Wiktionary talk:About Spanish

Spanish Spanish

Currently we don't seem to have a category for Spanish specific to Spain (see Category:Regional Spanish). Obviously, we need one. My question is: what should the category be called? My vote is for either Category:Castilian Spanish or Category:Iberian Spanish; Category:Spanish Spanish is probably the most accurate, but the most liable to cause confusion or misinterpretation. (Other suggestions welcome.) —Ruakh_TALK 00:00, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd lean toward Category:Castilian Spanish, but Category:Iberian Spanish might avoid misunderstandings since "non-regional" Spanish is often called "Castilian". Mike Dillon 00:55, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

"Castilian" is often (certainly in Spanish) used to mean simply "Spanish," and sometimes to mean the medieval language. I'd say it's more ambiguous than Spanish Spanish, and Iberian is not a common phrase I've heard. Dmcdevit·t 03:25, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. Spanish Spanish looks like a typo to me, but I agree that "Iberian Spanish" seems like a neologism. Mike Dillon 03:29, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, for what it's worth, "Iberian Spanish" does get 12,300 hits on Google and 248 on Google Books, so it's not like we'd be pulling a term out of the thin blue sky. In the same vein, we have "European Spanish", which has many more hits (126,000 and 6028), many of which are due to hierarchical organization (e.g. "Home: Cooking: World Cuisines: European: Spanish"), but the majority of which do seem to be in the sense we mean. The objection to "Castilian Spanish" is sound; that term has so many different meanings and connotations (especially if we're assuming that people will bring over connotations of castellano), that y'all're probably right that we don't want to use it. Despite my initial comment, I'm really not a fan of "Spanish Spanish", firstly because it sounds odd, and secondly because I'd like this category name to reflect and be reflected in usage elsewhere in Wiktionary — say, usage notes — and I don't much want the opposite of "in Latin American use, […]" to be "in Spanish use, […]". —Ruakh_TALK 04:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I actually like "European Spanish" a lot as clear for people familiar with the topic, but I don't like that it obscures the fact that this is basically synonymous with Spanish from Spain (I checked to make sure there aren't more Spanish-speaking European enclaves than I thought, and it is indeed only Andorra and Gibraltar, plus non-Continental possessions of Spain, I suppose). But I don't have a strong opinion on any of these, really. Dmcdevit·t 05:25, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I created {{Spain}}. Feel free to change the category ("label" parameter) when the category is created. Dmcdevit·t 21:54, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Third-person verb form definitions

How should we word the definition lines of grammatically third-person verb forms (e.g. habla, hablan, habló, hablaron)? Since they are all also used with semantically second-person formal subject pronouns, some editors feel they should be given a two definitions: one that states the third-person sense, and one that states the second-person sense. Rod (A. Smith) 01:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Personally I think we should only label them "third-person", and consider it understood that the semantically second-person pronouns usted and ustedes take third-person verb forms, but I do understand the other view. (In particular, calling them "third-person" has the complication that the third-person subjunctives are used as imperatives, and I think it sounds simply insane to label these "third-person imperative form"-s. Of course, the corresponding solution here is to consider it understood that the subjunctive forms are used with imperative sense and syntax in some contexts, but somehow I'm not quite satisfied with that.) —Ruakh_TALK 06:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I liken usted to Your Majesty, Your Highness, and your Honor: they are all used as second-person pronouns but take third-person verb forms. Since Your Honor talks does not justify classifying talks as a second-person verb form, neither should usted habla do for habla. So, I agree but hope to get feedback from more editors before moving forward. Rod (A. Smith) 16:29, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's a false comparison. "Your Majesty" is not a common grammatical form, and not one ever used in conjugation tables, or taught as a form. It is an anomaly—an invention that takes the third person precisely because it was created so as to not directly (i.e. in the second-person) address the monarch or whomever. Literally, you are only addressing, well, his/her majesty. No one is suggesting either that "Su Majestad" merits inclusion as a separate verb form, nor thee, thou, thy and thine, all probably more common in modern English in biblical references than "Your Majesty," etc. The problem is that it isn't "understood that the semantically second-person pronouns usted and ustedes take third-person verb forms." Rather, if I am not a native speaker, and I see "usted habla" I will quite naturally assume that it is not the person being spoken to that is being referred to, and when I look up "habla" here, that misconception will be exacerbated if our definitions say that the meaning (grammatical form notwithstanding) is third-person. This is actually common error I have seen as a tutor, and consider that Spanish is a language where you can omit subject pronouns, and add in the complication of irregular verbs forms that will seem unfamiliar if they haven't been memorized already (consider huele, which is simply wrong like that; it does have a second-person meaning, and which I will not be informed of if I look it up). There is no problem with indicating grammatical nuances, like the fact that this second-person is formed with the grammatical third-person construction for historical reason, and we can discuss how to best note that (footnote, template, appendix...?), but that should absolutely not interfere with giving the accurate word meaning. The definition line is, after all, primarily for the translation, not for the linguistic information that supplements the translation. Dmcdevit·t 02:16, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Please take a look at habla and huele. It seems to clarify the meaning quite precisely and in a way that matches traditional Spanish grammar. Does that address your concern? Rod (A. Smith) 03:56, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I can see what you are trying to do, but putting extra meaning in the gloss translation that isn't in the definition is just confusing, and still leads to the same basic problem where the given definition is not the meaning. (As well, "Your Grace" is an odd way to put it, and implies a meaning for usted that is not very correct.) I would prefer we take the same basic approach as estornuda, and add notes where appropriate to indicate that the grammatical forms are the same. Dmcdevit·t 04:09, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Please wait. Something broke so the definition line isn't displaying right.... Rod (A. Smith) 04:16, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

OK. The pronoun notes are restored for habla and huele. That's what I intended to show. Comments? Rod (A. Smith) 04:27, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, same sort of criticism, though. You've got the correct grammatical information on the definition line, and the correct meaning shoved off in an appendix accessed by an unobtrusive footnote link. It should be the other way around; we are a general-reference dictionary, and word meanings go in words' articles. Currently, it implies that usted is a third-person pronoun, when it is only conjugated to that form. Dmcdevit·t 05:07, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. The meanings of words belong in the lemma entries. Non-lemma entries only show grammatical relationships to the corresponding lemma. Rod (A. Smith) 05:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

However, the issue of lemma vs. non-lemma is a bit of a red herring here, since neither says that this form is used for the second-person, which is essential information about its meaning.

Also, I am unclear about what benefit is derived in this case from using the lemma-nonlemma distinction to generate articles with meaning versus articles with grammatical information. Is it to avoid duplication? Because here we are talking about the distinct meaning of this form, and the entries are created by template, added by bot, so duplication is not the same as inefficiency anyway. (As well, restriction to grammatical information makes sense in a traditional paper dictionary where inflections are noted on the same page, but so much here, where they have their own articles.) Dmcdevit·t 05:35, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I can appreciate the desire to include semantics in definitions for non-lemma entries. Doing so would be a significant change from current practice, though, so please explain that position at WT:BP#Noting lemma forms in WT:ELE and after some comment interval, we can try to draft up a policy page ("Wiktionary:Non-lemma entries"?). Rod (A. Smith) 18:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Present participle grammar tags

How should we label Spanish gerundio entries (e.g. hablando)? Some options include the following:

• gerund: One problem with this label is that people familiar primarily with English grammar might assume that Spanish words so labeled function as nouns.
• gerundive: This term has at least as much ambiguity as gerund, so it hardly seems an improvement.
• present participle: This label seems to imply an adjectival function, but Spanish -ndo terms are adverbial. Also, it might be ambiguous since Spanish -nte verb forms (e.g. hablante) are sometimes called adjectival present participles.
• adverbial present participle: Is this term common enough in grammar texts about Spanish?

Comments? Rod (A. Smith) 01:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

My preference is for giving a decent English name like "verbal adverb" or "adverbial present participle", with gerundio in parentheses. This maximizes the chance that a reader will get something useful out of it — I think "verbal adverb" and "adverbial present participle" would probably make sense to someone who knew English grammatical terminology, and as far as I know gerundio is the universal Spanish name for this form. I'm sure there are people who wouldn't get anything out of this description, but I really don't know what description could be helpful for them, short of something like "verbal adverb (gerundio; much like English's -ing form in some of its uses)", which seems like overkill. —Ruakh_TALK 06:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

My preference is anything that indicates that it is a present participle, as this is the common English term, even for teaching Spanish (I'm not so sure about in scholarly works). If "adverbial present participle" does this job and is clearer, I'll settle for it, but it's still not my preference. What would we do about the categories, also? Use a "Spanish present participles" one, or have it be inconsistent with the rest? Dmcdevit·t 01:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Dmcdevit. DAVilla 13:46, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Me three. - Algrif 15:49, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Is it wrong to call it the Progressive Participle?--Embokias 02:20, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

{{es-adv}}?

