Talk:alpha privativum
Latest comment: 8 years ago by DCDuring in topic RFC discussion: June–July 2015
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Is the plural alpha privata correct? The Google Books hits for alpha privativa look like they are an alternative singular rather than the plural, while alpha privata doesn’t look like it passes the CFI and alpha privativums definitely doesn’t. — Ungoliant (falai) 21:20, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
- I don't think it's countable. There's only one alpha privativum. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:00, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
- Both alpha privativum and alpha privatum (about 15% of usage), both singulars, seem attestable, apparently used to mean the same thing. Alpha privativum is used with an sometimes so some users seem to refer to each word beginning with such an alpha as an instance of such alpha, which suggests that plurals of both could be found, though I haven't found three instances. But it seems that some users assume alpha to be feminine rather than neuter (and indeclinable), so some instances of alpha privativa and alpha privata seem to be mistaken singulars rather than plurals. DCDuring TALK 04:00, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
- alpha privative is attestable in the plural, apparently referring either to multiple words that begin with such suffix or to multiple occurrences of a word in texts. DCDuring TALK 04:05, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
- Both alpha privativum and alpha privatum (about 15% of usage), both singulars, seem attestable, apparently used to mean the same thing. Alpha privativum is used with an sometimes so some users seem to refer to each word beginning with such an alpha as an instance of such alpha, which suggests that plurals of both could be found, though I haven't found three instances. But it seems that some users assume alpha to be feminine rather than neuter (and indeclinable), so some instances of alpha privativa and alpha privata seem to be mistaken singulars rather than plurals. DCDuring TALK 04:00, 3 July 2015 (UTC)