Talk:Inflection

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The overworked Romance morpheme

A single morpheme usually carries information about person, number, tense, aspect and mood, and the verb paradigm may be quite complex.

It is not clear what this means. I tried it out on the first morpheme that came to mind: French parle. It didn't carry sufficient information about person. First or third? Do you mean that each and every verb morpheme carries all that information? Of course not, that is absurd. What then do you mean and if you cannot say what you mean why are you inflicting this gobbledeygook on us? Where is your reference for this? I was willing to accept the programmer-pseudo-linguisticese for Basque because a reference was included, and, I said to myself, if the gentle reader wants to know what it means he or she as the case may be can study the article and read Wikipedia on Basque, which would or should explain it. Basque speakers don't go around talking about two levels of recursion in their agglutination. I could see how language programmers might see it that way although you could argue their view is unbalanced (or they are unbalanced, whatever). But, this Romance material has no ref and makes no sense from anyone's point of view, so out with it.Dave (talk) 02:17, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

That was talking about inflectional morphemes whereas "parle" is a root. — 88.238.45.159 (talk) 20:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Introduction to long?

Why "may" the introduction "be too long" and what or how should it be trimmed? Hyacinth (talk) 09:43, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

The introduction doesn't clarify, to me, what inflection is, and is too verbose. It also uses the term in the definition too frequently. Cheers! (Eidlyn (talk) 22:13, 6 June 2011 (UTC))

Why Is Old Irish not mentioned at all?

Old Irish is an extremely highly inflected ancient Indo-European language, yet the article not only lacks a section on it (or any of the other Celtic languages for that matter), but doesn't even mention it or any of its modern, living decedents (Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Manx), all of which are inflected (albeit to a lesser degree than Old Irish). This is a serious gap in the Indo-European side of the picture described here. Could someone remedy this? I don't have the expertise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.111.117 (talk) 19:10, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Gato/gata

I see this has been discussed before (up the page), but I'm still inclined to share the doubts expressed there. Is gato/gata really inflectional rather than derivational? Are they really the same lexeme? Isn't it like "waiter/waitress" or "drake/duck"? Victor Yus (talk) 14:33, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised to learn there is controversy about this – there's controversy surrounding many things in linguistics, and derivation vs. inflection is often subtle – but gender agreement, at least, is usually treated as inflection. Cnilep (talk) 03:21, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I made this the image I added to the page 27 September, but now I'm not confident whether it's better. What say you? Cnilep (talk) 07:50, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Inflection of Hakka?

The article claims that

in Hakka, the possessive adjectives are formed by inflection (unlike in Mandarin where they are formed by adding the particle 的 after the personal pronoun).

However, I'm unable to find any source to back this up, and the official Taiwanese Hakka dictionary on "个" states that this character is equivalent to Mandarin "的". Furthermore, I asked a Hakka who came from Longchuan about how he says "a big car", "a yellow car", "big", "yellow", "car", "my", "your", "his", "I", "you", "he" and in all cases the preposition "个" is employed for genitive and no audible inflection was observed. If however the inflection does exist as a tone sandhi, which I am likely unable to tell, or I totally misunderstand this sentence, then please help adding a citation and clarify the statement. SchwarzKatze (talk) 14:55, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Surely the Taiwanese dictionary on Hakka would use 個 for 个? They are the trad and simplified forms of the counter word "ge" yes? They would both use 的 for the possesive particle "de" or as it is pronounced in Hakka "da"

That being said I agree there is nothing to back up the existance of inflection in Hakka. I'm waiting to hear back from some linguists I know in Taiwan to double check on this, but I did a quick search myself and found nothing to back this up. I would suggest removing the section until a reference can be found. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.169.196.207 (talk) 16:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@SchwarzKatze: Hakka does have other forms, but only for some possessive pronouns.