Does anyone think it's a good idea to create an inflection template for Spanish adverbs? It might at least help make sure the word is properly categorized. Also, {{en-adv}} includes the comparative and superlative forms, and can note whether the word is comparable or not. (This can be taken as a suggestion that someone else be bold and create it, so I don't have to. ;-) ) Dmcdevit·t 02:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Created. I shows comparability. See use in rápidamente and únicamente. Also, I posted a question there (similar to the one posted Edit below on Template_talk:es-adj) about whether to show the superlative -ísimos form. --Bequw 16:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

¡Ya era hora! Good move. Thanks. - Algrif 17:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I just made the entry menos mal as an adverb using es-adv|- The result is the word comparable rather than incomparable. - Algrif 12:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

According to Template talk:es-adv, that template uses the syntax {{es-adv|comp=n}} to indicate incomparability. Rod (A. Smith) 16:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Our usual format for xx-adv templates (and the like) is to show the comparative and superlative constructions (in unlinked bold for English because of the multi-word construction). Can we do something similar for Spanish adverbs? --EncycloPetey 16:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

In English, that's nice because it shows how the adv inflects (compare well, beautifully and fast). In Spanish, however, it's always regular (comparitve más <adv>, superlative article/pronoun más <adv>) so no information is added (and the superlative part would be hard to layout because there's so many ways it can be formed). I did add support for the absolute superlative form (-ísima ending), see cerca#Spanish. Is it that important to have the inflection lines be the same across languages? --Bequw 21:55, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

But I think comparative más <adv>... is adding information. It tells you the comparative form, after all. :-) We're not a paper dictionary trying to save space, after all. It is also allows the input of irregular inflections (mal→peor; mucho→más). Dmcdevit·t 22:22, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

And that isn't the way it's parent language Latin handles such forms. Even for English entries, we have (for example) more quickly, most quickly. Most English adverbs do it that way, just as Spanish does, so I'm not looking to do anything in Spanish that we aren't already doing for our English entries. I think it is better to have the information there than not. --EncycloPetey 01:01, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I've modified the entry for quickly. It is possible, and useful in English, even though we are talking about just a few words. Perhaps because we are talking about just a few words, it would also be useful in Spanish. - Algrif 15:44, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Good points. I guess my concern is more about layout and consistency. If we add it to {{es-adv}} we should add it to {{es-adj}}. I brought that up there mentioning that adjective inflection lines already run long (see desafortunado which spills onto two lines on some screens). If there's a good way to lay them both out consistently (showing comparisons explicitly or linking to an Appendix article and showing the -isimo form in the inflection line or the derived terms) I'm for it! (Note: They two are a bit out of sync already as I added the -isimo form to es-adv but not to es-adj since that one is protected and there was no support for that addition on the talk page). --Bequw → ¢ • τ 17:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Collapse conjugation tables

Several Spanish lemma entries are on the same page as entries for other languages. In such situations, the Spanish conjugation seems to consume an excessive amount of page real estate. How about making the conjugation tables collapse by default, like {{trans-top}}, {{ko-conj-verb}}, etc.? Rod (A. Smith) 18:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

That's a good idea, and I've meant to suggest it in the past. Some of the Latin verb conjugation tables already do this (see amo#Latin). What's really nice about the way the Latin verbs collapse is that the visible text identifies the conjugation pattern and links to the appropriate index explaining the pattern. The Latin "first conjugation" is the precursor of regular "-ar" verbs in Spanish. --EncycloPetey 23:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

OK. Modified {{es-conj-ar}} and the corresponding Portuguese template. I don't know what text is best in the pre-expanded table, so they're currently quite different. See amar. Suggestions? Rod (A. Smith) 00:36, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

That seems to be fine for now. I'm not sure what I would want in the long-term, though. It seems like there ought to be an Appendix:Spanish verbs, with the major conjugation patterns and important semi-regular patterns (e.g. tocar --> toque; buscar --> busque). If we had that, then the template could link directly to the corresponding section instead of a general page. --EncycloPetey 00:54, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Taking {{es-conj-ar}} as an example I made the rest of the verb templates in Wiktionary:Inflection templates#Spanish that way. As the full verb conjugation templates now initially only take up one line I have two ideas I'd like to float. 1) We should stop using the simpler verb-inflection templates ({{es-verb-ar}}, {{es-verb-er}}, {{es-verb-ir}}, {{es-verb-arse}}). We might want to modify the initially visible line of the full verb conjugation templates some, but I'd be much in favor of having only one (full) conjugation line per entry. 2) We should converge with the mainstream on the layout of inflections (& conjugations). By WT:ELE#Inflections, these shouldn't be seperate sub-headings. We'd get rid of L3/4 'Conjugation' headers, and in Wiktionary:About Spanish#Preferred order of sections we'd show 'inflections' as a non-header line (the first) under the POS header.--Bequw 19:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a difference between Category:Inflection templates (of which {{es-verb-ar}} is an example) and Category:Conjugation and declension templates (of which {{es-conj-ar}} is an example). The former is perhaps poorly named, but is meant to be used in the headword line to show the headword, any important grammatical properties of the word, and a few key inflections of the word. It is not supposed to show a full conjugation of a verb from a highly inflected language. Those details belong in the ====Conjugation==== section. Rod (A. Smith) 20:04, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that some browsers do not collapse our collapsible conjugation/declension templates, and that the headword line should appear consistent across languages. Rod (A. Smith) 20:13, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Very good point. I didn't think of that. The ====Conjugation==== section needs to be seperate then. Shouldn't that be mentioned on this About page? And for nouns should we still require a seperate ====Inflection==== section like it currently states? My main concern was more that the About page doesn't fully describe the actual layout of Spanish entries. --Bequw 17:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

You're right, of course. I don't know the best place to document such guidelines. Wiktionary:About Spanish is still rudimentary. Each relevant “Wiktionary:About...” page should mention the ====Conjugation==== section and templates, but it would be nice to supplement that with a central overview since many languages should have a similar format. WT:ELE seems to be sensibly geared toward English entries, which don't need a ====Conjugation==== section. Maybe Wiktionary:Language considerations should expand to describe common non-English layout details. Rod (A. Smith) 17:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Currently all our conjugation templates do is provide a conjugation table, but ideally they'd preface it with a little note that summarizes the table in a coherent way — something as simple as "This is a regular -ar verb, like hablar or estudiar." — and while the table itself should be hidden (given browser support) because it takes up tons of screen space and people usually won't need it, the little note shouldn't be. (At least, that's my opinion.) So, I think we should continue to use a separate "Conjugation" section. —Ruakh_TALK 20:28, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The templates that follow standard lexical pattern show a 'Rule' line explaining it. Some that don't follow a pattern (eg {{es:-ir(decir)}}) say that they follow a model verb, though this coverage should be better.--Bequw 17:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. That's how it should be for all inflected languages. There is the possibility that other information may be included in that section. In Latin, we usually have a note about the conjugation pattern, and note when verbs are deponent or irregular. There may be specific forms which are unusually irregular, or which differ from the norm only for that verb in only one or two parts of the conjugation. The Conjugation section is ideal for placing that kind of information. --EncycloPetey 23:52, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Policy on periods in entry names

Not sure if this has history, but why do we currently say here that entry names shouldn't have periods (a difference from the WT:ELE)? It then proceeds to suggest EE UU (which doesn't exist) instead of EE. UU. (which does exist). Visually I prefer periods in Spanish initialisms because it's a helpful reminder that Spanish initializes differently (the letter duplication before each period to denote a plural). --Bequw 14:10, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I think EE.UU. is the correct entry name, and EE.UU should be a hard redirect. EE UU probably shouldn't exist at all. (Other cases might be a bit different, though; English Mr. and Mr both need to be real entries, for example, since one is American and one is something else, and Spanish might have similar examples.) —Ruakh_TALK 20:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Changed. Note: I included the space between 'EE.' and 'UU.' as that's correct usage. --Bequw 16:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Reflexive verb formatting

Until recently there's been an informal policy about reflexive verb formats (see here, here, and here) that those pages should be simple links ('reflexive of ...') to the non-reflexive page. The reflexive definitions/translations would be written there with (reflexive) in front. I wanted to see if we could elaborate this to make an addition to the About page. I like the idea but have some clarifications. Should we have the reflexive conjugation box (nice because the commands and gerunds can be hard to figure out) on both entries? People should be able to find it from the non-reflexive page, so if it's not there how do we link to the reflexive page? Also, some verbs are both transitive and reflexive, like ponerse in "me lo pongo" ("I put it on"), so is there an easy template way to get both w/o parenthesis mess? I haven't been very consistent in my reflexive verb entries, but would be happy to cleanup once a policy is down. --Bequw 18:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand this policy at all. Poner is not reflexive and does not mean “become”, so at poner a sense line like # {{reflexive}} [[become]] would deceive our readers not once but twice. It seems to me that reflexive verbs should be treated like any other idiom: the entry for the lemma form (ponerse) should have a full definition, and entries for non-lemma forms (me puse etc.) should be hard redirects (#REDIRECT [[ponerse]]). The entry for the non-reflexive counterpart (in this case poner) would then list the reflexive verb as a derived term, and IMHO should also have a sense line that reads # ''see also'' [[ponerse]] (though this last part is not something we currently do with idioms, so is very much open for debate.) —Ruakh_TALK 20:43, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, most traditional dictionaries list the simple form as the lemma and have a reflexive sense, for example @DRAE and es:poner ("verbo pronominal" in Spanish). I like that format because it keeps the related senses together. To better inform the reader that when we say reflexive we mean <verb>+se we could list all the reflexive senses together below the non-reflexive senses split by another inflection line such as [ponerse reflexive (first singular me pongo, past participle puesto ]. --Bequw 16:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I prefer that format. It's not always clear from context whether a given instance of a verb-with-reflexive-pronoun use is meant to be reflexive or passive voice, so it's nice to have one consistent place to find all of the senses of a given verb. Rod (A. Smith) 17:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I see traditional dictionaries as somewhat irrelevant to this issue; the DRAE also defines e.g. "poner en claro" at that entry, which obviously we wouldn't do. (I guess it's significant that the DRAE doesn't give "ponerse" its own subheading like it does with "poner en claro", but regardless, it seems clear that its lead isn't one to follow on this issue.) I'm O.K.-but-not-ecstatic with the two-inflection-line approach, but Connel listed chiita on RFC for doing something similar, and I can't say I don't see where he's coming from. And EP has said at some point that there must be a separate POS section for each inflection line; I don't know what his reasoning was, and whether he still feels that way, though. But still, my biggest issue with this approach is that it seems misleading to give "become" as a translation at poner, given that "poner" never means "become". —Ruakh_TALK 21:24, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Given EP's point about correlating POS sections with headword/inflection lines, I would guess that applications reading our data only recognize a headword/inflection line when it immediately follows a POS header. I have seen Connel's objections to hosting multiple matching POS headers in an entry. Each entry requiring such POS headers could have split etymologies, as in our entries for the English verbs spelled will and those spelled can, but I don't understand why to avoid a repeated POS header in the first place. Rod (A. Smith) 23:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been asked to comment here. I think Ruakh's refusal to follow conventions here (or his refusal perhaps to even believe that such conventions do exist) may be confusing him, about what is and isn't acceptable. (Ruakh isn't alone in his rebellion against certain formatting conventions - but like the others who rebel, has yet to offer a compelling reason to abandon them.) Yes, many assumptions were made in years past, which directed many disparate software components (mine included as a subset.) Yes, there is an assumption that there the inflection line(s) follow the POS heading, before the numbered definitions. Yes, there is an assumption (by the MediaWiki/Wikipedia software) that headings themselves are not repeated (e.g. chiita#Verb) or else navigation to them is stymied. That's why such constructs are broken down into separate etymology headings, even when those etymologies are very similar.

