Wiktionary talk:Swedish headword-line templates

This article mentions uncountable nouns. I'd like to see a reference which discusses uncountable nouns in Swedish or any other language other than English. Questions I asked some time ago on Wikpedia have gone unanswered last I checked. — Hippietrail 01:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I have some literature on Swedish grammar. Maybe I can answer some of your questions or at least help find references for it.

Peter Isotalo 11:18, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Critique

There's tons of problems with these templates.

I'm 100% happy with them either. Still, Its a start. At least they provoked some reaction eventually. :-) --Patrik Stridvall 18:35, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to summarize them as best I can.

• Most participle forms should be listed under the relevant verbs and those which should have separate entries simply aren't inflected at all, something that makes the tables completely redundant.

Perhaps. But there is a policy that every inflection of every word should be explained on a separate page so it would be violate the policy to have the explaination with the uninflectioned form. --Patrik Stridvall 18:35, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• "Plural irregular nouns" has one example which is merely a plural form of make, and is an exception (due to the existance of maka) that hardly justifies a completely separate classification along with a table and a template.

Perhaps. Still, I'm not 100% sure there aren't others. --Patrik Stridvall 18:35, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Both the regular and irregular proper nouns aren't actually proper nouns at all, but common nouns with examples that refer to ethnicities. A proper noun is egennamn in Swedish and includes only actual names of people, places, etc. I.e. no different from English. They're only inflected in genitive, even if they might have a form that is originally an inflection (Höga kusten, Malmberget, Majorna), which also makes a table completely redundant..

Perhaps. Wasn't sure how to do with them. --Patrik Stridvall 18:35, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• I'd like to see a Swedish grammar that has a word class called "adjectival nouns" and a dictionary that sorts them separately from the adjectives. To me it looks simply like adjectives that are used in combination with den/dom with which they are often used without a noun (den gode, den onde, den fule), but where a noun is clearly assumed. The dictionary form here seems to be the adverb form, which is even more odd.

It also represent the concept of what the adjective describes, so it really a noun as well. But it is the same as the adverb in all cases that I can think of. --Patrik Stridvall 18:35, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• A lot of the tables are concerned with inflections that are completely predictable in any situation and merely pads articles with information that's redundant or blatantly obvious. The gender inflections of the definite form of adjectives is a good example. This information belongs in a centralized Swedish guide to grammar, not as tables in every single article.

As I said there is policy that we should include every inflection so the table is both showing them as well as providing links. --Patrik Stridvall 18:35, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• The templates are designed to include not only tables and other rather types of complicated code, but also super-basic things such as section headers, categories and even the article word itself. This is a very bad idea since it saves a minimum of time in typing for experienced users (who can easily cut-'n'-paste from existing articles), but obscures very important wikicode from newbies who really need to get acquianted with the basics of wikicode at one point or another. It also makes it harder to get an overview of what the article actually contains, since so much of it is obscured in the templates. It simply doesn't make it that much more efficient for oldies while presenting newbies with a much more complicated structure of overly pampering templates.

It is much harder to make a mistake if you use templates. Still, it have to be weighed against confusing newbies. --Patrik Stridvall 18:35, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• There's also the problem that there is no room for flexibility as to where to place the template with the current system. Neither is there any room for users to choose what inflections or conjugations to make links out of. The vast majority of all inflections/conjugations have no other meaning, not even in other languages, and make no sense to keep as separate articles (except to bloat the article count). They serve no purpose as separate links, only redirects, since they just parrot info that is already available in the main article.

Again it is a policy issue. We have decide that all inflection should have seperate pages so we need the links. --Patrik Stridvall 18:35, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• All the tables are bright red/orange, which is probably the least appropriate color for a grammar table since they're a major eye-sore and needlessly distract from the article prose. Might I suggest something along the lines of gray or light blue?

Sure, I don't care. The templates that existed before I started expanding them used that color scheme so I keept it. --Patrik Stridvall 18:35, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Peter Isotalo 10:23, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Please make your next reply below my signature, or it will become very difficult to see who's been saying what.

Does it really matter who said what? Sure it is more difficult to see. However the information is there if anybody is intressed. --Patrik Stridvall 22:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Policy : Simply citing policy is not an argument for anything except policy itself. Please motivate your actions based on the arguments I've put forth. What's the point of having grenadjärs as a separate article if grenadjär already contains all the relevant information?

