User talk:Urszag

sicera

Thanks for taking a look at this entry that I tagged for attention. It's not really fixed, though, until the inflected-form entries are dealt with. For instance, sicerae has "ablative singular of sīcera". If you view the previous revision, you can see what was linked to, or you can look through Special:WhatLinksHere/sicera. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:10, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the tip! I didn't realize that those other pages still had to be fixed. I'll take care of those now.--Urszag (talk) 05:11, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

-tus

Hi - I understand your point about stem-final vowels with -tus, but I'm not sure I agree. Both crociō and barriō are of the -iō type (i.e. the stems are croc and barr respectively). It becomes more obvious when you compare action nouns from first conjugation verbs, which all take the participle form too (frūstrō to frūstrātus, armō to armātus, licentiō to licentiātus etc.), or fourth conjugation verbs in -io that have irregular participles that just so happen to be the same as the action noun (convenio to conventus, evenio to eventus). I'm just not sure that your statement that meātus is meā + tus is true, really, because that ⟨ā⟩ is part of the participle ending.

It could well be that the perfect passive participle derives from PIE *-tus, but I don't think we can just ignore the evident connection. Theknightwho (talk) 04:48, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

@Theknightwho Hi, I'm glad to discuss. There are many areas of Latin word formation where there is not obviously only one correct analysis. I don't want to be dogmatic. I do value consistency, and the current categories for suffixed forms are based on a perspective where first, second, and fourth conjugation verbs have present stems ending in vowels, not consonants, and identical vowel-final stems are considered to occur in various derived words (this is made clear by the note at the top of Category:Latin words suffixed with -tus (action noun) and the content of that category). Even though the way that the inflection of these verb classes is presented commonly suggests that they attach vowel-initial inflectional "suffixes" along the lines of -āre, -ēre, -īre throughout their paradigm to consonant-final bases, there are many analysts who consider the morphological structure of the present-tense forms to actually consist of stems ending in -ā-, -ē-, -ī- that combine with suffixes that in many cases are shared between different "conjugations" (the present infinitive ending -re is a fairly straightforward case; some other suffixes such as third-person singular -t have further complications; e.g. due to a phonological rule, the underlyingly long stem vowels are shortened before this suffix).

Aside from the advantage of reducing the number of distinct suffixes with the same function that we need to postulate, treating the ī as part of the stem rather than the suffix in nouns ending in -ītus makes it clearer why such nouns exist for verbs that have present infinitives ending in -īre, but not for verbs that have present infinitives ending in -āre: the reason the verb selects which vowel is used before the -t- is because that vowel is really part of the phonological material of the verb rather than belonging to the suffix.

It's true that these nouns almost always have the same stem as the perfect passive participle (or perfect participle for deponent verbs) when it exists. Treating this as the base would result in analyzing the suffix not as -ītus, but rather as -us. But there are a few lines of argument for treating the noun-forming ending as -tus instead, the approach that is currently used by Wiktionary (similar arguments apply to the endings -tor and -tio). As you're aware, not all verbs have a perfect passive participle. Etymologically, the perfect passive participle ending comes from *-tós, a different source from the nominalizing ending *-tus. Even if originally unrelated etymologically, it's clear that there was analogy or paradigmatic pressure to end up using forms that are built the same way up until the /t/. But another argument is that the semantic meaning of -tus nouns doesn't seem to be built on the meaning of the perfect passive participle.

I've read a proof of "The morphome vs similarity-based syncretism" Latin t-stem derivatives" by Donca Steriade (2016), that discusses this topic. It's pretty detailed so I haven't finished it yet. While not directly relevant, Steriade's earlier The cycle without containment: Latin perfect stems (2012) discusses some general issues of Latin verb inflection and the stems involved in it.--Urszag (talk) 06:52, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

cot-caught merger

You mentioned that your personal experience leads you to question the commonness of a cot-caught distinction in American speech.

But have you considered that California, where you have said you come from, and the West Coast in general is one of the places most known for the cot-caught merger, to the point that San Francisco has been referred to by some as a "dialect island" in California, because it has traditionally not exhibited the cot-caught merger (though from what I have read, many younger San Franciscans are coming to exhibit the merger)? So it wouldn't surprise me that you would struggle to meet very many in your neck of the woods who distinguish the vowels. Tharthan (talk) 20:40, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

@Tharthan I'm sure that there are many American English speakers that are still unmerged. Maybe instead of "supposedly not uncommon" I should have used "reportedly not uncommon": I meant to emphasize my lack of personal knowledge of the frequency of this feature. My main point was to provide a contrasting perspective to Whoop whoop pull up's experience of hearing mostly "/ɔ/ for all three". The US is a big place so it's easy for a single person's experiences to not present a complete picture of the country in total. While I've mostly heard the speech of people from the West Coast of the US, I have also found a complete low back merger to be common among speakers from the Midwest that I have encountered.--Urszag (talk) 22:04, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Username?