Person/Number	Subject/Object	Possessive
first singular	𠊎	𠊎个 or 吾 or 吾个
second singular	你 (1) (2) (3) (4)	你个 or 若 or 若个
third singular	佢	佢个 or 厥 or 厥个

Justinrleung (talk) 01:19, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Inflection vs. derivation

The second paragraph in this section is a long list, was this meant to be a chart or table of some kind? It would also be helpful if the eight English inflectional suffixes were listed, but these may be better listed in the Examples in English section, rather than the Inflection vs. derivation section. Sschuler (talk) 01:21, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I noticed the same list and fixed the formatting Danielklein (talk) 23:28, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Old English weak nouns

Is the Old English word "ēage" really "ēage" in the singular accusative? This looks like a mistake because "nama" becomes "naman" and "tunge" becomes "tungan". If the weak neuter form is different from the weak masculine and feminine forms, would someone add a brief explanation, otherwise if it's a mistake just fix it? Danielklein (talk) 23:37, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

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Introduction

I think this article has a lot of necessary information, but also some that may deter readers wanting to lear about Inflection because of its length. The intro seems to go on some areas of morphemes that could be simplified to bring more clarity. It would seem helpful to consider pulling some of those long sentences In the intro, and replace them with citations for those who want a more detailed version. This can make it easier to hit all of the topics that are in the article throughout the intro. Bayjanae (talk) 00:18, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Dà chù.png unreadable on dark background

The image near the top of the article blends into dark backgrounds. In my case, the Wikipedia Android app using dark mode. I assume this is because the PNG has a transparent background.

I'm not sure if there's a wider WikiProject or something similar that addresses these issues, but I personally don't see any issue with adding a white background to the PNG. I assume that the light mode in official Wikipedia "platforms" (web, mobile apps, others?) uses pure white as a background, so they shouldn't notice a difference.

I'm not familiar with Commons, but I imagine that this would have to be uploaded as a separate file unless it was done by the original uploader? I mean, the image is released under CC0 but I don't know what the Commons policies are regarding modifications. The file is used on a handful of other Wikipedias, but I imagine they would benefit the same from this modification to the image. Firvqipo (talk) 09:12, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Addition of Russian

@Walter Tau, please stop adding clutter to the article. I'm not required to give a reason specifically rooted in policy for removing it, just as you aren't required to for adding it. But I did give a clear reason why I thought it should be removed, and you've made no case whatsoever for why it should be there. Stop re-adding contested material to the article, as that is an actual violation of actual site policy. Remsense ‥ 论 12:47, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense, what about swapping in Russian for Latin, Biblical Hebrew, or Sanskrit? I think examples of languages commonly spoken in the present day are more helpful for readers, and I believe Greek is the only currently-spoken example in that parenthetical. (Note that I became aware of this issue because of a post at WP:VPP.) Schazjmd (talk) 14:27, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

(Not to add my own paragraphs to the pile, but at this point owing to the unexpectedly outsized reaction here, I can't help but become a bit pessimistic as to my ability to adequately communicate here. Is what I've said so far genuinely unclear or obtuse? How much of this is my fault?)

I mean, if I were actually writing the list from scratch—as opposed to reverting a single deleterious edit—I would pick three or four examples, ideally representing major languages from two to four independent language families spoken over a wide geographic area. I dunno, off the top of my head: Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic, Navajo? Maybe swap Sanskrit for Hausa? But at present, I'm relatively exhausted given the very narrow remit of all this, and feel any further participation on my part is likely to give other editors more unnecessary work to do. Remsense ‥ 论 20:52, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Navajo is a good example. The only reason I chose Kichwa instead is because Navajo is effectively moribund. Ivan (talk) 21:11, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I do realize I've picked one vital living language out of four, so maybe a living Indo-European example—indeed, maybe Russian!—should replace Latin. Remsense ‥ 论 21:16, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense Summary of the dispute:

On 2024-09-27T09:09:12 I added an example of Russian as a highly inflectional language. I felt, that it was very appropriate, because the previous list did not mention any Slavic languages (or any other extant Indo-European language) in the list of highly inflected languages. Russian is a very good example for this list, because it is 1) the most inflected among all languages on the list; 2) it is representative of Slavic languages, all of which are inflectional, but none of them is mentioned; 3) It is the most widely-spoken among Slavic languages; 4) It is one of the 6 Official languages of the United Nations. After my addition, shown in <<angled brackets>> the sentence reads: Languages that have some degree of inflection are synthetic languages. These can be highly inflected (such as Latin, Greek, <<Russian>>, Biblical Hebrew, and Sanskrit), or slightly inflected (such as English, Dutch, Persian). User Remsense deleted my addition with a comment: Undid revision 1248037263 by Walter Tau (talk) additional example not required. >>WaterTau: I tried several lower levels mechanisms to resolve my dispute with Remsense, but they lead nowhere. So, I would like to escalate this to the next level. I am not particularly concerned with the article about Lingustics, but rather with a more general Wikipedia policies. And this dispute presents a very good example to discuss such policies. The question is about an appropriate number of examples to illustrate a non-controversial topic: 1) how many examples are sufficient/appropriate? 2) what constitutes a "clutter", when giving a list of examples? 3) is adding an example from a class, which is not present in the list, a clutter? I would like to get opinion of 3rd parties instead of limiting the food-fight to the two original parties. In addition I would like to ask: 4) Is there a wiki-policy about appropriate number of examples to illustrate a non-controversial topic? 5) How do you find if Wikipedia has a policy about something? 6) What is a wiki-policy in regard to "arbitrary and capricious" deletions? BTW, the term "arbitrary and capricious" is not an insult, it is a US legal term established by the SCOTUS in 1971 (https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/nclr92&div=20&id=&page=). I have never brought up a dispute to the front of a crowd, but this particular editor consistently shows questionable behavior (please search for "Remsense" on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI) , and the topic of my question seems very important and timely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walter Tau (talk • contribs) 17:09, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

As far as the content goes I agree with most of what most people have said here. The list of highly inflected languages seems to be very skewed to ancient languages, and the Slavic languages are good examples of highly inflected living languages. Of course Wikipedia has no general policy on how many examples to give (I have difficulty even understanding why anyone would think that it would, any more than it dictates the number of images in an article), so this is a prime candidate for a good-faith discussion of which languages to include. I am afraid that, so far, Walter Tau has gone in all guns blazing and shown no sign of wanting a good-faith discussion. Remsense, you don't have to do this, but it may help if you withdraw the word "clutter", because I get the impression that Walter has taken a particular dislike to it. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:10, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I would offer some more palatable phrasing to try to be better understood, but hopefully you find it plausible when I say I do not feel directly engaging with the OP whatsoever at this point would either be received in good faith or lead to a speedier outcome for everyone else that's had to be drawn into this. Remsense ‥ 论 21:37, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

3O decline

3O Response: I have procedurally declined a request for a third opinion at WP:3O. Per the instructions, third opinions are to be requested when there is a dispute between two editors and a third opinion is desired in an attempt to resolve that dispute. I see no evidence that there is currently such a dispute on this page. If and when that changes, editors are welcome to file a new request. Alternately, please pursue one of the other options listed at WP:DR. DonIago (talk) 01:33, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

@DonIago

1. Talk:Inflection&action=edit&section=12. I have not seen this type of disagreement anywhere else on wikipedia, so I want to bring it up for a more general discussion.

On 2024-09-27T09:09:12 I added an example of Russian as a highly inflectional language. I felt, that it was very appropriate, because the previous list did not mention any Slavic languages (or any other extant Indo-European language) in the list of highly inflected languages. Russian is a very good example for this list, because it is

1) the most inflected among all languages on the list;

2) it is representative of Slavic languages, all of which are inflectional, but none of them is mentioned;

3) It is the most widely-spoken among Slavic languages;

4) It is one of the 6 Official languages of the United Nations.

After my addition, shown in <<angled brackets>> the sentence reads:

Languages that have some degree of inflection are synthetic languages. These can be highly inflected (such as Latin, Greek, <<Russian>>, Biblical Hebrew, and Sanskrit), or slightly inflected (such as English, Dutch, Persian).