• What meant is try to find and read what other people have written about it. However, in my opinion we need the inflections because in a written text words are inflected and if you search for an inflected word you won't find it unless there is a page for it. Obviously the pages for the inflected forms should in most cases only say which inflected form it is as well as a link to the main word. Note that in some cases the inflected form mean something subtle diffrently than it normally does. This needs to be described. --22:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Colors : I was under the impression that colors in the form of nouns were always under the common form röd/blå/grön, but I was wrong, since it's sorted under rött/blått/grönt in dictionaries. They are however not inflected in any way, so any table is automatically redundant.

• Well, they do inflect in genitive. And I suppose you could make the argument that the other inflections are the same as the ones for "substantiverade adjektiv". See below. --Patrik Stridvall 22:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• "Adjectival nouns": Making your own analysis of grammar is simply original research (amatörforskning). It's not much different from etymology information that sounds plausible, but is actually just plain false. For example that lagom comes from lag ("team") and om ("about") or that barbarian is related to barber because barbarians were seen as hairy louts by the Greeks. I can't see anything in the analysis of substantiverade adjektiv that seems either unreasonable or impractical.

• It is not about any new lingustic ideas it is about presenting the information in a manner that is easy to read. The templates for "adjectival nouns" show all the ways an adjective can be used where nouns are normally used. Nothing more, nothing less. --Patrik Stridvall 22:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Make/makar: If you're not sure that you're right, you should assume that you're wrong. At least for the time being. There are always exceptions. If all of them were acted upon as though they were completely separate entitites, then any dictionary would become hopelessly complicated and misleading.

• Having a template that are only used once doesn't really hurt does it. It makes the page for makar easier to read. --Patrik Stridvall 22:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Template usage: It must be assumed that every newbie has not the slightest clue what a template is. I'm reasonably code-savvy and quick to learn, but it to a looong time for me to understand templates properly.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:17, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• They don't need to understand how they work. "Monkey see, monkey do". Your are advocating cuting and pasting. Well, why not cut and paste from something that uses templates... Still, I'm sure the page be made to better explain it than it currently does. It is mostly a quick reference right now. --Patrik Stridvall 22:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Again, please stop fractioning my posts.

• I do like I do because a comment should be where it is relevant. --Patrik Stridvall 17:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• Inflected forms that mean something subtly different are, again, exceptions and should already be described under the dictionary form of the word, not in a separate article. All inflections can be found just as easily if they're redirects. Linking them from the dictionary form will just make people think that there's additional information where there is none.

• The problem is that since we are multilingual an inflected form in Swedish could mean something else in another language. Redirects are a bad idea for that reason alone. --Patrik Stridvall 17:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• "Rött" as a noun can't really be inflected. It does occur occasionally, but only very marginally. When googled for it produces 49 hits, half of which refer to a restaurant called Rött, the book title Ett öga rött and some pages full of non-language code. To me the form sounds very theoretical and quite contrived. Sorta like saying ett kul barn, except that this example would actually be correct according to dictionaries. Compare this with rött which nets over 2 million hits.

• The point is that it is grammatically correct Swedish. Rare or not. Things that are grammatically correct but not recommended to use, should be explained in the "Usage notes". --Patrik Stridvall 17:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• Making arguments that color nouns are the same as the nominalized adjectives is at best speculation. I'd call it an incorrect analysis and so do Swedish dictionaries and grammars. Calling it "easy to read" is a pretty absurd claim considering that you quite obviously confused two word classes when making the table.

• I'm quite aware that they might be are considered separate word class by some. That is largely irrelevant. A dictionary are for translations between two languages. Not linguistic research. What I mean is that if you want to talk about an adjective as if it was a noun, the table describes how you do it. --Patrik Stridvall 17:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• Having templates that are used once is actually more complicated to handle, since you have to go to a separate namespace to edit part of the article. And there's still the problem that makar is a plural form of make, not a separate word. It's equivalent to spouses, not "married couple" which would be gift par or äkta par.

• The templates are not supposed to be changed unless we decide on a different layout for all of them. They are not supposed to be edited when you change a page. Futhermore, it is also the plural form for "maka" that was what complicated the would thing. As for the translation feel free to edit. --Patrik Stridvall 17:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• I just ran into the first practical problem with a template that includes the title: I'm working on a pronunciation guide, and with the current layout I can't insert an IPA transcription below or next to the title without the table encroaching on it, making the layout look very awkward. Neither can the table be moved to accomodate the unique layout of individual articles. The tables are quite over-sized and ungainly entities.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:54, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• That is presumably a technical problem. I will see what I can do. The adjective tables are to large I agree. Perhaps a slightly different layout would help... --Patrik Stridvall 17:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Please respect my wishes not to have my post hacked up or don't reply at all.

