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Move Thematic stem to Thematic vowel?

User:Erutuon has proposed moving Thematic stem to Thematic vowel. Any opposition? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 17:00, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Problematic editing by Kwamikagami

Article moves, deletions and problematic fact insertions:

January 2012

  • The article nasal consonant is moved to nasal stop [1]
    • all interwiki carried over, bots change the links in other language WPs to en:nasal stop and when then nasal consonant is re-created as article, they are all wrong.
  • The template:Manner of articulation is altered to link to Nasal stop and not to the general concept anymore [2].
  • The template:IPA consonant chart (!) is changed, now wrongly linking to nasal stop. [3]
  • Introduction of plural article names in phonetic articles, which is against common use, by moving:
    • Nasal click consonant -> Nasal clicks [4]
    • Glottalized click consonant -> Glottalized clicks [5]

April 2012

What else? These edits are a big disservice to linguistics. Anyone who sees this, will think once more whether to contribute or not! HTML2011 (talk) 07:06, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Interwiki links

I'm going to bed soon. If those of you here could watch for further edit warring on the IW's, that has the potential to disrupt articles on quite a few projects. — kwami (talk) 08:53, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Pluralization

I would like the conversion from singular to plural by Kwamikagami be undone, see Talk:Nasal clicks#Requested moves. HTML2011 (talk) 10:04, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

All these edits by Kwamikagami are in good faith and the changes should be discussed on the talk pages. Different editors will have different opinions about what changes should be made to articles and it is best to try to resolve these disagreements by discussion first. Generally there is no requirement that editors get agreement before doing an edit: see WP:BOLD. If you disagree with Kwamikagami's edits, that is fine! Don't feel aggrieved - the articles are never final and everything is always up for discussion. Count Truthstein (talk) 13:46, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

It does seem odd though that one single aforementioned editor keeps coming up time and time again in linguistics discussions as making bold changes without asking for input and not only making a change but changing the whole of wikipedia across the board (as in editing any mention of whatever it is he's interested in any article he can find) to reflect his desired views without bothering to ask the opinions of others on say a forum such as this page.Drew.ward (talk) 00:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
I count more than twenty comments on this page signed by Kwami, plus more than thirty at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages. Kwami is a very active editor who makes bold changes, but that's a norm hereabouts. This disagreement with HTML2011 seemed to involve genuine concerns from both editors. I see no clear indications of bad faith. Cnilep (talk) 01:57, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
It is also a common complaint on ANI, though if someone wants to make the case that Kwamikagami is acting untowardly, one might want to measure the ratio of such disputed moves to undisputed ones. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 02:31, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Request for comment at Russian phonology

An ongoing dispute at Russian phonology, regarding whether clusters with more than four consonants are permitted in the syllable onset, currently has only two participants. (Dale Chock and myself). Although it is a minor issue, the dispute has gotten untowardly antagonistic (I have even had difficulty tagging the claim in the article). I have summarized the issue here, to make it easy for editors to get up to speed, and also made my case in the same thread. If others could participate (even just to articulate support for one position or another), it would be appreciated. Thank you. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 15:44, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Cardinal vowels

There is a mistake in the short article on Cardinal Vowels. This mistake occurs in thousands upon thousands of linguistics textbooks, but that does not make it right.

The ultimate definition of the various cardinal vowels resides in the recording made by Daniel Jones. Cardinal vowel number 5 is rounded, not unrounded as the article states.

From many years previously I possess this recording. I have listened to it many times, and can reproduce these sounds fairly well. From searching the Internet it seems that this recording is no longer easily available. This is catastrophic, as it is one of the pillars on which the science of Linguistics rests.

I have asked many people whether they know the cardinal vowels. They say they do, meaning simply that they have heard of them, or have perhaps heard the recording once. You need to listen to the recording many times to be able to say that you know the cardinal vowels.

Cardinal vowel number 5 is spoken with the corners of the mouth pulled inwards. This means that it is rounded.

To say otherwise is to introduce a strange anomaly into this system.

This error seems to go back many years. Most linguists refuse to discuss the matter. One was very insistent that I was wrong, but after listening to the recording stated that number 5 was "obviously" rounded. That's how much praise one gets for trying to set things right!

This error makes the Cardinal Vowel system seem absurd, and may explain why people are not learning it. This in turn may partly explain why the phonological description of many languages is faulty. For example, the vowel in the Chinese syllable "si" is CV 17, for good speakers of Beijing Chinese. But for many people this vowel seems so odd that they accept the Chinese explanation that it is a totally different type of vowel. Luo Shanlian (talk) 01:34, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Are you saying that 5 and 13 should be swapped?
Do you have a ref that the si vowel is 17, or are you going by ear? You say "for good speakers". Which vowel is it for other speakers? — kwami (talk) 02:35, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Verb