Not speaking Spanish, I can't say for sure which is best for this situation: 1) breaking them into separate etymology sections so that separate POS sections can be listed with different inflection lines or 2) listing all the senses under a single POS with definition-line annotations that spell out which inflections do or do not apply or 3) list all the senses under a single POS section with a ===Usage notes=== section which clarifies the senses vs. inflections. But I do not see how you can assert that repeated POS headings within one etymology section might be acceptable. Nor do I see how you can assert that within a single POS heading, you could have your inflection lines, then numbered definition lines, then <blasphemy>more inflection lines, followed by more (re-)numbered definition lines</blasphemy>. Years ago, it was made pretty clear that that is not acceptable - a decision I greeted happily, as it made some of my software easier to write. --Connel MacKenzie 19:17, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Your criticism of me is completely tangential to your actual points. I ask that you withdraw it. —Ruakh_TALK 01:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Re-reading your comments above, I seem to have misread your comment. At first glance, your comments suggest it is somehow my invention, and that you disagree with it. Re-reading your double-negative more carefully, you are what, expressing a lack of disagreement? Whatever. It seems to not have been the attack I took it for at first, so indeed, I rescind my impolite rejoinder. --Connel MacKenzie 04:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, understandable. I guess I don't feel strongly enough about things, so write too cagily. —Ruakh_TALK 05:37, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Connel, navigation to non-English entries is, in general, limited to the language section anyway. Consider this common entry structure: ==Portuguese==/===Verb===/==Spanish==/===Verb=== (or, similarly, ==Portuguest==/===Etymology===/====Verb====/==Spanish==/===Etymology===/====Verb====). In that structure, adding another ===Verb=== section to the ==Spanish== section doesn't affect MediaWiki navigation at all, or am I missing something? Rod (A. Smith) 17:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I asked Connel and EP to chime in as they might clarify concerns that were mentioned here. First another wrinkle to think about. Sometime a particular sense of a Spanish verb can be expressed using both reflexive and non-ref forms. The DRAE on caer for instance has it's first line (with abbreviations expanded): : 1. intr. Dicho de un cuerpo: Moverse de arriba abajo por la acción de su propio peso. Usado también como pronominal. For me, this definitely lends support to the idea of defining all senses on the non-reflexive entry. Of Connel's 3 choices, #2 seems the best to me as I don't like duplicating identical etymologies and Ruakh's points make Usage Notes a little underwhelming. Maybe we can have a top inflection line that prints out both reflexive and non-ref forms. We could then (as much as possible) split non-ref and reflexive senses with a line showing the reflexive form (kinda like how dar is split up). We could also have a Spanish template so that the definition line could say (reflexive - {{{PAGENAME}}}se). --Bequw 21:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

You know, I actually see the occasional synonymy of reflexive and non-reflexive forms as an argument for giving them their own pages; we can list caer and caerse as synonyms in the relevant sense. If we are going to do this on-the-same-page thing, though, your definition-line-template idea sounds like a good one. —Ruakh_TALK 01:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

How many are there, like these two examples? Are they exceptional cases, or very typical? If only a few, perhaps dictating an approach is overkill. --Connel MacKenzie 04:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Judging by google:site:buscon.rae.es "U. t. c. prnl.", it seems like there are a few hundred words where the Diccionario de la lengua española (the Spanish Royal Academy's dictionary) considers a non-reflexive verb and its reflexive counterpart to be perfectly synonymous in one sense and feels no need to distinguish the two by dialect or whatnot. If you count cases where there's a dialect split, or where nonstandard speech sometimes tacks a reflexive pronoun onto a standardly non-reflexive verb (palidecerse (“to become oneself pale”), for example), this isn't exceptional at all.

IMHO more to the point, there are tons upon tons of verbs that may be used with or without a reflexive pronoun and that do undergo a change in sense — and this change in sense is not generally predictable (though there are a few very common types that cover most cases). I don't think the perfectly-interchangeable type really needs to be handled any differently from any other type.

—Ruakh_TALK 05:37, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

The change in sense between a reflexive verb (with particle) and non-reflexive can be pretty drastic, and it's rather common in Spanish. I can think of half-a-dozen examples off the top of my head, and there are hundreds more just for Spanish that I could find if I went looking. For example, tener (“to have, hold”) vs. tenerse (“to stand up”). The verb lavar (“to wash (something)”) vs. lavarse (“to wash (oneself)”), in either a literal sense of washing the hands or figuratively to wash an issue or matter. Compare llamar (“to call, invoke”) vs. llamarse (“to be named”). Or sentar (“to set, place”) vs. sentarse (“to sit down”). Or tocar (“to touch, handle, feel”) vs. tocarse (“to be touching, in contact”) (or in slang, the latter only can apply to being on drugs). As I say, I could find lots more examples; these are just the first ones to come to mind.

For Spanish, I would think that a single inflection line should be sufficient, with a double Conjugation section. There are some formatting issues that arise when you have more than one inflection line under a single POS header, as I've discovered recently while trying to work out some issues in Latin. I'm leaning towards the idea that we need a hard-and-fast rule that if a word requires more than one inflection line, then it necessarily requires a separate POS header for each such inflection line, but there are still some cases I know of (in Latin) where doing so would be strange and awkward, so I'm not decided. --EncycloPetey 02:53, 30 November 2007 (UTC).

Verb list cleanup

I'd like to bring up here my earlier concern about Appendix talk:Spanish verbs and Appendix:List of all Spanish verbs? First, should we even have these lists (as opposed to just [[Category:Spanish verbs]])? Most other languages don't have them (except Latin). I'd say that until we have a frequency-based list where we could put the translation next to the verb (like the 2nd one has) we should remove them (though keeping the verb conjugation breakdown table from the 1st). If nothing less we should merge them. --Bequw 15:47, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I would say that Appendix:Spanish verbs should exist, but it should not be a list of Spanish verbs. Rather, it should be a guide to the inflection and grammar of Spanish verbs. (see Appendix:Spanish pronouns) The only reason we have such verb lists for Latin is that they were Transwikied here and no one has yet decided how to deal with them. They were moved to an Appendix as a stop-gap solution. So, their existence shouldn't be used as an argument in favor of such a list for Spanish. We should feel free to set whatever trend we choose. --EncycloPetey 16:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I moved the verb conjugation breakdown table from Appendix:Spanish verbs to Appendix:Spanish irregular verb types to separate issues. --Bequw 13:46, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

{{es-proper noun}}

Can someone add gender parameters to this template? I ended up having to use "{{es-proper noun}} {{f}}" at Alejandría, and there may be more like that out there already, or ones that are missing genders now. Thanks! Dmcdevit·t 03:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes! PLEASE! I've noticed the same problem on more than one occasion, but keep fogetting to raise the issue here. --EncycloPetey 03:58, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm willing to make the change, but I'd like to take the opportunity to make it like the other es* templates instead of the en* templates (from which it appears to have been copied). Sorry if I get techy here. My main beef its that it uses a variable number of unnamed parameters for making the principal plural and for possibly denoting an uncountable sense (using the '-'). Positional (unnamed) parameters can make templates easier to use, but only when there's a fixed # of them passed in (eg {{es-conj-ar|habl}}). When there's a variable # of them, as with es-proper noun, it isn't always easy to use as you can pass params in at different positions but not at all of them (the - can't go before the suffix/root variables). It also make it much harder to edit and extend (my concern now). Additionally, it's not constant since it uses sg, pl2, and pl3. I'd like to change es-proper noun to use possibly the first param for the gender (since it's always required) and named params for the plural (pl/p/plural) and uncountability. As Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:es-proper noun shows that it's only used by 35 entries it'd be an easy conversion. Would we want to include both m/f options (eg Juan/Juana) like es-noun-mf? What do people think?--Bequw 15:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

On second thought, maybe this should just be a really simple template that adds the proper noun category and takes the gender. Junk all plurals/countability stuff because words like Juanas would be a common noun sense and not a proper noun. --Bequw 15:31, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Done. Didn't break anything. I'm editing all uses now use the template param instead of separate gender marker. --Bequw 23:35, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that! --EncycloPetey 01:18, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Index:Spanish

