Wiktionary:Compounds
This page covers Wiktionary treatment of compounds, including policy discussion. For a general treatment, many academic sources, and examples, see Appendix:Compounds.
Templates[edit]
Compounds are categorized using {{af}}, {{compound}} and similar templates, used in etymologies. {{af}} determines whether the item is a compound based on how many of its parameters are not affixes. {{af}} can be used to mark non-compounds by passing it "nocat=y" parameter. See the template documentation for more options on how to classify compounds.
Categories[edit]
Categories for compounds are found in Category:Compound terms by language, including Category:English compound terms. A further subcategorization is available, including Category:English compound adjectives, Category:English dvandva compounds and more. To achieve categorization, use #Templates.
Multi-word phrases vs. compounds[edit]
In some languages, compounds are hard to distinguish from non-compound phrases, especially in English, but also in Chinese and some Romance languages. Linguists do not always agree on what a compound is, even within a single language. For English, there is literature on the subject spanning a century. See Appendix:Compounds for references.
Inclusion of space-containing phrases into the compound category is controversial and an unresolved problem. For languages that tend to write compounds without spaces, the categories tend to be limited to compounds without spaces. The emphasis is on "tend", and there is not yet an approved policy concerning the issue.
The following definitions were proposed:
- (1) A word composed of multiple stems.
- (2) A term composed of multiple stems.
- (3) A non-clause term composed of multiple stems.
Definition (1) matches dictionaries and linguistic sources; however, the notion of "word" is one of "morphological word", not "orthographic word". Thus, high school and White House are compounds per sources, but "white house" is a phrase.
Definitions (2) and (3) are not found in sources. Depending on what one means by "term", they would cover the likes of rain cats and dogs and Tom, Dick and Harry, which are non-compounds by any traditional analysis.
WT:ETY says, "Conversely, for compounds – a single word without spaces or hyphens, such as endgame – a brief etymology section using {{compound}} is useful, as wikilinking the components in the headline of the entry does not distinguish the components (it would just appear to be a single clickable link)." Thus, it historically required compounds to be solid compounds. Whether one should take that to be a policy, a guideline or none of it is open to debate.
Option: exclude open compounds[edit]
One option would be to exclude open (space containing) compounds from compound categories. The problem with them is that, for English, there are no easy tests to tell whether a space-containing word sequence is a compound; see the sources in Appendix:Compounds. As a result, it will be hard to achieve consistent and linguistically sound categorization, given how anyone can edit and how hard it is going to be to provide easy-to-administer criteria or tests. This option is currently chosen in WT:ETY.
Option: create separate categories for closed, hyphenated and open compounds[edit]
Another option is to create separate categories for closed, hyphenated and open compounds. As a result, someone who is interested in closed compounds only would be able to see them. The understanding would be that the content of the open compound categories is generally unreliable.
Sum of parts[edit]
Inclusion of sum-of-parts German solid compounds is disliked by some but deletion discussions repeatedly resulted in keeping them, as per multiple Beer parlour discussions[1][2][3] and as per Talk:Zirkusschule, Talk:Sportlerherz, and Talk:neuntausendneunhundertneunundneunzig.
Discussions[edit]
Discussions, possibly incomplete:
- Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2010/April § Etymologies - invitations for, compounds, hyphenated compounds, compounds containing spaces vs. phrases, etc.
- Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2019/April § Classical compounds in Category:English words by prefix and Category:English words by suffix
- Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2021/September § English compounds containing spaces?
- Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2022/October § Removing spaced phrases from German compounds: no open compounds in German