Hi, it's not so great that the article Verb has apparently "needed attention from an expert on the subject" since November 2008, i.e. for three and a half years. Any takers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.108.51 (talk) 23:14, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the tag was automatically dated by Smackbot in November 2008, but actually added by User:Neither in October 2006. Some of Neither's concerns, as listed at Talk:Verb#Quality of this article, such as the lack of sources and the need to describe morpho-syntax, have been addressed. It appears that there are still doubts about the Valency section, tagged in the article and included on the Talk page. Neither's suggestion that unergativity/unaccusativity should be included does not appear to have received a response. Cnilep (talk) 03:34, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
2006? Gosh, that's even worse. User Neither dscribes him/herself as a "theoretical linguist", so would seem to have been ideally suited to provide that "expert attention" him/herself. Unfortunately he/she now seems to be inactive. On a more general topic, in my experience, some linguistics articles about very obscure technical topics are quite well done, whereas the articles about basic parts of speech have traditionally been poor and unstable, going through quite dramatic rewrites at times, but still falling far short "good article" quality. I think in recent years the situation may have somewhat improved, but even so, I think they all deserve attention. 86.181.172.218 (talk) 17:14, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
There's at least one call for experts actually dated from 2006, and dozens from 2007. There are none earlier though, since the template was created in 2006. Opinions on the seriousness of this issue vary. Cnilep (talk) 06:38, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

stop, occlusive, plosive

The terms stop, occlusive, and plosive are ambiguous. Nasals are very commonly called 'nasal stops', and so oral stops may be called plosives to dab. However, "plosive" is a counter-intuitive term, as they are not necessarily plosive: plosion is the "eruption" of breath when releasing a [p t k] etc., yet that very often does not happen (so-called unreleased stops). Moreover, Ladefoged and Maddieson do not like the term "nasal stop", as there is no actual stop in the airflow. So there are good reasons to avoid both the terms plosive and nasal stop. Nonetheless, in some languages oral and nasal occlusives form a natural class, with nasality a feature of voicing (or vice versa), and it has been convenient in a lot of articles I've edited to have a term which covers both—especially when [b ~ m] is a single phoneme.

I moved a lot of these articles last year, in response to another editor moving all the oral stop articles to "X occlusive", which was inappropriate because "occlusive" is very commonly used for nasals ("palatal nasal occlusive" etc.). (The opposite use, as in "pre-occluded nasal", also occurs, though AFAIK it is rare.) How about the following, which might address some of the objections that have been raised to the moves:

  1. The current stop stub moved to occlusive. We would use 'occlusive' in the sense of a consonant, oral or nasal, in which the oral tract is occluded.
  2. Plosive moved to stop, and the manner of artic. template changed to match. A bilabial stop would then be [b] or [p], and no longer [m], per the preference of L&M.
  3. The term "nasal stop" replaced with "nasal occlusive", if something more than just "nasal" is needed. A bilabial occlusive would then be [b], [p], or [m].

I think this would be more accessible to our readers: 'stops' would be consonants in which the airflow stops, 'occlusives' would be consonants in which the oral tract is occluded, and 'plosive' would not be used, unless perhaps in its original sense of a consonant with plosion (a released stop). — kwami (talk) 21:05, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if that's the normal usage in the literature. Either way, you do make a convincing case. If other people are fine with the potential fringe/weight issues for the sake of clarity, I can get behind it. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 03:52, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
I think oral occlusives are most commonly called "stops", and nasal occlusives "nasals", so there shouldn't be any WEIGHT issues there. Besides, these are the preference of L&M, whose preferences we follow in a lot of our articles. The problem comes in adopting a term for the two taken together. Some sources use 'occlusive' for this, but others use 'stop'; they may consider them synonyms, or may use them in the opposite manner (occlusive = oral stop, or stop = oral occlusive; if synonyms, either oral or both oral and nasal). So in this case it's a matter of picking a useful definition out of a chaotic situation. 'Occlusive' is a relatively uncommon term, however, and IMO it's best not to use uncommon terms for common topics. We'd need to be clear in the occlusive article, however, that the term is used with varying meanings in RSs. In any case, the iffy term won't be used in many articles, so it will be easy to fix if we ever decide on s.t. else. — kwami (talk) 04:53, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Moving. — kwami (talk) 22:20, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Here's a bit of a pickle: articles like Arabic phonology and Gujarati phonology already use "stop" to refer to the class of consonants that include stops (as we are now defining them) and affricates. I wouldn't mind being ambiguous like that, but then there are times when we need to parse the two, such as at Hungarian phonology where we have statements like: "It is debated whether the palatal consonant pair consists of stops or affricates." If we're trying to be both accurate and precise, we'll either need to find another term for both stops and affricates or stop treating them in the same class at these articles. Thoughts? — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 23:11, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
I think that would be a good reason to use "plosive", though the same variability holds with that term. We're not going to be able to be perfectly consistent, because consistent terminology has never AFAIK been established. — kwami (talk) 01:59, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

