Template talk:nl-adj-entry-infl

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Deletion debate[edit]

The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.


While I suppose it's better than nothing, it doesn't say how the entry is inflected. I would be a bit disappointed if I looked up (deprecated template usage) taken and it said "Inflected form of take." Can't Mewbot now do these, and actually define them? BTW the initial complaint I found about these was in [[Category:Dutch words needing attention]] where and IP but {{attention|nl|inflected how?}}, which I wholly agree with. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:33, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Every Dutch adjective comes in a standard form and an "inflected form" (without counting comparatives and superlatives, which could also be considered "inflected", I suppose, but they can also be considered separate words altogether.) The only exception is if the adjective has no inflected form, which is equivalent to saying that the standard and inflected forms are the same.   AugPi 23:39, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For instance, Kroatische, what does it mean? Is it plural, feminine, neuter, comparative, superlative? I dunno, it doesn't say. If anything Kroatisch needs a declension. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:40, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Also it links to Appendix:Dutch parts of speech#Adjectives, which doesn't mention the matter. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:45, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently these are attributive forms, although I don't know what that means, as it's not in the appendix. So these are in fact attributive forms, which is more specific than inflected forms (but... what are they?). Mglovesfun (talk) 23:50, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Adjectives can be used in either of two ways: (1) predicatively and (2) attributively. If I say "This car is red," then the adjective "red" is being used predicatively, because it is the predicate. If I say "I drove the red car yesterday" then "red" is being used attributively, because "red" is directly modifying "car." In other words, if an adjective directly modifies a noun, then it is being used attributively, but if an adjective is the predicate of a sentence, then it is being used predicatively. In English, adjectives have no inflection, so the "attributive form" and "predicative form" of an adjective are one and the same, but in Dutch they are usually different.   AugPi 01:24, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You don't know any Dutch: why are you messing with this?   AugPi 23:51, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's exactly my point. People who don't know what the word means what to know. This template tells them nothing. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:53, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I know what jouassions means, doesn't mean I should delete the content and replace it with inflected form of jouer. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:54, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mglovesfun, I think you'd find it more productive to ask about the specific issue you have, which is, I think: Why does this template use "inflected form of" instead of "X form of" like all the other templates?. Conrad.Irwin 23:56, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well I have, or else how would you know what my issue is? Mglovesfun (talk) 23:58, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I managed to guess what your issue is despite you apparently asking "Please can we delete this template" and "I don't know what it means" and "Why shouldn't I change the definition of jouassions". Asking directly would have saved me time, and patience. Conrad.Irwin 00:01, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Then the template might need to be changed, or at worst moved, but not deleted. Perhaps instead of "inflected form of" it could say "common singular attributive, definite neuter singular attributive, or plural attributive inflection of", would that be clearer?   AugPi 00:07, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Kroatische, what does it mean?" Mglovesfun ..
If you are translating from Dutch to English, the answer is: it means exactly the same thing as Kroatisch, i.e. it means "Croatian". The difference between Kroatisch and Kroatische only comes up if you are translating from English to Dutch, in which case the difference is purely grammatical.   AugPi 01:28, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"If anything Kroatisch needs a declension. " Mglovesfun ..
Kroatisch now has a declension table. In fact, all or nearly all Dutch adjectives need a declension table, if only to link to the inflected form.   AugPi 03:52, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What did you find ambiguous about "it doesn't say how the entry is inflected", or did you skip that bit completely? Mglovesfun (talk) 00:02, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There's only one "inflected form" for Dutch adjectives.   AugPi 00:15, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This issue was already discussed previously: see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary_talk:About_Dutch#.22inflected_form_of.22   AugPi 01:19, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There I said: <<Anyway, see the article geel#Dutch: the word "inflected" in the inflection line now links to Appendix:Dutch_parts_of_speech#Adjectives and this seems IMHO a more satisfactory explanation than adding "plural or non-neuter or definite, attributive form of" in the inflection line, which would be cumbersome. —AugPi>> It is easier to chunk a long and/or complicated phrase which occurs over and over again, such as "common singular attributive, definite neuter singular attributive, or plural attributive inflection of", into a simpler/shorter phrase such as "inflected form of" (see w:Chunking_(psychology) , w:Hebbian learning) which is linked to Appendix:Dutch_parts_of_speech#Adjectives. Sometimes anonymous IP's might complain about not knowing what an article means when it says that word X is "the past participle" or, say, the "gerund" of verb K. There's not much we do about that, except provide a hyperlink to past participle, which then provides a hyperlink to the corresponding Wikipedia article w:past participle. If a reader looks up a conjugated form of a Spanish verb and is told it is the "past imperfect tense," then it is really up to the reader to either (1) know (due to, say, some previous knowledge of Spanish), or (2) do his/her homework and find out what the imperfect tense means. By the way, looking up http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/geel, you'll see a table analogous to our now-defunct table {{nl-adj-table}}, whose first two rows are "onverbogen" and "verbogen" which translate to English as "uninflected" and "inflected"... so to say that Kroatisch is uninflected (onverbogen) and Kroatische is inflected (verbogen) is pretty much standard practice in Dutch grammar. "'Tis a gift to keep it simple" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amcGIfMu0bw&feature=related   AugPi 02:55, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
After having created the articles verbogene and onverbogene, it becomes clear (in light of this discussion) that there is a problem: the link to Appendix:Dutch_parts_of_speech#Adjectives should be from "Inflected form", not just from "Inflected", because Appendix:Dutch_parts_of_speech#Adjectives is defining a specialized meaning for the phrase "inflected form", not for the word "inflected". But this is a problem not with {{nl-adj-entry-infl}}, but with {{nl-adj-form}} which is contained by {{nl-adj-entry-infl}}'s code. So I'll have to work to correct that...   AugPi 03:14, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So, in effect, you are targeting the wrong template for deletion: the one you really want to delete (or maybe just change, hopefully) is {{nl-adj-form}}. But you can't delete that, because it is also being used for partitive forms of adjectives. So I really do think that this is a Keep.   AugPi 03:18, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
..Also it links to Appendix:Dutch parts of speech#Adjectives, which doesn't mention the matter. Mglovesfun ..
Really?? Have you even read it? It explains in detail when the inflected form is used and when not... But then you just skip reading it and create an unnecessary fuss instead.... Jcwf 00:24, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently writing in paragraphs 50 words log is a bit annoying, so I'll break it up a bit.
  1. Doesn't say how the adjectives are inflected, which is annoying for the reader
  2. Sort of thing that could be done bt Mewbot, which didn't exist until recently
  3. Appendix:Dutch parts of speech doesn't explain 'in detail', far from it in fact. I got all my information from researching it myself, which defeats the object. Unfortunately Jcwf doesn't speak very good English so having him as the primary author of it doesn't help much