User Remsense deleted my addition with a comment:

Undid revision 1248037263 by Walter Tau (talk) additional example not required

curprev 2024-09-27T09:11:47‎ Remsense talk contribs‎ 63,852 bytes −13‎ Undid revision 1248037263 by Walter Tau (talk) additional example not required undothank Tags: Undo Reverted Mobile edit Mobile app edit iOS app edit App undo

I tried several lower levels mechanisms to resolve my dispute with Remsense, but they lead nowhere. So, I would like to escalate this to the next level. I am not particularly concerned with the article aboutLingustics, but rather with a more general Wikipedia policies. And this dispute presents a very good example to discuss such policies.

The question is about an appropriate number of examples to illustrate a non-controversial topic:

1) how many examples are sufficient/appropriate?

2) what constitutes a "clutter", when giving a list of examples?

3) is adding an example from a class, which is not present in the list, a clutter?

I would like to get opinion of 3rd parties instead of limiting the food-fight to the two original parties.

In addition I would like to ask:

4) Is there a wiki-policy about appropriate number of examples to illustrate a non-controversial topic?

5) How do you find if Wikipedia has a policy about something?

I have never brought up a deletionist to the front of a crowd, but this particular editor consistently shows questionable behavior (please search for "Remsense" on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI) , and the topic of my question seems very important and timely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walter Tau (talk • contribs) 14:40, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I might be willing to offer an opinion on this (not as a part of the 3O process, just as a generic editor), but diffs would make this much easier to review. DonIago (talk) 15:33, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Also, courtesy-pinging Remsense (talk · contribs). DonIago (talk) 15:33, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

You are once again casting WP:ASPERSIONS on another editor. Stop, please. Cremastra (talk) 20:23, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

3O for @User:Walter Tau, @User:Remsense.

Relatively speaking, there are no "highly inflected" languages in this list. Some examples of languages known for their complex inflection (agglutinative, some fusional): Abkhaz, Aleut, Georgian, Kichwa, Lezgian and Navajo. But it might be prudent to reduce the number of examples, using only the widely known, widely spoken Georgian and Kichwa.

The most strongly inflected forms of the more moderately inflected languages listed above as "highly inflected" are Old Latin, Mycenaean Greek, Old Church Slavonic and Sanskrit. All survive in liturgical form and are therefore widely known, but their living descendants have lost a significant portion of their original inflectional diversity. Again we might reduce the number of examples, by sticking with large living languages, plus the best known from among the original examples. Since Russian is the most widely spoken, widely known Slavic language, and since among Indo-European languages only Slavic and Baltic languages have preserved the majority of the inflectional diversity of their earliest attested ancestor, it does make sense to include Russian. "Greek", without specifying Mycenaean/Ancient, is a rather ambiguous example of either too moderately inflected a language or not extreme enough an example of inflectional loss (its conjugation remains more conservative than in most Slavic languages), so it may not be a the best example anywhere. The remainder would do even better for the paragraph about loss of inflections over time. Since "Latin" still refers colloquially to all stages with high inflection from Old to Contemporary, maybe the examples of "moderately inflected" languages ought to be Russian and Latin.

The remaining examples could be used in the paragraph about loss: Sanskrit-Hindi, Old Avestan-Old Persian. Other examples are better for pointing out the differences in degree of loss (Old Norse into Icelandic vs Swedish; Old Latin into Romanian vs Spanish; Proto-Slavic into Serbian vs Bulgarian).

Hebrew language, even Biblical Hebrew, is not a very strongly inflected language compared to the above. So if my solution (below) is not accepted, Russian still provides a suitable substitute for Hebrew.

There is a transitional category containing languages with significant vestigial inflection, including for instance Hindi and Bulgarian, but languages with weak to no inflection are more strongly illustrative: Chinese, English.

