User talk:Keymap9

Hello, welcome to Wiktionary, and thank you for your contributions so far.

If you are unfamiliar with wiki-editing, take a look at Help:How to edit a page. It is a concise list of technical guidelines to the wiki format we use here: how to, for example, make text boldfaced or create hyperlinks. Feel free to practice in the sandbox. If you would like a slower introduction we have a short tutorial.

These links may help you familiarize yourself with Wiktionary:

• Entry layout (EL) is a detailed policy on Wiktionary's page formatting; all entries must conform to it. The easiest way to start off is to copy the contents of an existing same-language entry, and then adapt it to fit the entry you are creating.
• Check out Language considerations to find out more about how to edit for a particular language.
• Our Criteria for Inclusion (CFI) defines exactly which words can be added to Wiktionary; the most important part is that Wiktionary only accepts words that have been in somewhat widespread use over the course of at least a year, and citations that demonstrate usage can be asked for when there is doubt.
• If you already have some experience with editing our sister project Wikipedia, then you may find our guide for Wikipedia users useful.
• If you have any questions, bring them to Wiktionary:Information desk or ask me on my talk page.
• You are encouraged to add a BabelBox to your userpage to indicate your self-assessed knowledge of languages.

Enjoy your stay at Wiktionary! Ultimateria (talk) 00:58, 24 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

Please be a bit more careful with Dutch edits. The edits at pornoster replaced a correct etymology with an incorrect one. Both the pronunciation and the nonlemma forms make it clear that it isn't the suffix -ster. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 09:59, 25 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Indeed! Sorry, I was influenced by bad references. But shouldn't the feminine identifier be corrected to masculine + feminine, as the entry in Dutch indicates? Thomas Linard (talk) 10:06, 25 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Yes, that would be better. Ster (“star (celestial body)”) is feminine, but use for a person can also be masculine. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:33, 25 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hello, I'd like to request that you not add alt forms like "ēducātum" in the etymologies of entries such as ēducātrīx. In etymology sections, the lemma of a verb is usually used to represent all forms of the verb: in this case, that lemma form is ēdūcō. Latin verbs regularly have multiple stems. Agent nouns are normally built on the same stem as the supine, the perfect passive participle, and future active participle, but that's not quite the same thing as saying that an agent noun such as ēducātrīx is built on the supine itself (ēducātum). Despite sharing the same stem, there isn't a connection in meaning. Urszag (talk) 21:30, 19 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello Urszag, "there isn't a connection in meaning"?! I'm not making anything up. To quote Lucie Pultrová: "The synchronic description would be quite easy here: they are formed as if from the supine stem (or from the PPP stem, it depends on which term we prefer) by the suffix -ōr- + the endings of the 3rd declination" (https://www.ics.cas.cz/upload/__files/LFtext130_Pultrova.pdf). Also, when you say, "that lemma form is ēdūcō": not exactly. It is more accurate to say: "by convention, it is considered that the lemma form is ēdūcō". But this convention is not enlightening for someone without a good knowledge of Latin and trying to understand the etymology of the word. Dēlātrīx being explained by dēferō + trīx? Allātrīx by afferō + trīx? Who is supposed to be helped by this? When was this decision made and by whom? Keymap9 (talk) 07:20, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

I certainly don't think you're making anything up. If you think I'm requesting something that isn't a good idea, we should start a discussion in the Beer parlour to get additional input about what format to go with. I have not seen any past discussions of how to format these etymologies, but the format that you've been removing with your edits is still used by a number of entries (e.g. calcātrīx, whose etymology was added 2018). Actually, existing entries have been formatted in a few ways: aemulātrīx (created 2014) is marked as a derivative of aemulātor, and affectātrīx has been marked as a derivative of affectātor. It would be good to make these all consistent once there's agreement on what the best format is.

My viewpoint is that it is not particularly enlightening to mention "ambulātum" in the etymology section of ambulātrīx, because this is a separate inflected form that is not the actual base of the derived word. What is your opinion on using ambulāt- instead? I would like that better.

As Pultrova says, the use of the same stem for agent nouns and the supine stem or passive participle is not based on some shared function, rather, it is "based purely on the phonetic similarity" of the suffixes involved: both of these forms are built with suffixes starting with a dental consonant. Certainly, there is a systematic syncretism here, but it's along the lines of the rule in French that imperfect verb forms are formed on the same stem as the present nous form, or that the Latin genitive singular is built on the same stem as the oblique case-forms: one is not actually the morphological base of the other. Donca Steriade notes that such "there is no syntactic feature shared exclusively by the perfect t-participle and the t-derivatives, no property whose hypothetical exponent would explain their shared stem" (p. 126), and presents an analysis involving stem extensions ("all obstruent-initial suffixes of Latin consist of a consonantal stem extension, followed by the body of the suffix", p. 135).--Urszag (talk) 08:46, 20 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello Urszag, a discussion at the Beer parlour sounds like a good idea, but I'm on vacation for two weeks, not the best time for that.

A few comments for later, though:

– Feminine forms derived from masculine forms, like Eve derived from Adam's rib, is an old concept that we don't read much about anymore in serious works.

– "because this is a separate inflected form that is not the actual base of the derived word": once again, the "actual base" is not actual, it's not a substantial truth, just a conventional one: we agreed to designate Latin verbs by their first-person singular form of the present indicative because it was convenient, not because it was an absolute truth. And in some cases, such as explaining the formation of agent nouns, it doesn't actually explain much.

– ēducātrīx does not come from ēdūcō but from ēducō (and this is easy to spot thanks to... the supine).

– Donca Steriade's article goes beyond agent names and attempts to provide a general explanation of derivation in Latin. Our needs are more modest, but by no means contradictory: we need to explain how we get from "dēferō" to "dēlātrīx", for people who are not necessarily familiar with Latin. One solution, so that the reference verb form does not disappear, would be to indicate both forms: instead of {{suffix|la|ambulō|trīx|t1=walk; travel|pos1=v|alt1=ambulātum|t2=-ess|g2=f|pos2=agentive suffix}}, we would indicate {{suffix|la|ambulō|trīx|t1=walk; travel|pos1=v|alt1=ambulō, ambulātum|t2=-ess|g2=f|pos2=agentive suffix}}.

– "ambulāt-" is a very interesting explanation, but it touches on a more general debate on stems, which is far too broad (it exists well beyond Latin). For the moment, these forms do not exist on Wiktionary. Keymap9 (talk) 21:46, 21 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the reply. If you'd like to create a Beer Parlour thread, I'm happy to wait until a time that is convenient for you. Of course, you're right about ēducō. Using the first-person present form does make it a bit easier to make that kind of careless error. Forms like "ambulāt-" do not exist as their own entries, but I was envisioning using them only as an altform linking to the lemma entry.--Urszag (talk) 02:22, 23 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi Urszag,

I'm back and almost ready to follow a discussion. A few days ago, I also applied the change I proposed (as {{suffix|la|ambulō|trīx|t1=walk; travel|pos1=v|alt1=ambulō, ambulātum|t2=-ess|g2=f|pos2=agentive suffix}}). Keymap9 (talk) 21:15, 6 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you! That notation resolves my concerns.--Urszag (talk) 23:03, 6 May 2025 (UTC)Reply