My personal preference and usage has long been "stop" for what Kwami is calling stops (oral occlusive consonants) and "nasal" for nasals. But I think the International Phonetic Association uses "plosive" for the former category (unreleased phones nonwithstanding) and "nasal" for the latter in both the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association (1999) and the International Phonetic Alphabet (revised 2005). I've just checked the Handbook, and it uses "plosive" as the label, but in at least a couple of places describes the consonants so-defined as "stop consonants". IPA should probably get some pride of place, but it need not get final say. (And IRRC, Peter Ladefoged was a co-editor of the Handbook, so his own usage appears to be somewhat variable.) Cnilep (talk) 01:29, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Indeed as stated above, the IPA Handbook is fairly consistent for both the table headers and the names of the symbols, in using the term plosive as excluding nasals and nasal for the latter. Should we not stick to that prime reference? Then the only question is: do we need an additional inclusive term and if so, what should it be? Perhaps oral occlusive would fit. −Woodstone (talk) 09:56, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't think we should follow the Handbook just because it's the Handbook. It's not the prime reference, or even close, really. Usage is varied, but 'stop' seems to be significantly more common in RSs. — kwami (talk) 10:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

There is a difference between a plosive and a stop. A plosive naturally includes a stop as one of the steps in the production of such sounds, but stops and plosives are not synonymous. The difference between stops (which stop the air) and plosives (in which air is suddenly released following its being stopped) is in the release which is a key attribute of plosives but is absent from stops. This is another example of there being a perfectly good reason that two specific terms exist (and have existed long before wikipedia) and where a little research before making or proposing a rewrite of linguistics via this site would show why such a change is both unmerited and unwise.Drew.ward (talk) 04:27, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Given your description, it would seem the move was warranted, as none of the sounds previously called 'plosives' (such as [p t k b d ɡ]) are plosives according to your definition. In fact, I don't think there is any way to represent such plosives in the IPA, though there are ad hoc solutions using the Ext-IPA.
And, of course, they are synonyms for many linguists. Do you have any sources supporting a different move? — kwami (talk) 05:50, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
I think you're misunderstanding Drew's description. It sounds like e.g. [p] is both a stop and a plosive because it stops the air (at the lips) and then "air is suddenly released following its being stopped." While Drew's definition isn't precise enough to show how plosives differ from affricates and ejectives, he's right that we don't need to totally eliminate the term from Wikipedia. The nice thing about "stop" is that it is more inclusive, so it includes plosives, ejectives, affricates, as well as stops that don't have plosion. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 14:40, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
Exactly right Aeusoes1: [p] [b] [t] [d] and so forth can represent both stops and plosives. For the most part acoustic phonetics deals with these as allophones because most people including linguists can't quite differentiate the two without the assistance of technical means. Likewise, as far as I know there aren't any cases in which the expression of a stop as a plosive or vice versa would result in a change in meaning. This is one of the key identifying attributes of native versus near native speech for many languages with for instance most native English speakers never managing to add stops to their phonemic inventory for speaking German much the same way that English speakers have a hard time with voiceless [s] versus voiced [z] when speaking Spanish or why most can never successfully pronounce the German word prinz which contains a voiced labio-alveolar nasal [n] followed immediately by a voiceless labio-alveolar fricative [s] because in English the transition between these two sounds includes an intermediate voiceless labio-alveolar stop [t]. Differences such as these are subtle but they are valid and quantifiable and thus the terminology and differences required to discuss such differences is more than merited herein.
Regarding affricates and ejectives, this is a different topic really. Regarding plosive versus stop, the difference is one of an added step in the order of articulation for otherwise identical sounds (which is one of the reason IPA doesn't spend much time marking the difference although the aspiration mark is used for more extreme examples of plosion). Ejective refers to a characteristic that could theoretically be applied to all of the articulatory types of phonemes; because sounds are described first by the movement of the articulatory organs and second by the direction and flow of air, they are given names such as bilabial plosive in which the two lips close to stop the flow of air and then open to suddenly allow expulsion of air via the mouth, and bilabial nasal in which the same movement takes place but with the airflow being directed out via the nasal passages with the closed mouth then acting as a resonance chamber much like the body of a guitar, the second part of the nomenclature is not only important but somewhat independent of the first classification; ejective is one of the second types of classification whereas affricate, stop, and plosive are all of the first.
Affricates are a type of hybrid phoneme which start off as a stop but instead of simply releasing (as a plosive) transition into a fricative. These are considered a single sound instead of a combination if two because there are no added steps for the order of articulation. In other words, the first part of the nomenclature (the part that describes how things move) stays the same, but the nature of the airflow (the second bit of nomenclature) changes meaning that the change between the two is blended because nothing is actually moving other than what is needed to manipulate way the air is escaping. Again though, I suppose you can consider stop as integral to affricate in the same way that it is integral to plosive. I've never seen it written that way, but it would make sense as really stop is the penultimate step in the order of articulation for both plosives and affricates but the reason that stop/plosive is generally listed together and as separable when needed whereas you don't find stop/affricate treated the same way is because while a stop can transition into a plosive or stay just a stop, an affricate cannot be separated out the same way so that if you just go to the stop step of producing an affricate, it's still just a stop and would be treated as an allophone of the coordinating plosive because until you get to the fricative part, there is no affricate to even account for.Drew.ward (talk) 04:10, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't want to get bogged down in the details of your examples, but I don't understand your description of German. What non-plosive stops are there in German? Isn't German prinz pronounced [pʀɪnts]?
Also, it's my understanding that e.g. [p t k] are prototypically unaspirated plosives and that the no audible release diacritic can be used to indicate a lack of plosion in more narrow transcriptions so that e.g. [p̚ t̚ [k̚]) are stops but not plosives. Is that not what you've been talking about? — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 15:31, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
@Aeusoes "Isn't German prinz pronounced [pʀɪnts]?" No, it's actually pronounced [pʀɪns] (it's hard to do as an English speaker, but make the /n/ sound but don't release and concentrate on keeping your tongue pressed hard against your alveloar ridge instead of allowing it to move. Then roll the surface of your tongue just slightly until it allows you to produce and /s/. Then repeat the process with greater speed and you'll end up with /ns/. The normal English way is to produce the /n/ then with the tip of the tongue still hard against the alveloar ridge, to begin production of the /s/ which results in a "hard" slight /t/ at the beginning of the /s/.
Whether /p/ /k/ and the like are released and or aspirated is mostly a matter of position with the initial /p/ in "pop" aspirated and the final /p/ released yet in "split", the /p/ is neither aspirated nor released, transitioning directly into the following /l/. The same is true for the /p/ in "inept" and in that one too, the final /t/ is released whereas in "track" the /t/ is not released (plosive versus stop).Drew.ward (talk) 17:53, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
According to German orthography, WP:IPA for German, and my own German-English dictionary, z always represents the affricate /ts/ and Prinz is no exception. But I'm not sure what this has to do with stop vs. plosive. What you're talking about has more to do with articulatory overlap; in the transition from [n] to [s], the articulators must shift to remove nasality and to allow some restricted airflow and, if the former is accomplished first, [t] is present. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 18:43, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
While in some varieties of English, prince and prints are homophones, in German Gans and ganz are minimal pairs, not homophones, so I think it's a mistake to say Prinz is [pʁɪns] rather than [pʁɪnts]. Angr (talk) 18:48, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I think we should follow the International Phonetic Associations guidelines whenever Ladefoged and Maddieson diverges from them.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:47, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Auto archiving, schedule