Just curious as to the source of your username. The -sz- in the middle makes me think of Hungarian, but (so far as I can tell) there is no such Hungarian word. Cheers! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:06, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

That's an accurate set of observations! It is in fact based on Hungarian, but only in an indirect sense. When I learned a bit of the language, I was taken with the use of the digraph "sz" for /s/ and decided to use it when creating a name for here. But the name is not intended to have any specific meaning. Does your username come from Norse?--Urszag (talk) 00:57, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply! Én ís tanulom a magyar nyelvet, de csak egy kicsit. Köszönöm szépen! Re: my username, ya, it's from Norse -- given name, plus an epithet that has been geographically accurate to varying degrees over the years, and that has felt socially accurate for most of my life.  ;) I haven't formally studied Norse or Icelandic, and when I chose my username, resources online were pretty scarce; I'm still not entirely sure I got the right form for the epithet. I know that a word útlendi exists, at any rate.  :) Szia! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:04, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

invertō and inversō

Regarding your edits in diff and diff, I am still confused. The edit to in- at diff doesn't fix the problem, but does the opposite of what I'm trying to say. To me, etymology 2 sense 1 ("in, within, inside") and the "into, upon, on" part of sense 2 don't make sense for this. Only the "against" part of sense 2 makes sense. Sense 3 (intensifier) also makes sense because versō sense 5 and vertō sense 5 have the meaning to be intensified. Perhaps the "against" part of etymology 2 sense 2 arose from a conflation with etymology 1 ("not"). I will illustrate the problem in a table:

Etymology	English	Makes sense as "invert"?
Sense 1 ("in, within, inside")	turn inside	No
Sense 2 ("into, upon, on")	turn into	No
Sense 2 ("against")	turn away	Yes
Sense 3 (intensive)	Sense 5 ("invert")	Yes
Etymology 1 ("not")	anti-turn	Yes

I'm confused about how you are saying that "turn inside" could mean "invert." Though if an etymological dictionary concurs, then I would have to agree. However in that case, I would still be searching for the explanation for how the semantics of "turn into" could mean "invert". Could you offer one? Daniel.z.tg (talk) 22:17, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

@Daniel.z.tg Hi! Thanks for asking. I don’t think that that I have provided a satisfactory definition of in- or of the etymology of invertō and inversō. The goal of my edits was not to say that inverto/inverso specifically means "turn inside", but simply to mark that these verbs were formed with the prepositional prefix in-, rather than the homophonous negative prefix, which is a basic fact about their etymology that should be presented even if a more complete explanation has not yet been added to the entries.

There are a couple of reasons I am sure that in- here is the preposition and not the negative prefix, despite not having a complete explanation of how inverto and inverso developed their meanings.

• First, the negative prefix in- was almost never attached to verbs: it was only productively used to negate adjectives. The few verbs that do start with negative in- appear likely to be either back-formations from negated participial adjectives (such as improbō, inoboediō, indecet, based on improbātus, inoboediēns, indecēns) or denominal verbs built on negated adjectives (such as ignōrō, based on ignārus).

• Second, the negative prefix does not fit well with the meaning of the verbs: inverto does not mean “not to turn” and inversus, when used as the participle of inverto, does not mean “unturned”.

Although some of Latin’s prepositional prefixes, such as circum-, have a fairly straightforward meaning, this is not the case for many others, such as ad- and in-. It is difficult to give general definitions of these prefixes that explain what they mean in all words in which they occur. (It is likewise often difficult to explain the meaning of English prepositions when used as "particles" or prefixes, as in upset, call off, etc.) There are not necessarily clear dividing lines between the subsenses currently listed at in-, and they are still a work in progress. That is why I think it’s best for the prepositional prefix to have only one sense id that links to the entire set of definitions under that etymology header, rather than linking to any one specific subsense. The sense id field of affixes is also used for splitting words into categories according to their etymologies in cases where there are two homophonous affixes of unrelated origin. The division between the prepositional prefix and the negative prefix is clear enough that it makes sense to place words with the negative prefix in a separate category, but I think it is best to put all words with the prepositional prefix into the same category, rather than attempting to split it along uncertain lines.