On reflection keep and improve per AugPi. Sorry about the confusion, I just reacted as a Wiktionary reader - sometimes I think the most ignored person on Wiktionary is the reader, we set things up to be easy for editors rather than for readers. If I'm right, it's a bit like traine#French, where one written form represents several inflected forms. IMO it would be good to go into individual inflected forms, even if there are ten of them. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:51, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as it is. The term 'inflected' is just as clear to anyone who understands Dutch grammar, as 'nominative singular neuter' is to someone who knows Latin. Just as we don't elaborate on what 'nominative singular neuter' means (even though there would be plenty of readers who have no clue), we should not need to elaborate on what 'inflected' means within the form-of entries themselves. The entries on wiktionary are all made for people who understand the grammar of the language in question, or at the very least are willing to go out of their way to understand. An appendix is a more appropriate place to explain the intricacies of grammar to readers unfamiliar with them (and the form-of template for Dutch adjectives links to that appendix). —CodeCat 09:39, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If there is only a single inflected form for Dutch adjectives, then "inflected form of" seems sufficient, especially when it the same form always has the same multiple grammatical meanings. When there is more information to be given, it seems that we give it (e.g. honden, hondje) Additionally, all our Dutch editors seem to be happy with it as is, so Keep. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 10:59, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
kept. It may even be the case that we can find citations that use this precise sense of "inflected". Conrad.Irwin 11:00, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I really do not think that Mglovesfun is "reacting as a Wiktionary reader". After having lived in anglophone countries since '96 I do presume that my English is quite a bit better than his Dutch. Mglovesfun acts more like a Wikipedia troll and no, Wiktionary has no need for such people. The whole request for deletion page is littered with his obstruction. Isn't it time to draw conclusions from this and ban him?

Jcwf 16:37, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, most users see him as a valued member of this community, and while I think that he probably should leave this discussion to people who speak Dutch fairly well, he isn't doing anything outside of the boundaries of any policy. Therefore, I would have to say that this accusation is unfounded. Razorflame 16:40, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
He might get emotional sometimes, but content-wise he's a much better editor than you are. I don't think you're in any place to say it's unfortunate that we see him as a valued editor, whether we like him or not :p — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein17:47, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Think what a pleasant place this would be if we banned everyone who had difficulty communicating :). Conrad.Irwin 18:56, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but we'd be the worst dictionary in the world... after urban dictionary. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein13:51, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wiki discussion pages are as slow as physically possible for communicating. If all of us were in a room, we could sort this out in ten minutes, not two days. Re Codecat that says to me "if you're learning Dutch, avoid Wiktionary, we're not interested in helping you". Re jcwf, I don't edit the Dutch Wiktionary. The problem is you nominate entries for deletion, and nobody, with the possible exception of yourself, knows why. Perhaps it's not your English that lets you down, it's your ignorance of Wiktionary policy and unwillingness to even try to read it. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:05, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
When someone nominates a template for deletion, can't we talk about the template, not the nominator? Stuff saying 'don't get involved in Dutch entries' should go on my talk page, whilst stuff defending the templates (which there isn't much of here) should go here. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:10, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Updating[edit]

Per deletion debate, this should show how the entries are inflected. Otherwise for someone with limited knowledge of Dutch won't know what it means. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:52, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think I was a bit unclear. We shouldn't be discouraging people who don't speak Dutch, or are just learning from reading Wiktionary entries. That applies to all languages, if people don't know what a supine is, that means that {{la-verb}} should link directly there to help people. And no, this doesn't (or didn't at the time) appear in the appendix actually saying what it means.
Separate issue. Please discuss the template! Debating whether I should have nominated has no value! People who don't speak a language have valuable input as 'neutrals', and templates are about Wiktionary structure, not just about languages. Furthermore it's the template that might be deleted, not my account! Note that Codecat and Opieratein were the only two to actually explain what the template does, will AugPi and Jcwf didn't. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:54, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]