Thanks to User:Wwoods, this talk page is now automatically archived by MiszaBot II. Thank you, Wwoods.

Wwoods originally set up the archiving to take place once every six months, then changed the schedule to once every three months. If memory serves, MiszaBot will archive threads that have had no activity (no new comments or other edits) within that period of time. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I wonder whether three months is the proper amount of time to wait before archiving. It may well be; I'm not expressing disagreement, just calling for other editors' opinions. More frequent archiving results in a shorter, easier to read talk page, while less frequent archiving allows more time for editors to "think it over" and then get back to some issue raised earlier. As I said, I have no strong opinion, but if forced to choose I guess I liked the idea of a six-month archiving schedule. I'd be happy to hear other users' opinions. Cnilep (talk) 00:33, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that's how Miszabot works. I think it looks at the most recent datestamp to measure thread activity. Either choice is fine with me. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 02:32, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
For the first pass, I set the bot to archive all sections which had been inactive since last year; then I reset it to three months. That seems like a long time to me, but if anyone wants to keep sections open longer, just change the lines in the bot and the archive box.
—WWoods (talk) 07:21, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Chinless wonder

Hi, I'm wondering if the article Chinless wonder should be moved to wiktionary? Cheers —P. S. Burton (talk) 22:13, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Does it meet Wiktionary's criteria for inclusion? Angr (talk) 01:01, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Looks like it does, and it doesn't seem to meet ours. — kwami (talk) 18:24, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
(I created the Wikt. article. If it isn't independent enough from 'chinless' to warrant a separate article, we can always merge. — kwami (talk) 19:58, 8 July 2012 (UTC))

World map

There is some useful (if somewhat snarky) discussion of a language map used on some Wikipedia pages at GeoCurrents. The map in question, commons:File:World languages.PNG, does not appear to be used on any English Wikipedia pages at present.

