Talk:sự hy sinh

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Non-idiomatic Vietnamese words

Latest comment: 10 years ago31 comments6 people in discussion

The following pages contain classifiers, which serve the same grammatical function as English articles (though more descriptive). I think they should be deleted because they are non-idiomatic (the forms given in parentheses should not be deleted):

I don't think Wiktionary should have articles like "cái võng", which means "a hammock" (as opposed to "võng", which means "hammock"). Also, "sự giải quyết" is considered a word with a classifier in front, not a word per se. (This means there will never be a Vietnamese entry with the definition "decision".) I'm less sure about deleting the tree (cây) and fruit (quả, trái) entries, because we do have entries like "apple tree". Note that not all entries named with classifiers are problematic: "quả đất" would be perfectly fine, because it means "Earth", not "ball of dirt".

– Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 10:29, 3 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Delete those that seem problematic. I'm curious about nouns with the nominaliser "sự", though, such as sự hy sinh, sự giải quyết. Do you always treat them as non-lemma forms? What about sự kiện vs kiện? Is that a different case? We could use [[giải quyết]] as a lemma for "to decide" but [[sự giải quyết]] is a translation for "decision". So a valid translation for "decision" would be sự giải quyết (vi) where "sự giải quyết" is displayed but linked to the verb "giải quyết". Perhaps an approach for Japanese -suru verbs can be taken, e.g. 勉強 has both noun and verb sections. Thus, nouns with "sự" could all be linked to verbs/adjectives without them. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 13:11, 3 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

What helps in determining whether or not a word fits the idiomaticity requirement of CFI is the prevalence of the expression in general use as well as the semantic weight each individual expression can carry. "frog" has as much semantic equivalence as "the frog" for example, and even when the latter is more grammatically correct and more commonly used, most people are apt to understand just the former by itself as well. Does the classifier carry any semantic weight with it? Your example quả đất is a good starting point, as it indicates that when the literal translation "ball of dirt" is extended to its logical conclusion, it becomes "Earth" in its totality. The initial classifier quả changes the meaning slightly yet significantly. I think we would have to make similar considerations, such as sự giải quyết ("the act of deciding" = "decision") for example. Does "decision" have anything semantically new that is not provided by "the act of deciding"? As for precedent, I think it's great in discouraging future redundancies such as "muỗi" and "con muỗi"; I don't think there should be equivalent entries at "mosquito" and "the mosquito" for example. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 22:05, 3 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I don't know if you like the idea but I suggest to have sự-nouns in the entries without them. E.g. see this revision of hy sinh where I added a noun section (and other things) - {{vi-noun|head=[[sự]] [[hy]] [[sinh]]}}. To an English speaker "sự hy sinh" is a noun meaning "sacrifice", even if the lemma form is "hy sinh". "sự hy sinh" could be formatted as an "Alternative form of hy sinh" or a "sự-noun form (or similar) of hy sinh" if a template is created. I have created Category:Vietnamese sự-nouns, which now contains just one entry - "hy sinh" but perhaps "sự hy sinh" should be there instead? Not sure if redirect is the best option, users might want to know what this "sự" means and why we have two forms - "hy sinh" and "sự hy sinh".

With the living creatures too, a Vietnamese translation of "toad" is "con cóc". It seems both "cóc" and "con cóc" mean the same thing - "a toad". Many dictionaries use "con cóc" to translate "toad" even if "con" can be dropped. Not sure if "toad" and "the toad" is a good analogy here or even Mandarin or Japanese measure words (counters or classifiers). E.g. Mandarin 蟾蜍 (chánchú) is never used in dictionaries as 只蟾蜍 (zhī chánchú) (classifier + noun). Vietnamese "con" must have a much wider usage. Perhaps another category for "con-" nouns should be created. Sorry, my knowledge of the Vietnamese grammar is very basic but I'm thinking from the users' point of view. Using "cls=con" in Vietnamese noun entries is not a bad idea but perhaps con-nouns should also exist? --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:36, 4 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

