Talk:Illinois

RFV discussion: September 2015–February 2016

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Illinois

Specifically: Adj. Of or relating to the Miami-Illinois language. A noun form "the Miami-Illinois language" I wouldn't have batted an eye at, but stuff like this is rarely if ever adjectives.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:46, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

We recently discussed the issue of whether language names are also adjectives at Wiktionary:Information desk/2015/August#Modern Greek & PoS, coming (as is usual around this place) to no conclusion whatsoever. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:02, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Okay, but there is no entry saying this is a language name. We just have it listed as an adjective.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:11, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Cited, except that we face the issue (mentioned above) of deciding whether the citations are using an adjective or the sense should be relabelled a proper noun.

• 1917, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, page 91:

  Another interesting Illinois word is the name of the celebrated chief, which the French made Chachagouache.

• 2004, Sandy Nestor, Indian Placenames in America, volume 1, page 61:

  PISTAKEE LAKE (Lake) Part of the Chain of Lakes, Pistakee is an Illinois word taken from pestekouy, meaning "buffalo"[.]

• 2005, Jennifer Lee, The Illinois Confederacy of Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, ..., page 5:

  These words are believed to have come from the Illinois word "irenweewa," which meant "he speaks in the ordinary way."

• 2013, Brett Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries, page 56:

  Another Illinois word describing physical detention, kikiȣnakiȣi, meant “slave” in the seventeenth century, but in modern usage the root has softened into a meaning that suggests being detained, held up, or merely running late.

- -sche (discuss) 20:47, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

RFV-passed. - -sche (discuss) 00:47, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Really? I thought it was largely a settled matter: For a word that is commonly used as a noun, to be considered also an adjective is must have at least one trait of an adjective:

It must be comparable or gradable

It must be used in a predicate (doesn't usually generate clear evidence to differentiate a noun from an adjective)

It must have a sense not present in the noun.

None of the citations seem like anything that couldn't be said to be attributive use of the noun. Some have advanced arguments that would say that, if solely adjectival use preceded clearly nominal use of the word, it retains its identify as an adjective. No evidence of that kind has been introduced. DCDuring TALK 02:40, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for challenging the closure. (That wasn't sarcasm.) To some extent I treated this as an RFV of the sense (i.e., can "Illinois" refer to the language?), not the part of speech, since at the time of the RFV there was only one line in the entry (the RFVed line) which said that "Illinois" referred to a language. Also, in the Tea Room discussion of Sanskrit linked above, WikiTiki provides some arguments which I considered persuasive that a language name isn't a noun in citations like the ones above. For one, it doesn't seem possible to replace it with a synonymous noun or noun phrase. I am less sure of some of that argument now that I consider them again. One can say "the word is Sanskrit / Illinois / etc", but not (in the same sense) "the word is the Sanskrit language", and arguably not "the word is Sanskrit language" (but I now realize one can use the attributive noun phrase "the word is Sanskrit-language"). It also doesn't seem to be possible to recast the sentence in a way that it could be recast if "Illinois" were a noun (in the sentence). "The phenobarbital pile" (using a noun attributively) can be recast as "the pile is made of phenobarbital" (using the noun 'nounally'), but "the English / Sanskrit / Illinois word" doesn't seem to be recastable as "the word is made of English", can it? (This is not to say that "English / Sanskrit / Illinois" cannot be nouns: they can, in other contexts.) I don't object to deleting the adjective section in favour of the proper noun. - -sche (discuss) 20:10, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

I've merged the adjective section into the noun section and placed the citations under the latter. - -sche (discuss) 17:54, 13 February 2016 (UTC)