Tentative solution: "These can be highly inflected (such as Georgian or Kichwa), moderately inflected (such as Russian or Latin), weakly inflected (such as English), but not uninflected (such as Chinese)." Ivan (talk) 18:37, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Basically, the most prominent agglutinative language(s), the most prominent fusional languages, and an example each of an analytic language and an isolating language. Ivan (talk) 18:44, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

3O for @[[User:Иованъ], @User:Remsense. Dear Иованъ, thank you very much for your suggestion. It is a pleasure to work with people, who have expertise in the articles' subject matter. What you proposed seems to be the best possible way to describe the difference(s) between languages with different degrees of inflection, as well as a larger prospective of where inflecting languages stay among isolating, agglutinating etc. Could you please implement your suggestion on the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflection ? If you make this change yourself, and with my strong support assured, it is not likely that anyone would challenge your edit.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Walter Tau (talk • contribs) 19:46, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I can do that, and then if Remsense disagrees I'm a 3O so I won't interfere further. Most of the fusionality loss cases are already described in more detail under Inflection#In various languages. Ivan (talk) 20:45, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Although I've been on Wikipedia for many years and made numerous edits, I managed to evade confrontations with other editors. This is the reason, that I am not familiar with the available dispute resolution mechanisms. On top of that, I get different suggestions from different people, and when I try different routes, that they suggest, it gives an impression of my Forum Shopping.

But in the particular case of @User:Remsense I feel, like I have to push this dispute to its logical conclusion for several reasons:

1) he has no expertise in the subject matter;

2) he routinely interfers for no good reason with the work of good-faith expert editors.

In fact, he has a pending ANI (please search for "Remsense" on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI).

I strongly support the suggestion of 3O from @[[User:Иованъ] above as the most appropriate way to finalize this dispute. User:Иованъ undoubtedly has expertise in this subject, and he proposed the most appropriate examples, that I can think of. Walter Tau (talk) 21:21, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

@Walter Tau, this is a content dispute. Through civil discussion, it is being resolved. If you want to make a complaint about another editor's conduct, you'll have to do it someplace else. Schazjmd (talk) 21:38, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your input. This is the very first time I challenged a deletion by another editor. However, I expect to be more active in this aspect in the future. You wrote:

"If you want to make a complaint about another editor's conduct, you'll have to do it someplace else."

Could you please be more specific about what "omeplace else" means here?

I am genuinely interested in the most appropriate way(s) to resolve future dispute with other editors. Walter Tau (talk) 21:48, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

@Walter Tau, please read the policy on dispute resolution. Schazjmd (talk) 21:51, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I wanted to make it explicit that I'd be receptive if the OP deigns to follow the recommendations in the linked policy—i.e. engaging in consensus building in good faith. With that said, their conduct so far has really left a bad taste in my mouth. As far as I can tell, they've done everything but assume good faith in their engagements with me and my concerns, so if they want to engage constructively they really need to reconsider their previous behavior in those terms. Otherwise, I don't feel like I should have to directly put up with any more of their aspersions or aggressive battleground mentality. Remsense ‥ 论 01:42, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I get that, @Remsense. I hope that when @Walter Tau reads WP:DR, he'll learn how he should have approached this issue from the beginning and change his approach going forward. Schazjmd (talk) 14:49, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I would like to finish this discussion with a reconciliatory note, but I can't. @Remsense has multiple violations of Wikipedia policies, including a pending ANI (please search for "Remsense" on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI). Also, wiki-policies CLEALY MANDATE: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution&action=edit&section=2 "When you find a passage in an article that is biased, inaccurate, or unsourced the best practice is to improve it if you can rather than deleting salvageable text." @Remsense violated this policy. This is the only reason, that it is the first time in my 15+ years on Wikipedia I went "all guns blazing" against another editor. I intend to enforce this policy against all other deletionists in the future. I want to make sure, that everyone involved in this dispute understands this: "When you find a passage in an article that is biased, inaccurate, or unsourced the best practice is to improve it if you can rather than deleting salvageable text." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walter Tau (talk • contribs)

I think we can take from that that there is no hope of a good-faith discussion here about the content while Walter is editing. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:31, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

That is my reading as well. And since the sentence has already been changed, there is nothing more to discuss. Schazjmd (talk) 13:28, 3 October 2024 (UTC)