As I have never used the word sự in regular Vietnamese I cannot speak to that, but what I can say is that the word con and the like are really semantically empty categories, save for a few specific situations. Why do we omit particles a/an/the from our entries even though they are so commonly and widely used? We have seen and heard many ESL learners even omit these words when they try to speak English, and their utterances remain perfectly understandable. It is because these particles are semantically empty categories, they are only used as specifiers in number and specificity. If you were to omit the word the from your paragraph above, it is still semantically parsable even as it is grammatically incorrect. Similarly, a Vietnamese speaker would simply tell you that omitting the classifiers is grammatically incorrect, but they'd still be able to understand what you were trying to say (save for a few ambiguous homonyms where classifiers are expected, but again homonyms exist in English too, and besides those may warrant separate entries). The majority of these are rather silly and redundant entries for a dictionary to have, like nhím and con nhím, duplicating the entire contents of one onto the other. This extra maintenance, we do not need, it provides more work for us should something change, and it takes up empty space. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 17:27, 4 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I cannot fully agree with you at the moment. See my section about sách below. nhím is used with con but not all nouns seem to behave the same way. Could you explain, e.g. why dictionaries list living creatures with "con"? Why do they show "con nhím", not simply "nhím" for porcupine?

With nouns with classifiers I may agree to delete the terms but the corresponding lemmas should have a "cls=" parameter. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 12:24, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I certainly agree that we want to help readers find out how to turn "hy sinh" into a noun, but calling "hy sinh" a noun is misleading. It really is a verb. The "sự" is understood if you try to use "hy sinh" like a noun; indeed, "sự" is very rare in spoken Vietnamese, only used to disambiguate e.g. "sự chết" (death) from "cái chết" (a death). Why not simply treat "sự hy sinh" as a usage example? We can definitely have Category:Vietnamese con nouns and the like for actual nouns, but I would expect Category:Vietnamese verbs classified by sự rather than Category:Vietnamese sự-nouns. If necessary, I can add a cls parameter to {{vi-verb}} that doesn't display the classifier but instead adds the entry to a "classified by" category.

"Con cóc" can be the Vietnamese translation of "toad" just as "hy sinh" would be translated as "to sacrifice" rather than just "sacrifice". That is, I have no problem with mentioning the classifiers in translation sections, but they don't usually warrant separate entries. And I think the classifier should be linked separately, if at all.

We should make an exception for Sino-Vietnamese terms like "sự kiện" (事件). As far as Vietnamese is concerned, "sự" and "kiện" are just syllables.

One point I neglected to make is that "cây táo" (apple tree) would probably be acceptable, because "táo" on its own refers to the fruit, as in English. "Cây" can still be omitted (e.g., "trồng táo" to grow apple trees, not just the apples). In contrast, "bạch dương" (poplar) on its own refers to the tree, so "cây bạch dương" is redundant.

– Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 09:21, 4 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Well, you yourself suggested to delete the "sự" nouns. I was just thinking of a way to allow such entries.

I want you to consider the Japanese analogy again, where the situation is the same but verbs and nouns swap their placec with Vitenamese. 勉強 (benkyō, "studying, studies") is a noun and a verbal noun. To form a verb, you need to add する (suru, "to do") to the end. Rather than having a separate entry for "勉強する", which means "to study". The entry for 勉強 contains a verb section, which displays 勉強する in the header. I've done the same thing for "sự hy sinh" (only it's a noun made from a verb, the reverse from Japanese), which is in the verb entry "hy sinh" but now has a noun section and displays "sự hy sinh" in the header. This resolves the lemma problem, IMO. It remains to be discussed whether "sự hy sinh" gets a special entry or a hard/soft redirect to the lemma form "hy sinh". Re: but calling "hy sinh" a noun is misleading. If you examine the "hy sinh" entry carefully, you will see that it's not "hy sinh" but "sự hy sinh", which is a noun. If they don't warrant a separate entry, they can be turned to redirects but the information should be saved into separate sections in the lemma entries. Cases like "sự kiện" may get separate entries, no problem with that. Other words like "con cóc" can be treated similarly but there shouldn't be any information loss for users.