Some issues with Wikipedia language maps are known and have been discussed, see especially /Archive 3#Languages world map, but the GeoCurrents critique is worth reading for anyone working on or interested in working on such maps. Cnilep (talk) 03:10, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Joseph Greenberg

Recent edits to Joseph Greenberg seems to require attention from linguists. Geneticists claim that they can produce evidence for language classifications...surprise.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:51, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Modal Verb - Please Revert

I would like to request that an admin or someone with roll-back abilities please revert the Modal Verb article back to the version of July 4, 2012. The changes made since contain vast generalisations and bold assertions that are incorrect and are not properly annotated. The article wasn't ideal before but the version now is terrible.Drew.ward (talk) 18:16, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

You know, you have the power to do that, right? — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 20:25, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
There was an intermediate edit so it wouldn't let me do it.Drew.ward (talk) 22:01, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
I don't exactly understand what you're asking for. If you want to go back to the version from July 4, you can either click on this dif and hit "undo" or click on this version of the article, hit edit and save it. You can also manually delete the sections titled "List of modal auxiliaries in English", "Meaning contribution" and "Defective."
However, considering that two other editors have participated in the inclusion of the content, it might be a good idea to voice your opinion in the talk page before getting an administrator to do grunt work that may otherwise trigger an edit war. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 01:23, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Please review: Transformational syntax

Hello. I have just written a redlinked article on Transformational syntax. I would appreciate if editors with more knowledge of the topic would take a look and make any required improvements. I worry that in my efforts to make the concept understandable for a lay audience, I may have oversimplified or misstated some information. Thanks! Jokestress (talk) 19:34, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi Jokestress, I think you did a good job at providing a layman's overview of the basic approaches of Generative linguistics. The article however duplicates content from Transformational grammar (in the Chomskyan tradition syntax and grammar is basically synonymous) and Generative grammar - and it the form it has it seems redundant to me, and I would consider merging it into one of those articles. Perhaps there is an article to be written about those particular approaches within transformational grammar that calls themself "Transformational syntax", but I think that article would be somewhat more specialized than what you seem to want to write.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:49, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. It was on a list of missing articles, but I didn't want to do a straight redirect since it seems there are a number of books and articles by that title. I would certainly support a merge if there's consensus. Jokestress (talk) 20:25, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I am not sure whether there is enough material on a separate article on Transformational syntax - so I would await some more input about what to do with the article, but in any case what you have written is rather a basic introduction to Transformational/generative theories of language. Perhaps it fits somewhere. Let's wait for more input.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:30, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Romic alphabet

Double posting, since WP:writing systems is not very active.

Romic alphabet needs to be confirmed, esp. the consonants. Haven't been able to find a good description, & am probably abandoning the article.

Important as predecessor of the IPA. — kwami (talk) 22:30, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Map at British English

An editor and assorted IPs are attempting to retain a rather misleading, apparently blog-sourced, map of dialects and accents in the British English article. Expert input on the article talk page would be greatly appreciated. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:55, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Comparative linguistics

The article is grossly insufficient and heavily biased. Nothing on the issues of methodology and its developments, a classic subject that should be addressed in depth. On the other hand it gives undue weight to statistical analysis which is not much a point of use on deciding major issues. I am no expert but I am able to understand whether the core issues of this discipline are dealt with or not. Read something...Aldrasto11 (talk) 04:26, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Origin of speech

I have just noticed the existence of the page Origin of speech. I've only glanced at it (I'm meant to be doing something else right now). It looks very inclusive, or at least very big, but appears to have been edited primarily by one person, with a couple of significant additions by one other. I've just added the project banner to its talk page. Cnilep (talk) 05:06, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

It is part of a series written by a single user Origin of Language, Origin of speech, Origins of society and Chris Knight (anthropologist) - I think the main problem is that while it is probably sensible to separate origin of speech and language, there is considerable overlap between the articles. Otherwise its quite solid, although it does contain some amounts of editorializing, perhaps unavoidable when it is written by an expert in the topic.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 10:41, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
A few years ago someone had created about a half dozen articles about individual theories on creole genesis. There was enough editorializing (each one looked like essays written for a class) that I was able to merge them all into creole language. These are better, though. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 14:30, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
From my experience there are a great many articles listed on the Template:Linguistics which should be merged in a similar manner. And too few have a "History" section for the old masters like Noam Chomsky. dolfrog (talk) 15:21, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
What do you mean?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:39, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
THAT is exactly the question that language was meant to solve!Dave (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 19:06, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Possible WP:COI/WP:UNDUE?

What is the best way to report a possible WP:UNDUE/WP:COI violation by an editor on linguistics articles? I recently came across a series of articles, all heavily edited by the same user, all adding numerous citations of articles by a single linguist. This particular linguist has very low citation counts in Google scholar (0-11) and most of those seem to be self-citations or citations by co-authors. Does it make sense for Wikipedia to be citing this linguist in 30 or more articles when the wider world seems to virtually ignore his work? He may be the next great thing, but it doesn't appear that the rest of the world has figured that out yet.

I'm posting this question here rather than on the individual articles because there are just too many of them to handle one by one. Additionally, I don't really want to get involved in editing Wikipedia (I don't have the time to follow things through). In any case it seems like working this out with the user in question isn't likely to be a simple matter. I'm not sure whether the user is trying to promote a particular person or is just innocently unaware that relying on published articles is only part of what's involved in creating balanced, well rounded articles.

I think highly of the project and would like to see the quality of articles improved.