I had a couple questions about the Spanish language index. They are a bit dusty currently (and sparse after 'b') so I wanted to ask, how would people react to automatically creating these from the XML dumps rather than hand-editing them? I'd assume it would list only created articles (the current ones include red-links). Any concerns, do other languages auto-generate these? I could do a first pass and then later worry about issues such as non-lemma forms, showing definitions, and multiple POS for a given word. --Bequw 18:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, we haven't had an XML dump in weeks, because they've been stopped, so automating them would not be worthwhile at this point. However, re-generating the Index from the last dump would be very useful. --EncycloPetey 02:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do. Do you know why have they stopped, or if they will be restarted? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 16:00, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

So I generated the index pages from this January's dump. I was going to put them up, but what do I do with the current index pages? Index:Spanish/a and Index:Spanish/b especially have lots of redlinks in them (which my index won't have because it only lists existing pages). Do I move those redlinks to the requests page? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Entry format (initial capital letter and full stop)

Can someone help me decipher the standard format for entries, as I don't have years of experience here? Should definitions (of especially foreign terms) begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop? The WT:ELE says that "Each definition may be treated as a sentence: beginning with a capital letter and ending with a full stop" which doesn't really come down one way or the other. For foreign language terms it says that "a translation into English should normally be given instead of a definition, including a gloss", but I'm still left not knowing if that changes the format. Connel's normalization discussion is instructive but I didn't really see any consensus. Wiktionary:Capitalization in definitions seems old and out of date. Has this just been to controversial? Should there be a policy for Spanish? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 16:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Rename of Spanish conjugation templates

I was going to standardize the names in [[Category:Spanish conjugation templates]] since there are two types: es-conj-* or es:* (and at the same time add iwikis from es:Categoría:Plantillas para conjugación de verbos españoles). Is one of these preferred? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 17:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I strongly prefer "es-conj-*". (Also note that iw template links here belong only on the template talk pages.) Rod (A. Smith) 19:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The "es-conj" names are better because they can be used with standard template syntax. The "es:" names force the user to have to do "{{Template:es:...}}" because it is treated as an attempt at interwiki transclusion with the normal syntax (i.e. without "Template:") Mike Dillon 19:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Renamed. Left out the iwikis for now. Let me now if there's a double-redirect I missed. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 09:14, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Adding prepositional information to verb entries

Anyone have insights into formatting the use prepositions with verbs ("pensar en", "acabar de", etc.)? Currently I've seen about 5 varieties:

1. On the inflection line (e.g. "pensar en" in pensar)
2. Between definition lines (e.g. "dar con" in dar)?
3. Shown in example or quotation (e.g. "contar con" in contar)
4. Seperate entry that is linked to under Derived Phrases (e.g. "acabar de" in acabar)?
5. Usage Notes. Can't find one right now.

Of these, I'd say 1) was used to save space, 2) is probably the most common here, 3) is visually nice, but not as obvious, 4) reminds of the plethora of English phrases that exist (as long as they aren't "Sum of Parts"!), and 5) might be hard to use because often times different prepositions go with different senses. Any thoughts on normalizing? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 22:44, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I think prepositional usage info is very useful in Spanish. I believe nº 2. is the most practical solution. But the layout as it stands (at dar) is not clear as to which definition each belongs. E.g. whether dar de sí means 10. to hit upon, or 11. to stretch. - Algrif 11:26, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

In cases where the combination is followed by a verb (or at least not by a substantive), I would give it a separate entry, just as we would in English. As an example, we have tener, as well as tener por and tener que. For the example of pensar en, which takes a noun or pronoun, I'd leave it on the parent verb entry, and mention its use between definition lines as well as include Usage notes. --EncycloPetey 16:19, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. Is there a link for why that is the practice with English terms? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Whatever we do with this, I think we'll want to do the same thing with reflexive verbs. —Ruakh_TALK 16:22, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

cuanto unos cuantos

Hi. I'm not sure of the best way to make the entry for unos / as cuantos / as meaning a few or a handful. Any suggestions as to the most useful way to do this? Gracias. - Algrif 12:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest adding the "handful" translation and some example sentences using the other forms to the adjective entry for cuanto, under the sense, “(after “unos”) few; quite a few”. Rod (A. Smith) 17:50, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Derived terms

Howdy. Where do Derived terms fit in the Preferred order of sections? Dally Horton 11:22, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• I take it that you haven't read Wiktionary:Entry layout explained from your Welcome links. SemperBlotto 11:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

  There is also a recent vote that clarifies the order of sections further. --EncycloPetey 16:48, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Translations of English entries

I have added a section on how to add and format Spanish translations of English entries. --EncycloPetey 02:22, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

...and a section on adding etymologies for non-Spanish words that come from Spanish. --EncycloPetey 02:09, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, those look great. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 12:33, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Example Formatting

Hi. It's clear from the Wiktionary:Entry layout explained page that example sentences should be italicized, with the defined term boldfaced. However, it's not clear if the translation line below should also be italicized (with the defined term boldfaced). I've been italicizing both, but I'm finding instances where people are changing my translation edits back to non-italicized. Should the translation line be italicized or not? Could we perhaps add an example sentence to the 'A very simple example' section? Thanks. Dally Horton 10:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

For clarity and consistency, I prefer for the English translation to be quoted rather than italicized, making it easy to distinguish that translation from the actual example (and from a transliteration of an example, as is used in entries with non-Latin scripts) and making the example English translation consistent with other English translations, such as the translation glosses produced by {{term}}. By the way, some editors format short examples like this:

Es el tercer hijo. - “[He] is the third child.”

When entries grow to include etymologies, multiple senses, multiple examples, usage notes, etc., that one-line example format is cleaner than the multiple-line format. For long examples, though, that abbreviated format is arguably harder to read, so some flexibility seems needed. Anyway, I would support an effort to update the example format in WT:ELE, but it will require a WT:BP discussion and a WT:VOTE. Rod (A. Smith) 19:14, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Since WT:ELE is primarily about English entries, it might be easier to write up style here (for Wiktionary:About Spanish) and vote it into that page first. --EncycloPetey 23:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Uncategorized Spanish entries

I analyzed the lasted db dump for Spanish entries w/o Categories and put the list here. The, I updated and cleaned-out the Wiktionary:Project - Spanish#Sorting section (it was useless trying to search the general uncategorized pages list. Any ideas about how to get the list down a bit? There's bunch of -mente adverbs if someone wants to do a bot run. There's also lots of non-lemma words in the list. Thoughts? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 21:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

You seem to have missed something? A number of entries on your list contain {{plural of|[[…]]|lang=Spanish}}, which puts them in Category:Spanish plurals. —Ruakh_TALK 02:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I did miss that. I looked at {{feminine of}} and it didn't add a category, but I didn't check {{plural of}}. I re-run it. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 12:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, too many templates to worry about. I switched to building a set from the categories sql dump file. Seems to work better. User:Mutante has been topically categorizes some since the dumps were produced (Thanks!). I also now make two lists, one of pages that are completely uncategorized, and another with those that just don't have a Spanish category. We really should do something about the verb forms. There's a ton. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 22:03, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Help with conjugations of rare verbs

All the infinitive verb entries present at the last dump now have conjugation tables except the follow that aren't in the RAE: çabullir, chichar, davilar, sucitar, fiestar (been rfv-ed), aerar, caçar, dezir, acossar. Is there anyone with authority that can conjugate these? I can make attempts based on the spelling, but it'd be better not to guess. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:00, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Put Category:Spanish verbs lacking conjugation tables --Bequw → ¢ • τ 21:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

moved to Category:Spanish entries lacking inflection. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 09:08, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Diacritics on capital letters

It is not true that "acute accents on capital letters are optional" in Spanish. The RAE is clear about it:

1. "Las letras mayúsculas, tanto si se trata de iniciales como si se integran en una palabra escrita enteramente en mayúsculas, deben llevar tilde si así les corresponde según las reglas de acentuación: Ángel, PROHIBIDO PISAR EL CÉSPED. No se acentúan, sin embargo, las mayúsculas que forman parte de las siglas." [1] (See 7).
2. "El empleo de la mayúscula no exime de poner la tilde cuando así lo exijan las reglas de acentuación" [2] (See 1.1).
3. "Debe colocarse obligatoriamente sobre la u para indicar que esta vocal ha de pronunciarse en las combinaciones gue y gui: vergüenza, pingüino. Debe escribirse también sobre las letras mayúsculas: BILINGÜE, LINGÜÍSTICA." [3] (See a).