I have renamed the category as suggested -Category:Vietnamese verbs classified by sự. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 10:47, 4 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I don't think an entire section is necessary for "sự hy sinh" in hy sinh; a usage example is enough. See "cạnh tranh", which gives both "sự cạnh tranh" and "tính cạnh tranh" as examples. I don't think there would be any information loss this way. (There would be two noun sections under your proposal.) – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 05:18, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Delete. sự kiện is fundamentally different from "sự hy sinh". Wyang (talk) 13:04, 4 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Keep, since I find the stated reason for deletion implausible: "The following pages contain classifiers, which serve the same grammatical function as English articles ...". The claim that the leading syllables serve the same grammatical function as English articles is hard to believe: "cây" is also a noun meaning tree, "quả" is also a noun meaning fruit and "trái" is also a noun meaning fruit. Admittedly, these are also entered in Wiktionary with the part of speech of "classifier". W:Vietnamese_grammar#Classifier_position contains no inline references, so its accuracy is hard to verify. On another note, the spaces seem to indicate separation of syllables rather than words; thus, to delete sự hy sinh ("sacrifice", noun) as sum of parts (sự "nominaliser particle" + hy sinh "to sacrifice") may be a bit like deleting "crucifying" as a sum of parts (crucify + ing). --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:45, 4 January 2014 (UTC)Reply
Vietnamese classifiers can carry as much meaning as "set" in "a set of underwear" but grammatically function the same way as "a" in "a shoe". That is, you can usually delete "sự" when "hy sinh" is used where a noun would go, and you can delete "cây" where there is no possibility of mistaking the tree for the fruit. I purposely left alone any "cây" entry for fruit trees, where there would be such an ambiguity ("apple tree" meets CFI and so would "cây táo").
Vietnamese is an analytical languge, unlike English, so not all analogies work. Spaces do separate all syllables, but those syllables are each words in their own right, except in onomatopoeia, reduplication, or Sino-Vietnamese borrowings. "Sự hy sinh" can be viewed as two words: whereas "ing" has no meaning on its own in English, "sự" is a noun in isolation. ("Hy sinh" is a Sino-Vietnamese borrowing, so "hy" has no meaning on its own.)
I'll improve Wikipedia's discussion of classifiers shortly, but in the meantime, there's a wealth of academic research online about them, for example: [1][2]. [3] starts out with a good overview. For something more accessible, see this grammar chapter and this one by Laurence Thompson. Finally, it may be helpful to see how reputable translationaries deal with this issue.
– Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 23:50, 4 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

These things called Vietnamese classifiers do not seem to be very similar to English articles. You say they serve the same grammatical function, but I am rather unclear about what you mean by that. I can add "a" or "the" to almost any English noun; from what I have understood, you cannot freely combine any classifier with any noun or verb; furthermore, an addition of "a" vs. "the" indicates definiteness or determinacy, while that is not what the classifiers do. The classifiers seem to be similar to -ing, -ion, -ness, -ize, -er, -or suffixes and to "tree" and "fruit" in "apple tree" and "apple fruit". An almost perfect regularity in application of classifiers--if there is one--may make it customary for Vietnamese-English dictionaries to omit combinations that include the classifiers, but it is less clear that this fits the overall approach of English Wiktionary, which even includes inflected forms as separate entries, and which has "coolness" as a separate entry, unlike Merriam-Webster online, which only has a dedicated entry for "cool". --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:09, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply
I think that a large part of this problem is that you are too fixated on interpreting these to be like prefixes or suffixes when the comparison to English "-ing", "-ness", etc is pretty inadequate on its own. And besides, muỗi is redundant to con muỗi and this duality would only create more maintenance work in the future should something change. This seems to be a problem dictionaries have with Sinitic languages in general, when classical classifications of PoS like "noun", "verb", "adjective" are inadequate at fully capturing the meaning of a lemma. But I'll let Mxn speak more about these entries. TeleComNasSprVen (talk 10:28, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply
You have not explained why the comparison of "sự" to -ing and -ion and the like is inadequate; I have explained what makes a comparison to English definite and indefinite articles implausible to me, or at least not useful in deciding whether the Vietnamese combinations should be kept. A reasoning along the lines of '"sự hy sinh" should not be kept, since we do not keep a car' is entirely implausible to me.

