Template talk:is-adecl
Add topicLatest comment: 2 months ago by Anarhistička Maca in topic Merged cells
Merged cells
[edit]@Benwing2, is there some easy way of turning off merged cells, e.g. the fallegt having a merged nominative and accusative table cell, and even merging acc/dat/gen into one line, and merging all plural weak into one? The previous tables did not behave like this and although I know this behavior is common in some linguistic papers for some languages, it's not the norm for Icelandic, and I find it much more difficult to parse than the four separate lines like in BÍN and elsewhere. 130.208.182.103 09:05, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- The comparative table spreads out into the regular weak table if overrides are provided that make it invalid to compress e.g. the oblique masculine singular forms into the nominative singular forms, but beyond that there's no current way to get fully expressed tables. Originally I had the weak tables shaped like the strong tables but with syncretism expressed by erasing the lines between syncretic cells and putting a single form in the center of the resulting rectangle instead of repeating the form 4-12 times. It was User:Anarhistička Maca who suggested the more compressed table format we currently have. To support this we'd need to do it through CSS and a preferences gadget that lets you pick the style you want, I think; I definitely wouldn't want a switch in the code that lets you change the display for a given adjective for all users. Benwing2 (talk) 09:21, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- Hm, I would still vote for always showing all forms separate for all users, even for syncretic forms. I would have voted for doing the same for indeclinable adjectives if I had seen that discussion, as that's the tabular form both native speakers and second language learners are already 'trained' to read. 130.208.182.103 09:31, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- Well, you are definitely in the minority when it comes to indeclinable adjectives; most people I've seen believe that it's pointless and confusing to show a table all of whose cells contain the same form. As for how to show forms, it's precisely the fact that different people have different preferences that leads to the idea of allowing people to choose their preferred style, rather than forcing a particular style on all users. Benwing2 (talk) 10:19, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- "Follow the convention for how things are typically presented in dictionaries and reference works for a given language" is, and should be, the default view here. This would not be a minority view if there were any editors here with more than passing knowledge of the language. 130.208.182.103 13:38, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- The singular "authority" on Icelandic inflection, BÍN, which lists forms exhaustively, syncretic or not, does not even list all forms that they reference (eg. margur, mikill, lítill). There is no other convention in Icelandic.
- Of grammars and morphologies, by date of publishing: Stefán Einarsson (1943) shows syncretism across the dat. and gen. pl. in the strong positive, and the same nominative/oblique opposition in the comparative; Thomson (1987) (largely based off of Jón Friðjónsson (1984)) shows syncretism in the dat. and gen. strong positive and weak positive plurals (Jón Friðjónsson's 1978 textbook does the same, also syncretism in the comparative), and in the comparative plural; Schütz (1994) shows syncretism in the strong dat. and gen. pl and weak pl. positive; Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson (2013) shows syncretism across genders (but not cases) in the weak positive plural; Neijmann (2021) shows syncretism across the comparative and in the weak superlative. None of these avoid syncretism in all degrees. The books I have that do are Íslensk tunga II. (2005) (which we have been moving away from due to reductive classification in nouns) and Ásta Svavarsdóttir and Margrét Jónsdóttir (2009), a textbook accompaniment.
- I don't see a reason not to make syncretism explicit where possible, especially where it has already been done, on a dictionary which does much more than just morphology and thus does not have to (should not) give all its space to inflections. Anarhistička Maca (talk) 04:35, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
- "Follow the convention for how things are typically presented in dictionaries and reference works for a given language" is, and should be, the default view here. This would not be a minority view if there were any editors here with more than passing knowledge of the language. 130.208.182.103 13:38, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- Well, you are definitely in the minority when it comes to indeclinable adjectives; most people I've seen believe that it's pointless and confusing to show a table all of whose cells contain the same form. As for how to show forms, it's precisely the fact that different people have different preferences that leads to the idea of allowing people to choose their preferred style, rather than forcing a particular style on all users. Benwing2 (talk) 10:19, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- Hm, I would still vote for always showing all forms separate for all users, even for syncretic forms. I would have voted for doing the same for indeclinable adjectives if I had seen that discussion, as that's the tabular form both native speakers and second language learners are already 'trained' to read. 130.208.182.103 09:31, 21 December 2024 (UTC)