I know it is a very common misconception, even among native Spanish speakers, but the RAE never said anything else (this is kind of an "urban legend"). 85.55.150.43 18:39, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Concur. If no one has a problem let's change it. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 21:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I support the idea as well. --EncycloPetey 21:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Links to resolve doubts in Spanish

Maybe these links could be used in a new section of this article (or in "Other Spanish aids"):

1. Diccionario panhispánico de dudas
2. Artículos temáticos

85.55.150.43 18:59, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

verb form format

Has an "official" verb form format been decided on? I know of two good defline templates, but Template:es-verb form of is definitely my favorite (I can't find the other right now). What of the inflection line, though? I have seen many articles with the verb bolded, but I would prefer a template that could be used on all verb forms (save the infinitive, of course) like the type used in template:es-verb. I could try making one if it does not exist already, but I suspect I simply have not found it. If I'm just missing some information about this, maybe some info could be put up on the Wiktionary:About Spanish page. Ian Burnet 03:53, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that an inflection template would be a good idea for verb forms. We don't have one yet; most of our verb forms were created by a single bot, back before we had any templates in articles at all. It would be awesome if you wanted to have a try at creating a template though. Dmcdevit·t 05:55, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay. Should any actual information be included in the inflection line, since its all already in the definition line? I don't really see any point to indicating its ending or anything- just that its a verb form and to output the name bolded. What do you think a good name would be, so as not to get it mixed up with template:es-verb form of"? Ian Burnet 12:26, 1 March 2008 (UTC) Also, is there a category for Spanish verb forms already or should I make a new one? Someone had the idea of making a category for the forms of each verb as well, but that would be better implemented in the defline template. Ian Burnet 16:13, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I now see Category:Spanish verb forms. I created the page here: Template:es-verb-form, based on the name and code for Template:es-adj-form. Ian Burnet 17:00, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

What about categorization? I remember somewhere someone discussing the idea of creating a sub-category for the verb forms of each word. This would make sense, since there are over 60 for each word, and "Category:Spanish verb forms" has quickly filled up to become fairly useless, since it can only show about 3 or 4 words' conjugations on a page. Even sorting verb forms by ending would not come close to solving the problem. If there were simply sub-categories of "Category:Spanish verb forms" for each verb, however, the other useful sub-categories (such as "Spanish future forms") would be flooded out of view. What about making these subcategories of the "Spanish forms of verbs ending in -ar" (/er/ir) categories, since these have no subcategories? Also, if we chose to do this, we would need to do it from the definition line template (Template:es-verb form of), since it has info on the ending. I can remove the general categorization from Template:es-verb-form if this change is supported, but I do not know how to implement the new categorization for the defline template. Ian Burnet 15:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC) Okay, I think I could do this now, but only if it is agreed upon. I did not realize that every infinitive's category page would have to be created manually (though words would be added automatically), but this would be a simple matter for a bot. Ian Burnet 17:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Negative informal imperatives

The informal negative imperatives are formed differently from the affirmatives. Rather than "come," the negative form is "no comas;" "comed"/"no comáis." Currently, however, all of the conjugation tables omit these forms, and we have few if any entries for them (see the imperative form at come but not comas) since they weren't ever included in any bot runs. Have I gotten something terribly wrong, or should we start doing this? Dmcdevit·t 09:08, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking about this too, when I noticed the need to include the affirmative. I think this has been mentioned before somewhere, but I think it was never implemented because of a lack of ideas on the best way to do it. We could just keep them in the same cell but separate them somehow. If I end up making some verb form pages, I would be ready to make that page. For now I'm just making it positive since that is the one displayed, but if another were added to the table, it would be simple to include it as well. Ian Burnet 12:16, 1 March 2008 (UTC) I saw a negative imperative in the ser table, where the two were separated by a comma like so: "sé, no seas". It makes sense to do it that way, but if so, should the link and page be for "seas" or "no seas"? That is, could "seas" itself be considered the conjugation, or is "no" usually required to precede it? Ian Burnet 15:41, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

google:spanish imperative nunca pulls up http://www.123teachme.com/learn_spanish/online_free_718, which gives the example "nunca te levantes". So, I'd say that "no" isn't required at all; it's just that negative sentences almost always include it (and since the main exception is when the subject is "nadie" or "nada", which doesn't apply to imperatives, negative imperatives really almost always use it). It's not part of the actual verb form. (That said, I don't know what to make of other results — google:"nunca di" gets a fair number of hits, though granted, not nearly as many as google:"nunca digas". My Spanish isn't equal to the task of sorting this out.) —Ruakh_TALK 16:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

As Ruakh points out, "no" is not essential. But for your proposal I would suggest that it is required for clarity of the entry. Do we actually need it? Well, it would make the table more complete, and completeness seems to be one of the goals of Wikt, so I give it the thumbs-up -- Algrif 16:42, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

To clarify: I definitely think the table should say "no seas"; but only "seas" should be linked. "No seas" doesn't merit an entry. —Ruakh_TALK 18:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. I will try to start adding this to conjugation templates. Ian Burnet 21:42, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

The issue of using the subjunctive form as a 2nd person command is a bit more complicated than just negative/positive commands (whether it's with "nunca" or "no"). Indirect commands whether positive or negative use the subjunctive forms. Some one should really write an Appendix for the Spanish grammatical moods to link into the templates. If we want to be more complete, we could also include the voseo forms like the RAE does. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 16:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

When you say "indirect commands", do you mean things like "quisiera que seas […]", where semantically it's imperative-like but syntactically it's a subordinate clause? —Ruakh_TALK 01:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I mean phrases like "Dile a Nick que venga." ("Tell Nick to come"). They can also be used as an independent clause in second person: "Que vivas para siempre" ("May you live forever") or "¡Que lo hagas tú!" ("You do it!"). About.com says it's using the subjunctive mood, though I'm not sure if they mean just the conjugation used (like normal negative 2nd person commands) or that the actual verb mood is subjunctive and it's more of a "quisiera ..." type sentence that Ruakh mentioned. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:30, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Personally I've always thought of that as genuinely subjunctive, though if it used the imperative verb-form I might have felt differently. (However, I'll note that a similar English construction, "I asked that he leave", is also considered subjunctive, even though in English the subjunctive and imperative use the same form.) —Ruakh_TALK 01:03, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

If anyone is interested in doing that, the Wikipedia page "Spanish conjugation" would probably be a good resource since it uses vos in its conjugation tables. And yes, it probably would be a good idea to add it to the tables, but unfortunately getting every template edited is an incredibly time consuming process (there's almost a hundred). I'll finish with the basic negative imperatives, but I'm going to have to stop there. (Also, I never learned the vos form). Ian Burnet 21:11, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

One complication is that the RAE gives the traditional forms from back when vos was a formal pronoun, but as you can see at w:Voseo, there's a lot of diversity in modern vos verb forms. —Ruakh_TALK 01:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I finished with the last template. They should all be good now (for [pos/neg imperatives, anyway). Ian Burnet 04:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Reflexive verb forms

Do we want to have separate entries for the forms of reflexive verbs? I haven't seen that done, that I remember, and the conjugation templates (i.e. {{es-conj-er}}) use forms like "me corro," not linking the entire phrase. Assuming that is the preferred way to do it, could we fix the inflection line templates ({{es-verb-er}}, etc.) so that we can add the first-person singular without linking the pronoun? Right now, as with correrse, it leads to the red-linked me corro, which shouldn't happen unless we actually want articles like that. Dmcdevit·t 07:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

{{es-verb-er|corr|ref=y}} produces

correr (first singular me corro, past participle corrido)

Is that what you wanted? Made that fix to correrse --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! It wasn't in the documentation. Dmcdevit·t 08:37, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Inclusion of postfixed pronoun compounds?

Maybe that's not the right way to phrase it, but words that have pronouns affixed to the end of them (rather than separately, in front of them). This happens to affirmative commands (cópialo - "copy it"), infinitives (voy a copiarlo - "I'm going to copy it") or present participles (está copiándolo - "he's copying it"). I'm less concerned at this point how to format or generate the non-lemma entries as I am at how and where to include them on the lemma page(s). Would they all go on the infinitive verb's page? If so, under "Derived Terms" or stuck in the "Conjugations"? Would the words be spread across the infinitive entry (showing, for example, all copiar* forms), the present participle (showing copiando* forms), and each affirmative command (copia*, copie*, etc.)? I'd assume we'd use templates to generate them as there's many permutation with one or two direct/indirect/reflexive pronouns. Not all possible ones make sense either, which could be difficult to code. Suggestions? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 22:50, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

You might raise this particular issue in the Beer PArlour, since it will impact a number of other major languages where pronouns or particles are suffixed to verb forms. --EncycloPetey 23:06, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Moved to Wiktionary:Beer parlour#Treatment of certain types of compound terms. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:35, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Verb forms

I'm glad that we have some new blood in Spanish articles, and so I think it's time to think about verb forms (and {{es-verb form of}}) again. I think we can begin to convert all the old verb form articles to the new(ish, now) template form soon. There are still some possible outstanding issues. Dmcdevit·t 08:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone mind if I begin to make changes like [4]? Any changes to the template as a result of this discussion can be fixed by simply changing the template to affect all articles in any case. Dmcdevit·t 12:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me. —Ruakh_TALK 14:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Same. Can it be automated? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Yep, that was automated, but I just hadn't let it run wild without giving notice. I have started the bot now. :-) Dmcdevit·t 21:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Ustedes forms

The biggest one for me is not actually part of the verb form template itself, in the second-person plurals. Note that right now most of our second-person plurals (for ustedes) are wrong, or misleading at best, due to the original bot template used. tosan has a {{Latin America}} tag for the ustedes form, which confuses the issue. But what do we want to fix this with? There are some ideas at estornudar verb forms, like estornudaron, but I still find the "formal in Spain" tag ambiguous, because it is not clear whether we mean that it is both formal and only used in Spain (which is wrong) or that it is only formal in Spain, but neither formal nor informal elsewhere. The best option may be something like estornudan, where there is a footnote—this could be a link to a glossary or appendix instead, but the idea is there. Anyone have something better, hopefully? Dmcdevit·t 08:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I think an Appendix will be needed at some stage. I am trying to do one for Catalan (although it's a bit stalled at the minute through other commitments). Physchim62 16:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've made considerable progress on converting all of the verb forms (bot not finished yet). The only ones I have left out intentionally are the vosotros and ustedes forms, because we need to resolve the context tags first. I think we need to modify the {{Spain}} tag so that it can do two new things: 1) accept a parameter for vosotros forms that still outputs the (Spain) tag, but changes the category to a verb-specific one, so that Category:Spanish Spanish doesn't get flooded with verb forms; 2) accept a parameter for ustedes forms that changes the context tag to (Used formally in Spain ^more), with the link to Appendix:Spanish pronouns—it should also change the category, of course (shouldn't, actually, since ustedes is not Spain-specific, just different). Looking at the current {{Spain}} already confuses me, and it has some other superfluous parameters that seem borked; hopefully someone good with templates can do this.

