a unique alternative future for imperfective - e.g. писа́тиму).

Admittedly, perfective forms (and sometimes the other way around) often add to the original meaning (start an action, end an action, semelfactive verbs, etc.) and it can be at times difficult to determine what perfective verb is an equivalent of an imperfective one, e.g. цвести́ (cvestí, “to bloom”) has various perfective equivalents, which substantially change the original meaning of "to bloom" but for majority of verbs it's easy. Perfective and imperfective verbs are in separate entries and any lexical difference can ALSO be defined. Both писа́ть (pisátʹ) and написа́ть (napisátʹ) mean "to write", the variations are implied by the aspect itself - "на-" in this case implies completed action. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:43, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

When you say that the difference is grammatical, it means that there are some specific grammatical markers (prefixes, suffixes, ablaut) that ensure that the verb is perfective or imperfective based on its form (present and infinitive stem), regardless of its meaning. Since there are both perfective and imperfective verbs belonging to the same inflectional class in Russian, it is the meaning which dictates whether the verb is perfective or imperfective, and which possible slots in the entire hypothetical paradigm "make sense". E.g. you cannot guess that цвес-ти/цвет- is "inherently" imperfective, whereas сес-ть/ся́д- is "inherenty" perfective, on the basis of their spelling. In SC in some verbs the only difference is tone (e.g. poglédati impf. vs. pògledati pf. - the entire paradigm is identical, the only difference is accent).

Regarding the soft-redirection: it's for pragmatic reasons. SC has the problem of two scripts, Ijekavian/Ekavian pairs, and in the worst cases you get 6-8 entries which should then duplicate all of the definitions, usage samples....keeping them in sync is painful and time-wasting for editors, and probably confusing to readers. Note that only the verbs where there is no difference in meaning other than perfectiveness/imperfectiveness of action are redirected this way, All forms built through prefixation such as pisati - napisati are treated as separate entries with different definitions because all of those prefixes such as na- can create several subtle variations in meaning of the base verb. Same goes semantically marked suffixation (e.g. creating pejorative or diminutive verbs) or generally changing the meaning (e.g. iterative forms built through various suffixes) - they all have separate entries. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 01:22, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Ivan here. --WikiTiki89 23:56, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Can you elaborate, please? Does that mean that all Russian/Polish/Czech, etc. verbs are formatted/categorised incorrectly, in your opinion or one of the forms doesn't need definitions? --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:07, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

The way I understood it is that Ivan is not saying that Category:Serbo-Croatian imperfective verbs and Category:Serbo-Croatian perfective verbs are wrong and Category:Serbo-Croatian imperfective forms and Category:Serbo-Croatian perfective forms are right. He is saying that they mean two different things and therefore should be created and kept, respectively. --WikiTiki89 02:36, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I see. Do we really need both categories, though? --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:32, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Currently SC verbs are not categorized by perfectiveness, and {{sh-verb}} has no parameter for it that would enable autosort. My reasoning behind the categorization introduced by {{perfective form of}} and {{imperfective form of}} was that all soft-redirect templates ({{alternative form of}}, {{abbreviation of}}, {{diminutive of}} etc.) autocategorize on the basis of their function. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:41, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Not all of them do. {{inflection of}} and {{conjugation of}} don't, nor do {{feminine of}} or {{definite of}}. —CodeCat 21:55, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

But those are all for inflected forms. Entries redirected by {{perfective form of}} and {{imperfective form of}} are lemma entries, and only definition lines are missing. Soft-redirected lemmas always categorize according to the criteria of redirection. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 22:33, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Even so, is it useful to have these categories in preference to Category:Serbo-Croatian imperfective verbs and the like? In the current categorisation, at most half of all verbs will be appropriately categorised for perfective/imperfective, which doesn't seem useful at all. —CodeCat 03:36, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I never said it wouldn't. Reread my answers above. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:53, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to reiterate my vote to delete these categories. I really don't understand why they're needed. From what I've understood, Ivan wants them to contain, specifically, all imperfective or perfective verbs that are the less-common of each pair of imperfective and perfective verbs. He hasn't yet expressed any intention to create a category for the more-common of each pair, nor a category for all imperfective and one for all perfective verbs. So it seems like this is more a case of categorising for the sake of categorising, without any real purpose in mind. If we have both Category:Serbo-Croatian imperfective verbs and Category:Serbo-Croatian imperfective forms side by side, what is the value of the latter over the former? What use does it add, even if the contents are different? Not to mention the names are confusingly similar, and "imperfective forms" doesn't do much to clarify the real purpose (whatever it is). —CodeCat 22:07, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The more common form is used as a lemma, the less common as a redirect. They mean exactly the same thing, apart from being modified for perfectiveness. There is no need to categorize the unmarked form (the more common one). It is done for practical purposes, to reduce content duplication due to SC being written in two scripts, and often having Ijekavian/Ekavian pairs. As I've expressed above, I have nothing against creating the category of all perfective or imperfective verbs - though I find it less useful. It's exactly one of those categories for the sake of categorizing that you mention. (Like categorizing nouns by gender, verbal meanings by transitivity and so on). The value of the latter is that it would contain only verbs who have perfective base lemma. All alternative forms lemmas for all language categorize into their own special categories so I don't see why these shouldn't as well. The usage criterion is used by paper dictionaries and not made up by me - that's how in most of the cases user lands on an entry that has definition lines (as opposed to our American/British spellings which soft-redirect randomly). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:19, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

{{look}}

I am unable to assess consensus here. Is there an agreement to delete? — Keφr 09:24, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

• RFDO kept: no consensus for deletion after more than a year. The main opposer is Ivan Štambuk, while WikiTiki89 seems to agree with him; this would need 4 supporters for there to be a supermajority for deletion, and I do not see these. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:46, 14 December 2014 (UTC)