Beth 77.124.109.209 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:37, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

No it does not make sense. Wikipedia is not for selfpromotion. Could you point towards the articles in question?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:46, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Based on the articles that Beth has been editing, it looks like this is about Tjo3ya. I've notified him about this discussion. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 13:40, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Having looked at some of the articles I am not entirely sure what to think. It seems that User:Tjo3ya clearly has not been following our policy that encourages caution in citing one's own work. But on the other hand I cannot claim the expertise to say whether his work is or isn't prominent within this very specialized niche of linguistics. Looking at his articles it also doesn't seem that he is inserting his own work into all of them, but only intothose in which he does have expertise. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:23, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, the comment is about me. Beth and I have had a lengthy exchange on the dependency grammar talk page. We disagree about a fundamental issue concerning the nature of dependency grammar. My stance there has been and remains that Beth's point of view can and should be represented in the article if it can be backed up by accredited literature. But in my estimation, Beth has not yet been able to produce the literature that would back up her preferred analysis.
Concerning my work in Wikipedia, I do cite my papers where I think my work is relevant (these papers are in A- and B-level peer-reviewed journals). I also cite numerous other sources, of course. All the articles I have ever worked on in any significant way are listed on my user page.
I think that it looks like you have made really good contributions to the area of syntax, although it would be great if you would broaden your focus to include other perspectives on syntax than Dependency Grammar, because in some cases it does look like the article gets skewed towards a DG perspective - for example Non-configurational language which spends more time describing why DG doesn't like the concept than on describing the actual concept and its history. Some of the other articles I have looked at look similarly heavy on the DG side. I agree with Auesoes that contributing to areas where you have expertise is great, but sometimes it requires taking a step back to look at the larger context of writing an encyclopedia - academia does tend to produce a kind of tunnel vision that doesn't translate well into encyclopedia articles. I think I would discourage citing your own work quite so much, except where it is clearly relevant to the topic and the text in the article(where for example it is among the main works addressing that particular issue). We have had some cases of linguists inserting themselves and their work into articles where they were only tangentially related. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:24, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm a fan of encouraging actual scholars to contribute in areas they're familiar with. Tjo3ya is being transparent about who he is and what he is doing, which IMHO addresses 75% of the concerns with COI. "Reporting" doesn't quite address the real issue here, which is a content dispute at Dependency grammar in regards to POV. Tjo3ya's stance (that Beth find sources backing up her position) is reasonable; to be fair, though, Tjo3ya may be in a better position to find such sources, being knowledgeable in the field and all. Either way, tags are in order until the issue is resolved. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 14:58, 22 August 2012 (UTC)


Just to clarify, that discussion is in my mind completely unrelated. I don't plan on continuing it aside from posting a list of Dependency Grammar review articles so that someone can pick up where I left off. Between the time I raised the content question (a month ago) and the last week or two I had the opportunity to read a variety of review articles on the field of dependency grammar. In fact I explicitly said at one point that I thought the diagram issue was really a side issue. Far more concerning to me at this point is that the overall approach of the article gives the reader a sense that the field is monolithic whereas nearly every review article I've read presents the field as a tradition that has debated every aspect of the concept of a dependency tree from the nature of lexical units to the definition of dependencies to the number of layers in a dependency model to the labels on the graphs to ... well I hope you get the idea. Read that Wiki article and you wouldn't have a clue. But that comes down really to a philosophy of science issue: is the best way to present a field to show the questions it asks or the currently most popular opinions? It is unrelated to my concerns about citation pushing and it isn't going to be resolved either way by what is decided about the massive number of self-citations. Beth 77.124.109.209 (talk) 15:31, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Clarification. I didn't want to name names or list articles because I wasn't sure if my read of there being a problem was correct. Further clarification, I have not edited that article in any way. Nor do I intend to. I raised some questions and expressed some concerns on the talk page and that is the end of the involvement I want to have. As I said on the talk page, the kinds of changes that would make the article into a good theory review article (according to how I define good) are too extensive for anyone to just do unilaterally.

But I also want to stres that what raised the alarm bell was the importance of this linguist in wikipedia compared to outside of Wikipedia. It seems to me that if this users views are widely shared then he can easily find alternative citations from more well known and widely cited authors in the field with which he is familiar and thereby avoid even the appearance of COI. An if not, the low citation counts outside of wikipedia raise issues.

Also I do question for example an edit to an article like non-configurational languages where the main contribution was to increase the article by about a third to explain why dependency grammar doesn't care about this distinction, rather than the more logical move of fleshing out the article with lit review of the controversy among those who do research and debate the question of non-configurational languages. A single sentence about such-and-scuh theory not caring about the configurational/non-configurational distinction should have been enough.

It was impossible for me to list articles without identifying the user, but since the name of the user that concerns me has been mentioned and notified, I might as well list them. These are just the articles the user listed on the user page as the user's major contributions to wikipedia. I don't know if the list is complete. I leave the rest of the work on this one in your hands. As I said, I don't have the time to follow things through beyond what I've done already, nor do I have the tact or skill to communicate with this user.