I'm sorry but I don't have time to repeat whatever you say. This is the normal way to reply in a Wiki as far as I know. --Patrik Stridvall 16:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

• When inflections really do mean something totally different that has a direct or very close equivalent in other languages, we have a reason to make a separate article. When there is no need for it, there's no point in automatically creating an article. I would find linking of every possible inflection and conjugation just to get mostly duplicated info fantastically annoying if I was using wikipedia as a dictionary. If anything, it would make me not follow the links after a while and thereby miss out on good information.

• Of course we shouldn't spend to time creating articles for all inflections. Eventually I supposed they will be created, but that is not a priority. What the defininitely shouldn't do is to add redirections since they don't work very good in a multilingual enviroment. --Patrik Stridvall 16:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

• "rötts", etc: You're not making sense anymore. It's not correct grammar since dictionaries don't recognize the form. The combination of proscription and very marginal usage means you shouldn't start making up inflection schemes. And it's not just not just "some" that consider it a separate word class. SAOL and standard Swedish grammars are in agreement. The point of writing a dictionary is that you can't include every minor variation, not even in a wiki. There's just too much many minor exceptions in any language for it to be practical to list them all separately.

• The point is that some use them and that they have an unambigious meaning. If you wish to add an usage note explaining whatever. Feel free. But sure if you wish to split the "substantivarade adjectiven" to a seperate template and add them under section "Adjective". Feel free to do that as well. In that case I guess we should add the inflection box on page röda or? I'm not sure what to do on page rött though. rött is in some meaning both an uncountable noun and an indefinite noun. But if you don't like the genitive form rötts I guess we don't need an inflection box. You could always add whatever usage note you like there in any case. --Patrik Stridvall 16:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

• Please explain what is wrong with the sentence "blått är rötts motsats". How would you say it instead? --Patrik Stridvall 16:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

• If you don't even want to agree on removing a template used only once, then I think it's about time we listed it for deletion. And the plural of maka is makor, not makar.

• I don't really care either way. I just explained why I did as I did. --Patrik Stridvall 16:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Peter ^Isotalo 13:58, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

If we shouldn't spend time on articles on inflections then we shouldn't link to them,

We as in "we humans" shouldn't spend time on it unless there is something special to explain. However, writing a bot that does it is another thing entirely. I didn't say we shouldn't create pages for the inflected forms just that we humans shouldn't waste time on doing it manually... --Patrik Stridvall 22:25, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I would say "motsatsen till rött är blått",

Exactly my point you have to rewrite it to a different form. In this case it sounds OK. However, try rewriting "de fattigaste länderna tvingas anpassa sig efter de rikastes lagstiftning" without repeating "länderna" or "lagstiftning". Sure, I can think of serveral way to do it but none sounds good. I don't see anything wrong with writing it this way either. Do you? --Patrik Stridvall 22:25, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

and I don't support a separate template for nominalized adjectives because that information belongs in a grammar, not a dictionary. Rött is a color noun that usually isn't inflected and the neuter form of röd, no more no less.

Peter ^Isotalo 20:48, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The key word is usually. Futhermore I don't think that any average Swedish speaking person would even think about it if you inflect "nominalized adjectives" in the genitive, since the meaning would be both obvious and unambigous. The point remains that you can and some people do use them in the genitive. If you see the word "rikastes" you might want to look it up. Note that some lookups are made automatically by computer programs augmenting text that can't be expected to know the grammar of every language. --Patrik Stridvall 22:25, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Predictable inflections

The above critique is a bit unwieldy to answer, so I start a new heading with the point that I wish to comment.

It is true that many of the forms given in the tables are predictable, but IMO this is not a reason to exclude them from the various articles. Space is not a problem on wiktionary as it might be in f ex a printed dictionary. The added ease for the reader not to have to go to an extra page is more than enough reason to include them. That said, they might be a little less of an attraction, perhaps slightly smaller, and more sober in their coloration. --sanna 15:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Minor pet peeve

May I suggest adding margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; to the various tables, so that they dont cling so closely to the text nor to one another?--sanna 15:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Naming conventions and template layout

It is my opinion that the naming of these templates is too confusing. I propose that we as a first step follow the guidelines suggested in Category talk:Conjugation and declension templates and reserve the name sv-<pos> (optionally followed by -<class>) for what there is referred to as inflection templates, i.e., templates that show the basic forms of the word on the same line as the base word (quote:"Inflection templates are used immediately after the POS header to show the headword and a brief summary of its key forms.")