Of course, this all assumes that eventually we actually discuss the ustedes/vosotros distinctions for Spain/LA at Appendix:Spanish pronouns, which we don;t really seem to do yet. That's not urgent, but it would be nice if someone could give it a shot. Dmcdevit·t 08:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, we do discuss them there; do we need to say more than we currently say? Or maybe we need to say it more prominently? —Ruakh_TALK 11:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I was surprised to see a section called "Regional and temporal variation" and expected ustedes/vosotros to be the most prominent of the variations, but instead it is only hinted at indirectly. It mentions in the vosotros section that the form is used in Spain and not LA (in general) but ustedes, which is the form that I really wanted to have something to link to, isn't even mentioned, and you wouldn't know, except by guessing from the vosotros reference, that it is the only LA form, and not used formally, both of which are unlike in Spain. Dmcdevit·t 11:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you mean. I've changed a few things now; is it better? —Ruakh_TALK 11:39, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I was hoping for a "Ustedes vs. vosotros" section that we could anchor a link to; I reworked it a little bit more. I created {{vos.}} and {{uds.}} as rough ideas for what I am thinking, to go on the two forms. Feel free to change the names or other parts. Dmcdevit·t 12:43, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I think we're getting there! I would like to have the first section as "Tú, usted and vusted", as tú is much more widely used in Spain than is implied at present. Also, I don't think it would hurt to remind people explicitly that usted etc. take third person forms. If I have time this evening, I will try to draft a change, but if anyone else wants to have a go, feel free! Physchim62 17:47, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I like the movement (appendix, template upgrades, bot-cleanups)! All great. I'm a bit confused right now though. At estornudan, the first line appears to be about the ustedes form (as it says 'formal in Spain'), but then it's mentioned in the next line with the 3rd person pronouns. Would a cleaner breakdown be?:

1. Second-person plural (ustedes - used only formally in Spain, universally elsewhere) present indicative form of estornudar.
2. Third-person plural (ellos, ellas) present indicative form of estornudar.

I'm open to rewording, but the features I like it that it moves ustedes out of the 3rd person line (which I agree with Dmcdevit about, though I failed to chime-in earlier) and consolidates in the previous line. I don't know if explaining the formality issue in a context tag is clear (though mine is a bit wordy in the parenthesis). I think we should be clear that usted(es) isn't a 3rd person pronoun, and in and in that vein I've mocked up a small change to the conjugation table layout Template:es-conj-ar/experiment. This way it should be obvious that sometimes a 2nd person form conjugates like the 3rd person forms. What do you think? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I like the change to the conjugation table, and of course agree about the definition line (I had mentioned it below, too). Though, I don't really like all the explanation within the parentheses mid-sentence. Dmcdevit·t 12:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

We could move the wording of the first one around to:

1. (Used only formally in Spain, universally elsewhere) Second-person plural (ustedes) present indicative form of estornudar.

That way we could use the {{uds.}} context tag. We could then make a matching {{ud.}} for the singular case. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anything about usted needs a context tag, since there isn't the same regional differences. I do think you are on the right track with the ustedes wording though. Dmcdevit·t 07:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone have any suggestions on the naming of the template {{vos.}} and {{uds.}}. I am sure there is some better convention; it was just the first thing that came to mind when I wanted to put the idea to paper. Any other comments about them before I use them to convert the ustedes and vosotros forms, too? Dmcdevit·t 12:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

So if we're going to have {{vos}}, My only concern is the inclusion of usted/ustedes on the line where it only mentions th 3rd person lines. As for the u like the changes to the Appendix section, by the way. I agree with Dmcdevit on th

Other

Other issues... The present participle: Currently the template outputs "Adverbial present participle of" (cf. estornudando). Ruakh thought it was important; I found the use of "adverbial" here to be unnecessary grammarspeak. If I'm in the minority however, that should stay as is. Also, there is the issue of "usted" in third person forms. For example, at estornuda, we have the second-person sense, but in the third-person sense it also says "Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?). Again, I find the inclusion of "usted" in the third-person form to be potentially confusing, repetitive, and not really descriptive of how the verb form is used, but Rod and Ruakh liked it. Is there agreement either way on this? I'm not trying to speak for Ruakh or Rod or anyone else here, just pointing out the discrepancies (and they are invited to explain their own ideas here, which would be much better than I could, anyhow :-) ) Anything else we need to discuss before bot-converting verb forms to the template? Dmcdevit·t 08:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I very much dislike the terminology which is currently used on WT for Spanish present participles. The true present participle is the form in –ando, currently described as the "adverbial present participle", even though it can also be used as an adjective, a verb form and a gerund. The "adjectival present participle is never used as a verb form, and should not be so described. Physchim62 16:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be accidentally straw man-ning: so far as I'm aware, no one is suggesting that -ante words should be labeled "present participle" or "adjectival present participle"; rather, they are really derived adjectives and nouns, and should have normal translations in sections labeled ===Adjective=== or ===Noun===. My issue with saying just "present participle" is that the English present participle is traditionally considered a verbal adjective, while the Spanish gerundio is traditionally considered a verbal adverb — and this is borne out by the grammar, since while the Spanish participio inflects adjective-style to agree with its subject's gender and number, the Spanish gerundio does not. I don't think anyone with almost any knowledge of Spanish will really need the label — the -ando/-iendo forms are very recognizable —, and the only reason they'd visit the entry is find the right infinitive (and maybe to make sure that they've recognized rightly and it's not actually a trick like ando, but for that they don't need the label) — and for people who don't know Spanish, it makes sense to include the word "adverbial" just to clarify that it's an adverbial participle. To be honest, I completely don't understand the objection to including that word. Would y'all be happier with something like "Present participle (verbal adverb)"? Or do you really just oppose including any sort of information besides the bare term "present participle"? (BTW, this is probably off-topic, but when you say the gerundio can be used as a gerund, what exactly do you mean? It can't ever be used noun-ishly, can it?) —Ruakh_TALK 01:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems like my main gripe has already been dealt with, sorry for bringing it up again. However, I still don't see the need for the "adverbial" qualification on "present participle". There is only one present participle in Spanish, the form in –ando/–iendo. To talk of an "adverbial present participle" implies that there are others, IMHO. Physchim62 16:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Ruakh, yes gerundio means "gerund"; it can be used as a substantive much as in English. Oops, I forgot that "gerundio" has multiple meanings in Spanish and that we were discussing the verb conjugation sense. You can read about how it's used at this page on WikiBooks. --EncycloPetey 16:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of all that, thanks. :-)   Certainly it's always trivially correct to say that the Spanish gerundio can be used as a gerund, since one sense of the English word gerund is “the Spanish gerundio”; but I assume Physchim62 meant something deeper, because he was giving a list of uses, of which as-a-gerund was but one. —Ruakh_TALK 17:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Etymology

Another issue to consider is when and how to include etymologies on verb forms. Right now, I'm of the opinion that any verb form can have its own etymology from the corresponding Latin form. So, the etymology of ama would read: From Latin amat, third-person singular present active indicative of amō, or perhaps: From Latin amat, inflected form of amō. Comments? --EncycloPetey 15:33, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the etymologies merit inclusion. I would have expected them to come from the Spanish infinitive first, which is then derived from the Latin infinitive. But I have no background in linguistics. Is it normal to assume that a verb form is derived directly from the root language's verb form, and not its own infinitive (if that makes sense)? Dmcdevit·t 21:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

If the word is borrowed from another language, then the inflections may deerive from the infinitive (or other root form), but languages like Spanish or Italian are themselves direct descendants of Latin. As a result, the inflection patterns existed in the parent language Latin. So, the inflected forms are descended from Latin inflected forms, in most cases. There are, of course, some verbs that entered Spanish from non-Latin origins, and the inflected forms of those verbs may not have such a convoluted etymology, but verbs inherited from Latin will. Try this experiment: open two browser windows, side by side. In one, look at the Latin conjugation of amō; in the other, look at the Spanish conjugation of amar. Notice the high degree of similarity, but regular pattern of changes. This pattern occurs across more verbs that Spanish inherited from Latin. --EncycloPetey 21:46, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the idea of including etymologies is a good one. Is this something that you would suggest could be automated? Dmcdevit·t 12:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. It would mean a little advance coordination, certianly, but as long as we have both the Spanish and Latin lemma, and know the conjugation pattern of each, we can do them in batches of similar patterns. --EncycloPetey 16:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Context tags

(Sorry for making a new section, I just want to try to ensure an answer.) I didn't put much thought into the names of {{vos.}} and {{uds.}}, but, while we can fix all the templates with an edit, the one thing we can't fix without thousands of edits again is the name of the template. And I already got a complaint about the name within a few minutes of making them. So, can I hear some ideas, before I start finishing the second-person plural forms? What's the best name for these? Dmcdevit·t 18:52, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

