Template talk:ceb-noun

This needs formatting correctly. It needs to show the singular headword bolded. It needs to add the word to the proper category. SemperBlotto 10:00, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

• Keep but fix -Template works. Plural in Cebuano is formed by adding the article mga before the noun. Mga is equivalent to the Spanish los and las. Unlike Spanish which uses both inflection and a plural article that agrees with the plural noun, Cebuano nouns do not change form.

English

cat -> cats

the cat -> the cats

Spanish

gato -> gatos

el gato -> los gatos

la gata -> las gatas

Cebuano

iring -> mga iring

ang iring -> ang mga iring

Carl Francis (talk) 16:49, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that information is true, but it doesn't need to be in the headword line. In a language such as English, where you can't be sure what the plural is by any rule (the plural of steer is steers, but the plural of ox is oxen), you put the plural in the headword line so people don't have to look at a declension table to find out what the plural is. Cebuano isn't like those languages. Other languages list feminine forms (as in the Spanish examples above), definite forms, genitive forms, etc., because you need that information in those languages. Cebuano doesn't need that information in the headword line, because it has no gender, and because it uses independent particles where those other languages change the word itself. For that matter, some languages have dual forms for things that come in pairs, but it would be silly to add "(dual- two eyes)" to the headword line at English eye.

Besides, it's deceptive, because mga + noun in Cebuano isn't quite the same as the plural in languages that have plurals: in English eggs is a plural whether you say "I ate eggs for breakfast" or "I ate three eggs for breakfast". In the Cebuano translation, you wouldn't use mga for the second sentence, would you? Chuck Entz (talk) 18:24, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I just withdrew my nomination for deletion. The old logic was wrong, but with the new logic, it's harmless enough. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:01, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

RFDO discussion: September 2015

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others (permalink).

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.

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Template:ceb-noun

I looked at a couple of new Cebuano entries and wondered why the headword template wasn't working, so I looked at the code. After I stopped laughing, I immediately replaced <div class="dablink">(''plural'' '''mga {{{1}}}''')</div> with {{head|ceb|noun}}. Apparently, Cebuano inflects nouns with particles that have no phonological interaction with the noun itself, and the sole purpose of this template was to put mga in front of the noun (which had to be provided as the first parameter) and label it as a plural.

Given that there's nothing really for this template to do, we might consider deleting it (it has all of 8 transclusions) and substituting {{head}}, or maybe just making it a redirect to {{head}}. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:32, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Delete these useless headword-line templates. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:30, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Keep. It has language-specific logic. —CodeCat 02:07, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Not anything worthy of a template. There's no need to show the plural in the headword because it's 100% predictable and syntactically rather than lexically determined. It would be like displaying English "definite" forms that consisted of "the" followed by the headword. I'm not saying that nothing in these languages should receive special treatment in the headword line (there are interesting interactions between other particles and other parts of speech that work like inflection), but showing that this noun, like every other noun in the language forms its plural by inserting mga before the unchanged headword is just creating unnecessary clutter. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:52, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

It took a while, but I see your point: {{ceb-noun}} is slightly less typing than {{head|ceb|noun}}, and it fits the expected pattern of headword-line templates. As long as it has an invocation of {{head}} in it, it does no harm. I'm withdrawing the nomination, though I still think it's pretty useless. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:49, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

This isn't about how much typing there is. I am voting keep because we always link to inflected forms from entries, and on that principle we should do so too for this language. The only acceptabe reason I think for not doing it, is if we decide that we want to disallow plural form-of entries for this language and declare them SOP. —CodeCat 20:01, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

What's there to link to? Please point to one use of either template where {{{1}}} is different from the headword. Besides, mga is only a small part of the "inflection" for the language, and ka is used when numbers are present. We don't show genitive, either, though that's a very common part of headword templates in other languages. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:26, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Does the template not create the plural form and make a link to it? —CodeCat 23:06, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

The part I showed above, <div class="dablink">(''plural'' '''mga {{{1}}}''')</div>, is all there was before the <noinclude>- it didn't link to anything. Your version of {{tl-noun}} has no provision for plurals at all. It was replaced (before I reverted it), with a direct copy of this template, with only the language name changed. If there's going to be logic to link to a plural form, we'll have to create it from scratch. Considering that there are no entries for mga-forms, that leaves us only the option of linking to mga and to the contents of the first parameter. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:55, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Template:tl-noun

Same as previous, but this has about 800 more transclusions. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:32, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

I just discovered that this wasn't originally the completely useless version: CodeCat had already converted it to use {{head}}, but that code was replaced with the useless code from {{ceb-noun}}. Chuck Entz (talk) 09:31, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Delete this one as well. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:31, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Keep. It has language-specific logic. —CodeCat 02:07, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Specifically we'd have to replace all instances of {{{1}}} with {{{head}}} if we deleted this and passed it to {{head}}. Renard Migrant (talk) 14:54, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Withdrawing the nomination, as above. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:54, 11 September 2015 (UTC)