Furthermore it has been suggested that extended tables showing a wider set of forms (declension/conjugation templates) should not be floating, but given under a separate heading, though the naming of this heading seems to be less than clear; possibly ===Conjugation===/===Declension=== or why not put it under ===Grammatical notes===. However the section should be named, the templates used in this section has been suggested on the same page as given above to follow this naming convention: sv-decl-<nominal category>/sv-conj-<verbal category>

IMO the inflection templates listed here are not inflection templates in this meaning, but declension/conjugation templates, or rather a mix of the two.

On User:Sannab/sv-verb (usage examples on talk page) I have started experimenting with an inline template for verbs (it also for now creates a hidden table... ) to give you some idea on how I have understood that an inflection template should look.

Starting from the naming conventions already stated, I would like to propose as a naming scheme for Swedish inflection templates the following:

1. They should all start with sv-noun/verb/adj/adv
2. <class> should be defined by f ex endings added, rather than on conventional names of declination and/or conjugation classes. F. ex rather sv-noun-en-er (on katt, katten, katter) than sv-noun-3-c (common nouns of the third declination).

I would gladly undertake to (over a period of time....)

1. rename the existing templates according to the guidelines given above
2. start revamping them so that they fit under a separate heading instead
3. create/break out of them inflection templates as understood here for nouns (sv-noun), verbs (sv-verb), adjectives (sv-adj) and adverbs (sv-adv).
4. check the articles and move templates around

Of course I would be very glad for assistance on any and all of these points... *smile*

Before I start however, I would very much like to know if this is an acceptable way to proceed?--sanna 15:07, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I support your proposal, of course. Is there anything specific you'd like me to help with? Rod (A. Smith) 07:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, there are some parts of the templates you have been writing that I do not entirely understand, so if some sort of consensus on changing seems to emerge, I will get back to you with more specific details. *smile* --sanna 19:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

OK. I'm looking forward to it. Rod (A. Smith) 03:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

After a long and hot July I am finally starting to get around to this again, but I have run into a bit of a snag. I cannot seem to find a format that supports the current set of parameters while still producing a valid "new output", that is I cannot find a way to upgrade smoothly. My suggestion for now, is that I temporarily name the inflection template {{sv-noun-temp}} as well as moving {{sv-noun}} to {{sv-decl-noun}} (to preserve history), and then immediately break the redir with a pasted copy of it. Then fix sv-decl-noun so it onlyl writes the table., and then go through the articles currently using {{sv-noun}} and manually fix them, replacing sv-noun with sv-noun-temp and moving the current sv-noun to sv-decl-noun under its own heading, but with the param set preserved. After that, I need to move all sv-noun-temp to sv-noun *sigh* ... Or I could just let the (212) articles break any which way, create the new sv-noun and let it be odd.... Don't like that, but it is quite a hazzle to avoid it... Could it be acceptable to break them if I add a warning text to the template stating that they are broken and will be fixed shortly? After all 212 articles should not take very long to fix.--sanna 07:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm beginning to remove as many articles as possible from {{sv-verb}} as to be able to move your new template there, Sanna. I guess that's ready now, isn't it? As I understand it, we should be able to make do with the two templates {{sv-verb}} and {{sv-verb-irreg}}, which means that we'll have to get through the articles again afterwards to change the template. But truth to be told, it almost feels unnecessary to have another template under a ====Grammar====-header, just to add the two or three extra forms not present in the inflection line template... :/ Well, however we do, I originally came here for another question: the inflection-/declination templates for nouns could make do with a new field: for the form(s) of the noun used when creating compounds. So far, there has been attempts to create pages like varu- (of vara - ok, that one doesn't exist yet), but I have yet to see links from the actual page of the noun to those pages. I think that such a field would be useful to have for example in the inflection template. Whaddya say? \Mike 16:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

New noun template on its way

I have for some time been working on an update to the template Sannab started working at, but never really finished. It is located at User:Mike/sv-noun. I certainly wouldn't call it "finished" yet - there is still a todo list on the talk page, but perhaps it is finished far enough for an "alpha test" to see where I should be heading. Ok, it does not include *any* genitive (or are they "possessive"?) forms - are they really needed? Or should one try to construct some kind of expandable section to hide the genitives in? (And yes, documentation is still lacking! I'll see if I can do something about it tomorrow.) \Mike 20:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Parsing separate senses

I made the article for kröka, which has two senses. One sense is conjugated as a regular -er verb; the other, albeit informal, sense is conjugated as a regular -ar verb. I don't know how to elegantly show both conjugations or that it's even yet possible.Kettler 02:44, 28 May 2009 (UTC)