If you could summarize how it is you see them being used, then perhaps we could help. The name certainly does not seem to match the display text in any way. --EncycloPetey 21:59, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The idea for {{vos.}} is that it would be used in the sense lines of second-person plural verb forms to indicate that they're only used in Spain. (The name is short for "vosotros", since these are the verb forms associated with the pronoun "vosotros".) The idea for {{uds.}} is a bit more complex; the idea there is that third-person plural verb forms would get two separate sense lines, one for their true third-person uses, and one for their semantically second-person uses. The latter would be tagged with {{uds.}} to indicate that in Spain, it's formal. (The name is short for "ustedes", since these uses are associated with the pronoun "ustedes". Note that the abbreviation uds., while counter-intuitive, is very standard among Spanish speakers. It's also often written Uds. or Vds.) —Ruakh_TALK 22:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I understand the grammatical meaning; I'm wondering about function and usage. What function(s) should the template have? And if we're placing "(Spain)" at the head of some senses, what will that mean for any other senses listed. I guess I'm looking to see one specific page layout showing what it is one of these templates is intended to accomplish. --EncycloPetey 23:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe there are three functions: one, to display a bit of text indicating the Spain-specific or formal-in-Spain nature of the affected verb forms; two, to provide a link to more information about said; and three, to add an appropriate category corresponding to said. —Ruakh_TALK 00:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

{{vos.}} essentially is {{Spain}}, but with a different category. The purpose is to point out that vosotros forms are Spanish regionalisms, (and the other things that such context tags do, along with that). {{uds.}} is similar, in that it points out the regional formality of that form. None of the other forms have needed context tags because there are not the same regional issues. (Eventually, I would like to see us have better coverage of the regional verb conjugations, but that's another discussion.) Dmcdevit·t 01:11, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

In that case, it seems like an extension/modification of the existing {{Spain}} template would be the best way to handle this. That is, include an optional parameter that indicates it is specifically a vosotros/Uds. form peculiar to Spain. We shouldn't need a separate template. --EncycloPetey 01:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's what my original idea was, too (see above). When I asked Robert for help in coding a parameter for the {Spain} tag, he recommended that I just create different templates, though. I don't particularly mind how it is done, personally. Dmcdevit·t 02:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I have found Conrad very helpful with quick templates like this. I think I could almost handle this, but not as elegantly. --EncycloPetey 02:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

So he is. :-) What do we think of {{Spain}} now? Do we like the parameters named "vos" and "uds" still? Dmcdevit·t 18:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I would strongly recommend that you use two additional templates, with labels and categories defined in the standard pattern. The {context} template set is complex enough without special variant forms. When something (inevitably) is broken by the variance, it will be a hell of a mess to clean up. (and the present version of {Spain} already has several serious bugs) Robert Ullmann 12:13, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with the idea, but I don't like the parameter name "vos". vos is itself a second person (singular) pronoun in much of Latin America. As this is going to be bot inserted, what is the harm in calling the parameter "vosotros"? Physchim62 12:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Please just name them {{Spain vosotros}} and {{Spain ustedes}}, and use the standard context syntax? I think that addresses everything above? Robert Ullmann 12:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

How about {{es-vosotros-form}} and {{es-ustedes-form}}? There's nothing particularly "Spain" about the ustedes forms unless you take a non-Spain POV. —Ruakh_TALK 12:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:43, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the ustedes form isn't really a good fit for "Spain." At the same time, "es-vosotros-form" is an inflection template convention, like {{es-verb-form}} and {{fr-adj-form}}, isn't it? Dmcdevit·t 19:19, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

it

Is it just me or are the Spanish translations at it reversed? The subject ones should be "ello, ella, él, eso" and the object ones should be "le, la, lo" right? I'd fix it right away, but it was User:Polyglot (a native speaker) who added them (in 2003!). --Bequw → ¢ • τ 09:51, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

You're quite right — but those translation tables don't correspond to the defs, so I'm left scratching my head in more ways than one. —Ruakh_TALK 14:01, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:es-verb

Proposal: We revise and start using {{es-verb}} for all lemmata (the infinitive). This means stripping out the function that allows it to be used for verb forms (which is handled by {{es-verb-form}} already).

I propose that the format should look like the template I devised for Galician verbs: {{gl-verb}}. This template takes two unnamed parameters: {{{1}}} the infinitive stem, {{{2}}} the infinitive ending, like this: {{gl-verb | cant | ar}}. The template has instructions built in for generating the major forms that appear on the inflection line, which are (1) the infinitive (PAGENAME), (2) the 1st-person singular active indicative, (3) the 1st-person singular preterite indicative, (4) the past participle. The reason that both (2) and (3) are included is that, in the event there is a stem change, it will show up in at least one of those two forms. This is also true of Spanish.

The forms automatically generated by the template are the fully regular forms, and are specified in the template coding for each verb ending. In addition, there are optional named paramters (pres, pret, part) that allow any irregular form to be specified in place of the default regular form, so the Galician verb estar can have: {{gl-verb | est | ar | pres=estou | pret=estiven}}, which specifies the present and preterite forms since they are not the expected regular forms (which would be esto and estei for an -ar verb).

The template also automatically categorizes the verb by ending into Category:Galician verbs ending in -ar, etc. If the 1st or 2nd parameter is missing, the template can be set to display the pagename for the inflection line, and put the entry into an "attention" category as well as the base category Category:Galician verbs. Galician has a few verbs that are not -ar, , -er, or -ir, so these are put there purposefully, but any other verb showing up there can be spotted for cleanup, and I know of no Spanish verbs that are exceptions.

Thoughts? --EncycloPetey 19:58, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! —Ruakh_TALK 00:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I like it- can you create an example verb for this new format? Nadando 01:47, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, although I wanted to wait until I got a positive response. It would mean changing the current set-up of {{es-verb}}. You could look at any of the Galician verbs, which are all set up using the kind of template I've described. I guess I can set up a temporary version of the new Spanish verb template at {{es-verb2}}, just to show how it works. --EncycloPetey 03:50, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've set up cantar, decir, perder and pagar as examples with the temporary template. The last one (pagar) benefits the most from the new template, since the old template did not show the preterite, so none of the inflection line forms under the old template showed the stem change. --EncycloPetey 04:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks OK, I like it too. Matthias Buchmeier 16:07, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

With three of you all positive, I've made the code a little cleaner by calling a sub-template. I've also added a little more functionality. The template now also handles reflexive verbs and verbs with alternative past participles (see describir). It also allows for linking components of compound verbs using head=.

Unless someone objects, I'm going to go ahead later today with replacing {{es-verb}} with this new code, and will accordingly adjust the few verb entries that currently link to that template. --EncycloPetey 18:34, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

The template {{es-verb}} has been updated to the new code, and I am checking all calls to that template now. --EncycloPetey 20:40, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Why the whole thing with prep=no? —Ruakh_TALK 23:03, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Since the parameters are being passed to a new template, this ensures that there will be a default value passed if the parameter is not included in the original template call. I like my parameter values defined. The result is that all the parameters are passed along with some value, so the receiving template doesn't have to question whether a particular parameter was used or not. This issue is handled entirely by the front-end template. --EncycloPetey 23:11, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

But I mean, why not just default to the empty string? As in, at {{es-verb}} use prep={{{prep|}}} instead of prep={{{prep|no}}}, and at {{es-verb/dowork}} use {{{prep}}} instead of {{#ifeq:{{{prep|}}}|no||{{{prep}}}}}? Easier on the software, easier on the editor. —Ruakh_TALK 02:19, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

If that is completely equivalent, then we could certainly use it instead. It would be a simple enough change to implement. I'll investigate... --EncycloPetey 02:33, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

It looks like we can't make that change after all. I had noticed intrusive spaces before the commas yesterday, and it seems Robert has solved the problem using the same solution I had in mind. The solution requires keeping the prep=no business to function, since the space before the optional prep must be coded optionally as well. --EncycloPetey 14:01, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I still think the empty-string is simpler/clearer than "no", but since we need the parser function for the space thing, I suppose it's not a big deal. —Ruakh_TALK 16:40, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I've started a VOTE to implement this template universally. --EncycloPetey 00:13, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

The idea's fine. Can we write out singular in place of sg for those not-so-dictionary-savvy (or provide a mouse-over). --Bequw → ¢ • τ 08:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

yes, singular should be written-out, as is elsewhere in the ()'s part of the line. Notes looking at the code: are you aware that /dowork is invoked four times, with 3 of the results discarded? usually not good to invoke sub-templates inside switches, but rather do it the other way around. (I will invert it and save the code somewhere; see what you think? Template:es-verb2) Also, there is no reason to use {{!}}, the |'s properly nested in links are already hidden from the conditional. And we are getting stray spaces before commas from somewhere. Fixed that. Robert Ullmann 13:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The code does look even more elegant in the new version. Yes, I was aware of the problem of invoking /dowork four times and discarding the 3 unused versions, but I'm still new enough at this that I did not have experience enough to improve it myself. Thanks for making the change. I'll give the new code a test run on the various situations that could arise to double-check, but the code itself looks good to me. --EncycloPetey 13:58, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Various permutations of template usage with the new code all check out (as expected), so I've gone ahead and moved your code to Template:es-verb. --EncycloPetey 14:38, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Spanish verb forms over-categorized?