Does that all make sense? I’m still trying to find some paper that discusses the meaning of verbs prefixed with in- that might shed more light on how they can be explained, so hopefully I can make further updates to those entries in the future.--Urszag (talk) 19:22, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

@Urszag: Thank you for explaining your goals. I see now why you chose to unify the senseid. I the solution to my concern is for me to add "against" of sense 2 and sense 3 in the parentheses inside the {{af}}. Daniel.z.tg (talk) 19:33, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

"arietīnō"

This word seems fishy to me (voci nihili simile). The source is valid but a search on Google gives 0 results. Then there is arietare with a perfect semantic match (ramming etc). I think we need to find at least 1 actual usage of that word to prove its existence. Imbricitor (talk) 01:35, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

This is part of a series of additions of salacious and largely obscure Latin vocabulary items added by IP 45.72.209.233, apparently drawn from old dictionaries such as the cited source there. I saw these words come up in new Latin entries but haven't been able to check for usage examples yet (another one which is tricky to attest is ataurus), but in the case of arietīnō it was at least clear where the word was supposed to come from. As Latin follows LDL criteria for inclusion, "one use in a contemporaneous source is the minimum, or one mention is adequate subject to the below requirements [...] the community of editors for that language should maintain a list of materials deemed appropriate as the only sources for entries based on a single mention, each entry should have its source(s) listed on the entry or citation page, and a box explaining that a low number of citations were used should be included on the entry page (such as by using the {{LDL}} template)." So the community could decide to keep such entries if the source is judged acceptable.--Urszag (talk) 01:50, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

la-pronunc

Hi Urszag,

I was wondering whether you are against this idea, or whether you might prefer keeping the ecclesiastical phonetic outputs at least? I'm leaning towards having the latter match our handling of Italian (which is phonemic) but thought I'd ask you first since we worked extensively on the phonetics. Nicodene (talk) 18:11, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for asking for my input. I've decided not to contribute any more to that module or participate in discussion about future changes to it.--Urszag (talk) 18:36, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough, thank you. Nicodene (talk) 18:53, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

distributive numerals

I noticed you moved the Latin distributive numerals from plural to singular. Are they attested in the singular as well? If so we should change the headwords to reflect this; if not they should probably not have been moved. Benwing2 (talk) 01:13, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Some (such as binus, quinus, senus) are attested in the singular in Classical Latin (rarely, and mainly in poetry), and most have some singular attestations in Medieval Latin or New Latin. Given that all of these words are regular 1st/2nd declension adjectives, there is no uncertainty about the forms themselves, and I created a usage note describing the limited circumstances of their use at Template:U:la:distributive numeral. I'm currently in the process of updating the headwords and entries themselves. This was based on discussion in the Tea room February, which seemed to result in consensus between myself, Tim Utikal and -sche that these should be treated consistently, and between myself and Tim Utikal that the singular was preferable; I should have linked to that in the edit summary!--Urszag (talk) 01:22, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good. Benwing2 (talk) 01:24, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

quine

Please be more careful when editing languages ​​you don't know, this word in French has two etymologies and you forgot a lot of details Stríðsdrengur (talk) 11:14, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment, but it's hard for me to know what to make of it when you haven't made any corrections yet to the actual entry. What is the second etymology? The TLFi has only one entry, and the etymology section says "Empr. au lat.quini « cinq chaque fois, cinq chacun »." I know that there are more senses, and I think it would be better to have all of them, but I didn't think that was a good reason to not create the entry.--Urszag (talk) 11:38, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Wiktionary's Discord server

Did you know we had one? It can be fairly chill if you mute the right channels. Of course no pressure, the choice is on you. Catonif (talk) 12:13, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I had heard about it but so far felt it might be more trouble for me than it's worth; I also feel like as a theoretical matter, I prefer for discussions about Wiktionary to occur in public on this website as much as possible rather than taking place on the privately-owned medium of a Discord. I may reconsider that later though. Thanks for the invite!--Urszag (talk) 00:24, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Alright, that is a very respectable opinion. Those are points that I also feel very close to home. Keep up the good work. :) Catonif (talk) 08:50, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

iniūstē, injūstē, and Latin J, j

Salve, Urszag. Re your relemmatisation from injūstē to iniūstē, with both edits summarised “Making i-spelling the main entry and injuste an alternative form, as is standard for Latin J-spellings on WIktionary.” (differing only in whether injuste was linked), could you tell me where it's prescribed that i-spellings should be lemmatised, please? I think that's a bad rule, so if it exists, I'd like to advocate changing it in the Beer parlour. Thank you. 0DF (talk) 19:55, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

@0DF For sure. You can see this policy stated at Wiktionary:About Latin#I and J.--Urszag (talk) 19:59, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I really should have been aware of that policy page already! Well, thank you for pointing me toward it. 0DF (talk) 21:53, 12 July 2024 (UTC)