Talk:sorta

RFD discussion

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Noun (???) meaning "sort of". The citation is clearly not for a noun. In fact should we just speedy delete this? Mglovesfun (talk) 21:17, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's a noun followed by a preposition. It's not any POS or even a syntactic constituent. I suppose we could call it a contraction. —Angr 21:25, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

It has to be attestable, but it's not a noun, just a contraction like Angr said. —CodeCat 21:27, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Why not just call it a phrase, even though it isn't one, and "define" it using {{eye dialect}} of [[sort]] [[of]]? We have plenty of items in Category:English non-constituents. Widespread use. It also doesn't fit our definition of a contraction. DCDuring TALK 21:31, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, the use that we're calling an adverb is widespread. I'm not sure how widespread the use we're calling a noun is. And why doesn't it fit the definition of a contraction? —Angr 23:37, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

The last time I looked our definition included the word apostrophe, which is certainly the 'folk' understanding of the term among English speakers. Basic grammar books continue to present contractions with this language. Our use of the Contraction header need not be bound by this, but, at the very least, we need to add an appropriate linguistic sense to [[contraction]] and the sense we use at WT:Glossary, unless we don't want to communicate with normal human users.

You may be right about it not being "widespread", but it would certainly be no great effort to cite the non-adverbial use properly, as this Google Books search for "sorta thing" suggests. DCDuring TALK 00:02, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, we call German im a contraction, and it doesn't have an apostrophe. WT:Glossary doesn't define "contraction" at all, but Appendix:Glossary does and also mentions the apostrophe. —Angr 00:25, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I regularly confuse the two glossaries. At least the term is in the right glossary. I think we can just "especially" the apostrophe in both our definitions. That should keep us and our users on the same page. DCDuring TALK 01:12, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Even with an "especially", we also have to add an "in English" since other languages do not necessarily put apostrophes in their contractions. —Angr 20:10, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

• Fix and keep: There's no argument for deletion here; no evidence that the phrase is SOP or non-attestable or any other reason. All we know is that it ain't a noun. So change it to something else Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 19:59, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
• Keep it as an adjective. Contraction is not a part of speech but an etymology. See also helluva. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 17:18, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

It does seem to qualify nouns. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:52, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

So what would witcher and yabbut be? There is no absolute necessity that our L3 headings be limited to a scheme of grammatical categories that would satisfy a linguist, let alone a traditional grammarian. We put things under L3 "Phrase" header that are not phrases. See Category:English non-constituents for other syntactically problematic entries. DCDuring TALK 18:09, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Witcher is an adverb like together (or the Spanish contigo), and yabbut is a conjunction like but. There are many words that are contractions etymologically, but if they are fixed enough, they should be classified in an appropriate part of speech. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:45, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

What are dincha and dontcha? Equinox ◑ 00:48, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I would categorize them as auxiliaries just like didn't and don't. The weakening of a postposed pronoun is a common phenomenon and it may become a personal ending eventually. Think about another, which is clearly an + other, but that is just an etymology that doesn’t affect the classification. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 02:08, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

cf kinda - has adverb and noun defs. --BiblbroX дискашн 19:56, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I like to think that I'm smarter now than when I added the noun PoS. DCDuring TALK 21:45, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to point any fingers - I didn't know who put that noun def - I just wanted to illustrate similar thinking as I thought it may be useful. Actually nouny meanings seemed far-fetched to me rigth from the start but now I am a little more convinced that I can voice my opinion.--BiblbroX дискашн 23:02, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I find it kinda funny. I'd always thought that these non-constituent terms needed more attention, which is why I created Category:English non-constituents. I now think that many of them should be under the Contraction header, the Phrase header, or possibly the Preposition header (for so-called phrasal prepositions). But there are some that can be analyzed as if they were an ordinary part of speech, like kinda#Adverb. DCDuring TALK 23:23, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

{{look}}

Keep. Improve as needed. What do you think of the entry as it stands now? - -sche (discuss) 22:33, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Keep fershur. "Contraction" sense needs a usage example. I added one, but maybe someone can come up with additional ones or a replacement. DCDuring TALK 23:20, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Keep and change the definition at sort of to "folk etymology of sorta". --129.125.102.126 23:24, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Kept. - -sche (discuss) 23:55, 17 October 2012 (UTC)