As for maintenance, I do not see any maintenance problem with "con muỗi" vs. "muỗi" that is absent in "blueness" vs. "blue" or "plowing" vs. "plow"; indeed, MWO avoids "blueness"[4], while en:wikt does not. However, since both con muỗi and muỗi mean "mosquito", the former could have a definition line reading like "classifier-extended form of muỗi", or the like; the same approach is not so useful for sự hy sinh (sacrifice, noun), which is not synonymous with hy sinh (sacrifice, verb). But even there, sự hy sinh could read like "Nominal form of hy sinh; sacrifice". --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:17, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply
I have already given my explanation further up the page and I'd have expected you to fully read all the arguments presented here before coming up with a rebuttal of your own. You might have done so, but nevertheless, I believe Mxn is more qualified to comment on the classifier-as-PoS-issue (he's even given you links to the literature on them which I was not previously aware existed), so rather than risk having the appearance of talking out of my ass I will leave it to him. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 11:41, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply
Your diff does not explain why the comparison of "sự" to -ing and -ion and the like is inadequate. The only part of the diff that pertains to "sự" is this: "As I have never used the word sự in regular Vietnamese I cannot speak to that [...]". --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:05, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I was certainly simplifying things by comparing classifiers to English articles. My point was only that they often introduce the noun in usage but aren't considered part of the word.
As you suggest, you can't arbitrarily combine just any classifier with any noun, but you can't say "stick of cattle" or "head of butter", either. Now, "butter" and "cattle" are collective or mass nouns, so what about count nouns? Well, Vietnamese has no such thing: "mít" refers to the concept of jackfruit, so "quả" is required to refer to an individual jackfruit. If that's enough to warrant a separate entry, why not include "stick of butter" and "head of cattle" as well?
Even though "sự" may be used in many of the situations in which English uses the suffix "-tion", they are not equivalent grammatical features. I'm a fan of inflection entries, but Vietnamese has no inflection, as the most basic description of the language will attest. Chinese, another analytical, non-inflected language, has a similar system of classifiers (including a nominalizer), yet Wiktionary doesn't use them in entry titles. Inflection entries help me master Spanish conjugations because I can find poder if all I have is pudieron, without needing to remember that poder is a stem-changing verb. But if you know no Vietnamese and encounter sự cạnh tranh in a sentence, does that need still arise?
– Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 12:10, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

@Minh Nguyễn. Could you answer my question I asked above: why dictionaries list living creatures with "con"? Why do they show "con nhím", not simply "nhím" for porcupine? I am familiar with Mandarin and Japanese, Mandarin and Japanese dictionaries don't list nouns with their classifiers. So, a Chinese porcupine is simply 豪猪 (háozhū) in dictionaries, not 头豪猪 (classifier "tóu" + háozhū). --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 12:33, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

(edit conflict) I can't speak for the other languages, but English-Vietnamese dictionaries show "con nhím" as a translation of "a porcupine" as opposed to the general concept of "porcupine". (Hence my original rationale, which in hindsight was a distraction.) Plus, you may very well want to say "three porcupines", at which point you need to know "con". That's why I've been putting classifiers in translation sections and in Vietnamese entries here. But I just don't think they need to be so prominent. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 13:02, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

(after an edit conflict) Since Vitnamese has no inflection, it can easily afford entries like sự cạnh tranh (competition) in addition to cạnh tranh (compete) and still take fewer pages in English Wiktionary than all the inflected entries in a highly inflected language. You point to the pair of pudieron and poder as worthwhile for its surface intransparency, but "plowing" (plow + -ing) and "plowed" (plow + -ed) seem rather surface transparent and yet we include them. I admit that the sự-combinations seem extremely transparent, also for the inclusion of a space after "sự", but I am still not sure this should lead us to have no entries for transparent sự-combinations, not even soft-redirect entries. I think the representation of Vietnamese in English Wiktionary should be accurate while still convening to the needs and expectations of English speakers. Thus, some English speakers ask that we include long German compounds such as Bindungsdissoziationsenergie, since they do not feel comfortable finding the locations of split into component words, while many German speakers may feel this is a transparent sum of parts not worth having; this is an accomodation of representation of German in English Wiktionary to the needs of English speakers. As for maintenance, I have addressed the issue above. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:52, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

The generic classifiers "cái" and "con" don't even translate into English. Look at all the examples at w:Vietnamese grammar. (I just like to think of them as meaning "a", ignoring English's definite/indefinite distinction, because both languages put something in that slot before the noun.) "Sự" is a bit special in that it appears mostly in dictionaries (to be pedantic) and very formal writing (like the thank you letter the Foundation sends donors). In "normal Vietnamese" it barely even exists, so I'm not sure that it would help people much. When I was just starting to learn Vietnamese, "sự" was just one more individual word I had to look up when trying to parse a formal sentence. If a total newbie encounters "Cảm ơn sự thông cảm của bạn" ("Thank you for your understanding") and doesn't know what "sự" is for, they won't immediately know to start a search with it anyways. More likely, they'll look up "cảm" (huh?), "cảm ơn" (ah: thanks), "sự" (turns things into nouns), "sự thông" (nothing, so "sự" goes by itself), "thông" (huh?), "thông cảm" (ah: sympathize), "của" (belonging to), "bạn" (you). You don't start out by knowing that "thông" and "cảm" go together, or that "sự" starts anything in particular. Spaces in Western languages are boundaries for search terms. Vietnamese is not so convenient, and I'm not convinced that soft redirects are worth it for "sự". – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 13:35, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