Articles both created and edited by user:

Articles edited by user:

Beth 77.124.109.209 (talk) 15:06, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Misrepresentation. Check out the numbers!

I think Beth is now misrepresenting the nature of our dispute. Our exchange started on the talk page for dependency grammar, where Beth began her first comment with the following statement:

"I'm no expert on this topic..."

Despite this acknowledgment, she goes on to challenge the most basic of assumptions concerning the syntactic structures of the trees produced in the article. When I repeatedly suggested that for her analysis to be taken seriously, good literature is necessary, the focus of her messages began to shift. It began to shift to the nature of my greater contributions to Wikipedia.

Concerning these greater contributions, I of course know my own work best, so I am most capable of citing my own articles where I see that they are relevant. When evaluating my contributions, I encourage editors to consider the content that I have provided. One can now learn quickly from Wikipedia what syntactic mechanisms such as topicalization, extraposition, stripping, noun ellipsis, verb phrase ellipsis, gapping, scrambling, V2 word order, etc. are. Before I started my efforts, the articles on these topics and others were either non-existent or they were too brief and/or too poorly structured to be of any help.

I think one should consider the numbers when evaluating my contributions. The articles that I have edited are now getting more page views than they were before I edited them, sometimes significantly more. A good example is the article on exceptional case-marking. That article received the following number of hits last year at this time before I edited it:

http://stats.grok.se/en/201108/exceptional%20case-marking

The article now (in the last 30 days):

http://stats.grok.se/en/latest30/exceptional%20case-marking

The article on the small clause last year at this time before I edited it:

http://stats.grok.se/en/201108/small%20clause

The article now (in the last 30 days):

http://stats.grok.se/en/latest30/small%20clause

The article on heads last year at this time:

http://stats.grok.se/en/201108/head%20%28linguistics%29

The article on heads now (in the last 30 days):

http://stats.grok.se/en/201108/head%20%28linguistics%29

What these numbers demonstrate is that my contributions are not damaging Wikipedia's credibility. Quite to the contrary, they seem to be increasing the willingness of readers to use Wikipedia as a source for information about syntax and grammar.

A further point I can mention here concerns the syntax trees employed in the articles. I think part of the reason the articles are getting more hits is that the trees help provide good orientation for the readers. Basic DG trees are really simple, much simpler than the trees employed in other frameworks. In this regard, they provide a good orientation point for readers when they are beginning to consider the underlying phenomena. They seem to be an appropriate tool for Wikipedia articles.

Finally, if the primary concern here is that I am citing my own work too much, I can reduce the number of times that the articles do this. --Tjo3ya (talk) 17:35, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

  • To be sure I do certainly think that your work is a vast improvement to wikipedia, and I thank you for it. I think that if you can minimize the number of citations to your own work that will be good, as well, but this does not mean that your overallcontributions are not valued. They very much are - and I do hope you will continue to contribute. I agree that any argument suggesting changes to the syntactic trees should be backed up with solid sources. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:31, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Grammatical gender article needs much attention and sourcing.

The article on grammatical gender is very important in this project and Wikipedia in general. Many people learning languages go there looking for answers, and it's also important as a way to support the articles on languages with gender. Thus, a good article in grammatical gender would help creating good articles on languages that have it.

One month ago I started a thorough cleanup of the article. Many people had put a lot of questionable OR, or had went off onto a tangent (e.g. crap like "and that inspired the book 'Women, Fire and Dangerous Things'"... wtf??). Also, there were hundreds of redundant examples, i.e. somebody had put one in one language, and then 10 people had added the same kind of example in their language for the sake of putting something in their tongue; thus creating extremely crowded sections.

I believe this article would need more sourcing, but I can't find good books. Could somebody help? It's a vital article!

P.S. There's also much overlapping with the noun class article. They should be merged or completely separated, but at this moment there are many noun class examples in the grammatical gender article. If they're going to remain separated, let's move all this content to the other article and leave a relative short explanation of the relationship between both issues instead.

Thanks.--Fauban 13:47, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


Ghi'lad Zuckerman

I've been cleaning out a number of article for gratuitous mentions of, and quotations from, the Israeli-Australian linguist Ghi'lad Zuckerman. Someone has been inserting paragraphs about him usually starting with "according to Ghi'lad Zuckerman" into article on topics from comparitive linguistics to "root", "loanword", "possession", "relative clause". It seems he has some interesting ideas regarding language contact, but he is not a frequently cited scholar or an expert on most of these topics and there is no need to be quoting him except on the topics that are central to his area of expertise. Especially not with named attribution and links to his article every time. In general I think named, linked attribution should be reserved for quotes and opinions by the main authorities in a specific field - Zuckerman may become one of those some day, but at present he is not, and it is not wikipedia's job to assist him in becoming so. Frankly some of these mentions bordered on the bizarre. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:32, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I recall encountering one of those mentions of Zuckerman. I thought it was odd, so I think removing them is probably warranted. Interestingly, I know someone who knows Zuckerman, so the name is not unknown to me.
Concerning the citations to my own works, I will soon go through and reduce their number. --Tjo3ya (talk) 19:07, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
I personally find his work fascinating and will definitely cite it in my future work so all in all I was happy to become acquainted with it - but he has only contributed tangentially to many of the topics about which he were cited. It makes no sense that he should be the only person cited by name in articles about possession or relative clauses. I have left references to his works in the topic areas where he seems to have unique expertise - Hebrew language, contact linguistics and documentation and revitalization of some Aboriginal Australian languages.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:18, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Voiceless nasals

