User talk:Msh210/Archive/Italian combined forms

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Re:Italian combined forms

Previously at user talk:SemperBlotto:

Category:Italian combined forms

Is the intention that, when each of these entries is a finished product, it will include a translation into English? (Now many, or all, do not.) If not, why not?—msh210℠ 21:38, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

• Yes - that is the intention. Not many of them do yet, it takes a bit of effort. User:Barmar does it better than me, being a native Italian speaker. SemperBlotto 22:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

See innamorarsene for a recent example by User:Barmar - this is the sort of thing we are aiming for. It takes a lot of work, but we'll get there in the end. SemperBlotto 17:02, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be

1. Compound of innamorarsi, se and ne: to fall in love with it [or whatever the translation is].

   (example sentence and translation go here)

much as we have translations on the definition line of other foreign-language words?—msh210℠ 17:46, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Why? —Ruakh_TALK 18:39, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Because I had to write "or whatever the translation is". That is, because I don't know how it translates unless the translation is there. Sure, the example sentence given tells me what it means in that sentence, but not elsewhere. And the components don't sufficiently help: [[se]] seems to mean "if", so I don't know how that fits in (I assume it's the Italian idiom that "if" assigns case or something). AFAIK, as far as FL words are concerned, enwikt is a translating dictionary. (Note that the current definition line reads only "Compound of innamorarsi, se and ne".)—msh210℠ 18:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

The problem, presumably, is that [[se]] is missing a sense. The solution, therefore, is to add it there. —Ruakh_TALK 19:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it is missing one: I don't know. (A word meaning "if" could be a case marker.) But (1) I should not have to piece together the parts to get the meaning (especially when I don't know how the parts fit together in the specific FL's idiom). And an example sentence is not sufficient, as I still don't know how generic the example is (for example, for innamorarsene, I didn't — and in fact still don't — know whether "falling in love with it" is the only meaning, or whether it also means "to fall in love with it" or "falling in love with him" or cetera. Also, (2) all other FL words have translations in the definition line, so this should too.—msh210℠ 19:55, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Why shouldn't you have to piece the parts together to get the meaning? Why do you expect a bilingual dictionary to replace even the most basic understanding of grammar? (BTW, this isn't really a single word; it's a compound of an infinitive with two pronouns. The only reason to include it at all is so that readers can find out that it's a compound of an infinitive with two pronouns. Once they know that, they're set. You know some Spanish, right? Tell me — why should all the information at [[dar]] be duplicated at [[dámelo]] and not at [[me lo da]]?) —Ruakh_TALK 20:16, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Er, no, I don't know Spanish. In any event, my understanding was that innamorarsene is a single word, however it may be constructed and whatever its meaning. Nonetheless, I suppose you can argue (and maybe this is what you're arguing, and I'm just too dense to see it) that innamorarsene is like soit or incontravano: a form of another word, and for goodness' sake we don't translate every declined or conjugated form of every word! Maybe. But I think it's harder to divine the meaning of innamorarsene from "compound of..." than it is to divine the meaning of soit or incontravano.—msh210℠ 21:16, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

And I don't think that having a word break without whitespace (in an IE language) is included in "the most basic understanding of grammar". Do you really?—msh210℠ 21:20, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand the question. I don't think that {having a word break} is ever included in {understanding}; they're different kinds of things. So, I'll restate my point in a different way, and hopefully that will clarify. "Falling in love with it" is completely SOP; we would expect our readers to recognize and look up those parts, so we wouldn't even include an entry for it. Now look at "innamorarsene". It's still completely SOP, but it's different in one key regard: we wouldn't expect our readers to recognize the parts, so we couldn't expect them to look them up. There's an obvious solution here: inform our reader of the parts. That way they get all the benefits of the full entry, with etymology, usage notes, conjugations, citations, etc., at innamorarsi, rather than a stub that tries and fails to be all and end all for this phrase. You seem to object to "compound of"; fair enough. How about simply omitting that? Just writing "innamorarsi + se + ne"? —Ruakh_TALK 22:38, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

No, I didn't mean I object to "compound of". I meant it's harder to understand what innamorarsene means from "Compound of innamorarsi, se and ne" than it is to understand what soit means from "third-person singular subjunctive present of être". But I don't feel that strongly about it.—msh210℠ 22:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes - se is missing a pronoun sense - good grief. I'll fix it later. SemperBlotto 19:59, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Pronoun form of se / sé now added.

The big problem with these forms is that although their use is very common, there are so very many possible combinations of forms of verbs and one or two pronouns that any one particular combination is quite rare (with some exceptions). So to put lots of effort into providing a definition for each one is almost pointless. That is why Barmar and I (as the only people adding them) decided to limit most of them to a simple description of their components. Also, we only add ones that we actually come across in the real world (unlike the conjugated forms of verbs - where we add them all). We add example sentences if we can be bothered. Doing so for all of them would be mind-bogglingly tedious (and I'm getting older every day). SemperBlotto 22:50, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. If it's any consolation, I'm aging faster than you are.—msh210℠ 22:52, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I wrote that in a hurry. Let me clarify: I'm aging faster than you because I gained the vast majority of my current age in the last quarter century whereas you gained about 40% (?) of your current age in the same time span. Or, to put it another (equivalent) way, I'm catching up to you, as my age used to be a tiny fraction of yours whereas it's now a much greater percentage of yours.—msh210℠ 07:03, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh - I had assumed it was an effect of special relativity, and was because you were moving much faster than me. I am certainly slowing down. SemperBlotto 08:21, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

:-) —msh210℠ 08:23, 12 November 2008 (UTC)