Hola, I asked about this issue here [5] some time ago. Is there any universal policy for categorizing the verb forms of every language separately by person, number, tense or mood? Or — except for English third-person forms and simple past tenses — should only the present and past participles (like in French) be categorized into subcategories of an "umbrella" category called verb forms? I'm highly against this kind of confusing over-categorization, the "umbrella" category for personal verb forms is enough because the information given in the entry about the number, person, mood and tense is enough. -- Frous 17:19, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree about the over-categorization. Participles are worth a separate category because they may function as either a verb or adjective, and a separate subcategory allows for dual placement under a language's adjectives and verbs categories. In the early days of Wiktionary, most coordination between editors focussed on English, so issues that affect highly-inflected languages were not settled, and each language ended up with a different categorization scheme for inflected forms. Spanish verbs have the added disadvantage that it was one of the first to have verbs conjugated by bot. When that happened (several years ago) we ended up with a mess that's still being cleaned up. --EncycloPetey 17:30, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so could we start by editing the template es-verb form of in a manner that it still shows the same text determined by the content of the parameters (X-person singular/plural X-ive present/past/future form of X), but doesn't put the word into any other category than Spanish verb forms? I don't have access to edit the template, so I'm kindly asking someone capable to do that. Or should we cast votes on whether we maintain the current categorizing policy or simplify it radically? I vote for simplification: Only participles and gerunds categorized separately. -- Frous 17:44, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Since the current situation is not policy, it shouldn't require a vote. However, I'd like to wait a few days to see what others think before proceeding with such a significant change to so many entries. --EncycloPetey 17:47, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm all for it. Hopefully no one's been hand-categorizing entries. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 10:55, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I can do it. I'm sad, because it took me a lot of effort to get that template to handle all the categories properly, but I can do it. (But per EP, I'll wait a few days for objections first. Give me a nudge if I don't do it by, say, Wednesday the 26th.) —Ruakh_TALK 16:42, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

A category with 100,000 members is functionally useless, since it's impossible to navigate and far too broad to be helpful. We had to break it down somehow. I'm not necessarily attached to the particular categories themselves (though I don't see the harm), but I don't think getting rid of most of them will make an improvement. Dmcdevit·t 22:51, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it is necessary to delete all these categories. Actually, every conjugation should merit its own category, as its done for Category:English verb forms. Would someone object if I cleaned up the Spanish verb forms, in a manner similar to the Category:Portuguese verb forms? Daniel. 23:47, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

That structure seems to handle the complexity well. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 09:24, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Noun categorization

Generally the singular forms go in Category:Spanish nouns (ignoring the issue of where feminine forms like amiga go) and the plurals go in Category:Spanish noun forms. Two questions/clarifications, though. Words that only occur pluralized (e.g. cosquillas) should only go the in the former category, right? Also, words that have plural-specific senses (such as anteojos) should go in both, no? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 09:22, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Words that are only pluralized go in Category:Spanish pluralia tantum, I believe. I'm not sure what you mean by plural-specific senses. It sounds like a word with a plurale tantum sense as well as a simple ("noun form") plural, in which case it should go in those two categories, and not "Spanish nouns" as well, as anteojos is, since "pluralia tantum" are a subcategory of "nouns." Dmcdevit·t 09:31, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Spanish Index

Since User:Conrad.Bot/Indexing is updating the index, can we talk about "ll" and "ch"? For reference see Index_talk:Spanish. My position from there is that we should collate the index as if the digraphs were separate letters (merging the 'Ch' and 'Ll' pages into 'C' and 'L'), but insert anchors ({{anchor|Ch}} and {{anchor|Ll}}) on those pages where the digraph words start. That way we can leave all the letters in the TOC, which I like, but we sort correctly. This is what I did on Index:Spanish verbs list. We'd have to rework the TOC template a bit, but that shouldn't be a problem. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 03:12, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. The printed RAE no longer considers these as separate letters for indexing, but most books and other works have done so for a very long time. We should probably include a note at the outset about our choice of alphabetizing. --EncycloPetey 03:16, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Gender considerations

In the Spanish there are several special circumstances which must be taken into account as far as gender is concerned.

• There are a number of masculine nouns ending in -a such as problema. These should be categorized with Category:Spanish nouns with irregular gender
• There are a smaller number of feminine nouns ending in -o such as mano. These should also be categorized with Category:Spanish nouns with irregular gender
• There are a small number of feminine words which begin with a stressed a and take the masculine definite article such as agua.
• There are nouns referring to people which have a basic masuline form used of males and a form ending in -a used of females, such as doctor / doctora.
• There are nouns referring to objects which have a masculine form used in some places and a feminine forms used in other places, such as computador / computadora.
• There are invariant or common gender nouns referring to people which have one form but serve as both masculine and feminine depending on the sex of the person, such as artista.
• There are nouns which are actually two different words with the same spelling but different genders, such as cura.
• There are nouns which can take either gender without a change in meaning such as linde.
• Are there nouns whose gender has changed over time?
• Are there nouns which take differnt gender in different places without changing the ending?
• Arte is masculine in the singular but feminine in the plural!
• Are there other special cases? — hippietrail 04:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, many more cases. There are words that keep the same ending but whose gender varies on circumstance (mar). Not sure about gender changing over time, but I bet some of the "ambiguous" gender ones have gone through that as lay people "incorrectly" gave these nouns their "expected" gender. See eg this nice list. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 08:12, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there are nouns which take differnet gender in different places without changing the ending, eg. sartén is feminine in Spain but but masculine in some South American regions as eg. Chile. Matthias Buchmeier 09:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: "There are a small number of feminine words which begin with a stressed a and take the masculine definite article such as agua.": My understanding is that it doesn't matter what sound the noun starts with, but rather what sound follows the article. Hence el agua fría (“the cold-restrictive water”), not *la agua fría, but la fría agua (“the cold-supplementary water”), not *el fría agua; but Google turns up several hundred hits for ?la alta mujer and none for ?el alta mujer, so perhaps I am wrong. —Ruakh_TALK 01:25, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Reflexive support

The template {{es-conj-zar (go-güe)}} does not seem to support a reflexive stem. (See avergonzarse.) Should it support such a stem, or does the stem change affect this? --EncycloPetey 15:23, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Template and page updated. For stem-changing templates you don't have to pass in the accented stem (because it knows what it should be) so you just pass in ref_obj=y. I really should get around to consolidating the table formatting, and reflexive logic into {{es-conj}}. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:23, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Languages as proper nouns

Is it standard among Spanish dictionaries to list languages like español, galego as proper nouns not common ones? The same debate on Wiktionary talk:About French strongly opposed such an idea as "original research". Mglovesfun (talk) 21:42, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

It's standard among Spanish dictionaries not to list them as anything. They're marked for gender in most dictionaries, but they are not explicitly identified as nouns (of any kind). This is true of both common nouns and proper nouns in Spanish dictionaries. So, labelling any Spanish nouns as "nouns" would count as "original research" by that criterion.

Wiktionary (at least the English one) does not balk at original research the way Wikipedia does. In fact, we encourage and depend upon original research in the form of amassing our own quotations and inferring definitions from them. We frequently have discussions that evaluate the part of speech or distinctiveness of senses from the quotations we find. We judge whether or not to include entries based on what we find in our research. If the French Wiktionnaire is opposed to original research, then I don't see how they can accomplish what a dictionary should do. Original research is an integral part of our daily operation. --EncycloPetey 01:59, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

To be clear, the dictionaries note the grammatical distinction (eg an RAE appendix), they just don't write it out at each entry. --Bequw → τ 03:42, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, countries and cities are proper nouns, but I’ve never heard of language names being proper nouns in any language other than English. —Stephen 17:09, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The authority of RAE

Some people seem to think that RAE (REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA) has the authority over what is and what is not a Spanish word, and that English Wiktionary should abide by RAE by excluding words that are not approved by RAE. Other people argue that the inclusion of Spanish words and phrases should be governed solely by WT:CFI: whether the candidate word or phrase is (a) idiomatic and (b) actually used and attested, meeting WT:ATTEST. A case in point is Spanish registración, which is now in RFD and is allegged to be absent in a RAE dictionary; the result of RFD is going to be copied to Talk:registración. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:36, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the RAE has authority over what is and is not Spanish, and how that which is Spanish is to be spelled and inflected. However, what you have described here is not how the RAE works. Just because a word is not in the RAE does not mean that it is not Spanish. registración is Spanish and complies with RAE rules and requirements. There are lots of Spanish words that you won’t find in the RAE dictionary. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:09, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

es-verb-form redundancy

acorazado

As you can see, we for some reason intentionally put the infinitive in the head word template, even though it then gets repeated in the definitions. Can we stop, please? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:17, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Back when you and I started at Wiktionary, there were a number of editors who felt that 'form-of' type definitions were stubs that should eventually be expanded into full definitions. I think the inclusion of the infinitive in the headword-line must be remnant of that old view. (To be sure, I think there are still some editors who want full definitions in those entries, but I think they now all accept, at the very least, that those full definitions would sit alongside 'form-of' type definitions.) —Ruakh_TALK 19:37, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Only two comments, but if I remove it then someone can always revert me and I can point them to this discussion. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:09, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Template talk:es-proper noun

I've made a proposal about changing this template; please see there if you are interested. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:52, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Venezuelan and Caribbean pronunciation of j sound

In IPA, most Hispanic accents pronounce "ja,je,ji,jo,ju" as [x] while some Caribbean countries use [h]. Is there a way to indicate this in Template:es-IPA?, I would be useful for local words.--MaoGo (talk) 14:01, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

etimologias.dechile.net

This looks to me like a Spanish version of etymonline.com. What's the quality of the information given there? – Jberkel 12:06, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Recommendations on making (semi-)automated creation of various verb conjugations

The verb template is very good at generating the various conjugations of Spanish verbs and that includes a number of forms that include combined forms with various indirect and direct object pronouns. This results in thousands of redlinks where someone hasn't made the entry for the verb form. Should these be made by a bot or a semi-auatomated process like WT:ACCELL or possibly via AutoWikiBrowser? I found it unlikely that anyone will find an attestation for (e.g.) ñangotémosles (in fact, were you to tell me that no one has ever said that, I'd believe you) but it is grammatically correct. It seems like having gobs of redlinks does not help anyone. Thoughts? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:36, 2 November 2021 (UTC)