I think Dan Polansky is not far off saying that certain additional words/syllables serve the same purpose in Vietnamese as they -ing, -ion, -ness, -ize, -er, -or, etc. suffixes do in English. "sự" is certainly a nominaliser that turns verbs like "hy sinh" (to sacrifice) into nouns, e.g. "sự hy sinh" (sacrifice). It's not an "instance of sacrificing" or "a sacrifice" but simply a noun meaning "sacrifice". See sacrifice@vdict.com, which gives "sự hy sinh" as a noun translation for "sacrifice". So does my pocket Berlitz English-Vietnamese dictionary. Admittedly, "hy sinh" is the lemma here, that's why a noun section can be added here. A usage example is not sufficient, IMO.

Let's take some more examples. con cóc appears in dictionaries in this longer form, even if "con" is a classifier but "cóc" is the lemma. Why words such as hotel are not used with classifiers but simply as "khách sạn". Why is "book" simply sách, not "cuốn sách" - classifier "cuốn" + sách (book). Are cóc and con cóc synonymic? --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 11:51, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

(edit conflict) As I just mentioned at w:Vietnamese grammar#Classifier position (with sources), classifiers aren't used for Sino-Vietnamese compound words like "khách sạn". Your dictionary is inconsistent: given the "con nhím" example you gave above, I would expect "cuốn sách" for "book", even though it means "a book". ("Sách" by itself could just as well mean "books" in general.) There's more than one nominalizer in Vietnamese, which is why "cạnh tranh" mentions both "sự cạnh tranh" and "tính cạnh tranh". But "sự hy sinh" does also mean "an instance of sacrificing" if you append a demonstrative: "sự hy sinh này" (this sacrifice) or "sự hy sinh đó" (that sacrifice). Please don't tell me we need to add sections for those too! "Cóc" and "con cóc" are synonymous, yes.

The difference between a noun section and a usage example is to me one of emphasis. I believe these extra sections would just clutter up entries for words like "bay" that already have both verb and noun senses. If we must include a grammar lesson (nominalization) at each and every verb entry, how about usage notes, like the ones at "cattle"? Templates could help. (Wiktionary should have more such usage notes: "corn" fails to mention "ear of corn" anywhere.)

– Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 13:02, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. I'm now convinced about Vietnamese classifiers. It's not just one dictionary, which is misleading learners to believe that "con cóc" is a word. I can quote at least two, plus some textbooks (plus Google Translate for some reason). No other dictionary for a language, which features classifiers, AFAIK, confuses users providing "classifier + noun" in translations of English nouns. It's also to do with the way specifically Vietnamese classifiers work, compared to other languages. In Vietnamese, a sentence can start with a classifier, without a numeral or determiner, it's not the case with some other languages. Anyway, I'm OK to delete such cases - "classifier + noun".

I'm not convinced about "nominaliser + verb" cases, though, even if some Vietnamese grammarians don't consider them true nouns and there could be more than one nominaliser. Some grammarians don't considers Japanese suru-verbs true verbs either. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:36, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Request for move discussion is here Wiktionary:Requests_for_moves,_mergers_and_splits#Non-idiomatic_Vietnamese_words. Only applies to entries with "classifier + noun" entries from the above list. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:02, 9 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Reviving the discussion, which mainly moved to Wiktionary:Requests_for_moves,_mergers_and_splits#Non-idiomatic_Vietnamese_words and that part is complete - entries moved to terms without the classifier. Further comments are sought for "sự" nouns, a few of the above. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 06:27, 23 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

I am inclined to close the above discussion as no consensus. There does not seem to be much certain momentum for deletion, and there is some thoughtful argumentation that the words in question are the equivalent of prefixed and suffixed English words. If anyone else has anything to add to alter the balance of this discussion, speak now. Cheers! bd2412 T 22:52, 24 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

We had agreement on words prefixed with classifiers. They have been fixed and converted to redirects to proper terms. The "sự" nouns are waiting for further comments. Even if there are various nominalisers in Vietnamese, IMO it's safe to keep them. A reference to how grammarians treat these words would be appreciated. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:58, 24 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

In that case, closed as resolved. Cheers! bd2412 T 01:11, 25 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

A small correction: sự hy sinh and sự giải quyết are kept as no consensus to delete (or any sự-noun). --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 04:38, 26 August 2014 (UTC)Reply