Currently, we have a series of articles about voiceless nasals (voiceless bilabial nasal, voiceless alveolar nasal, voiceless palatal nasal, voiceless retroflex nasal, and voiceless velar nasal). I don't think we need separate articles for these and tagged them back in April with a proposal that they be merged with their voiced counterparts. My proposal, detailed here hasn't garnered enough discussion. If a few people could weigh in (either here or there), it would be helpful in moving forward. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 17:50, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

We also have Voiceless palatal approximant. The Voiceless labio-velar approximant is better established, because it occurs in English, but that has WORLDVIEW problems as it is conceptually no more distinct. We might want to create 'voiceless' sections within sonorant articles, but IMO we should then merge all voiceless sonorants. — kwami (talk) 18:22, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Against. This reflects Anglo-American focus. Features not distinguishable in European languages are not introduced in a significant manor, while those distinguishable in European and American languages (such as voicing of stop, ejectives) are introduced in a significant manor, usually in different articles. --58.83.252.64 (talk) 10:39, 27 July 2012 (UTC)


I'd say keep them in separate articles. We could probably do with some more information on some of the voiceless sonorants, which will more likely come with the attention of having their own articles. In particular, none of the voiceless sonorants appears to have an audio example, a serious issue for phonetics topics.
As for rareness, we have articles for all kinds of cross-linguistically far rarer sounds like the voiceless palatal lateral affricate or epiglottal trill, but then, by the same token, these have distinct places and manners of articulation, rather than just different phonation. D4g0thur 03:06, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Might be worth semi-protecting Linguistics

An IP editor claiming to represent "the Evil Duck" has recently been making a nuisance of themselves on the Linguistics page, repeatedly reverting legitimate edits (an example diff, but a look at the article history should give you a clear picture). More irritating than anything else, but no one wants to spend all their Wikipedia time playing Whac-A-Mole. Any administrators agree that it might be time for a semi-protect? garik (talk) 13:50, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

That's what it looks like. I'd give it a week or two and see what happens. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 13:58, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

IPA "Fixes" by 89.76.168.131

An anonymous user at 89.76.168.131 has changed IPA on several pages, including North American English regional phonology, Boston accent, Philadelphia dialect, Pacific Northwest English, Northeast Pennsylvania English, General American, Central Pennsylvania accent, African American Vernacular English, Baltimore dialect, Australian English phonology, American English ‎and Hiberno-English. In most cases, the editor changed [r] to [ɹ] and added aspiration marks. This appears to clash with the standard at Wikipedia:IPA for English.

Before I realized the extent of these changes, I started a discussion at Talk:North American English regional phonology#"Aspirataion is a must". Other editors are invited to comment, either there or here. Cnilep (talk) 04:30, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

 Done. The aspiration and rhotics have been restored to the pre-July status in most cases. Cnilep (talk) 06:00, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Morphology article

I'm a total newby to wikipedia discussion, so please be tolerant if I violate some rules. I'm reading the article on morphology (linguistics), and this paragraph seems to me wrong:

Quote: Morpheme-based morphology comes in two flavours, one Bloomfieldian and one Hockettian. (cf. Bloomfield 1933 and Charles F. Hockett 1947). For Bloomfield, the morpheme was the minimal form with meaning, but it was not meaning itself. For Hockett, morphemes are meaning elements, not form elements. For him, there is a morpheme plural, with the allomorphs -s, -en, -ren etc. Within much morpheme-based morphological theory, these two views are mixed in unsystematic ways, so that a writer may talk about "the morpheme plural" and "the morpheme -s" in the same sentence, although these are different things.

I don't see any grounds (in Hockett 1947 or elsewhere in Hockett) to say that "morphemes are meaning elements". Hockett 1947 is quite clear that morphemes are sets of morphs; when we establish a morpheme, then those morphs can be referred to as its allomorphs. The issue of meaning comes in when segmenting the data into morphs: the morphs (which are sequences of phonemes) must be associable with a specific meaning. This is what American linguists of this decade meant when they referred to 'recurrent partials with constant meaning' (for example, p. 322 of Hockett 1947).

This paragraph of Wikipedia is written with great confidence, as if this distinction between two types of morpheme-based morphology were discussed somewhere in the literature, but no citation is offered, and, as I say, I think it is not at all right. JohnAntonGoldsmith (talk) 14:21, 9 September 2012 (UTC)JohnAntonGoldsmith

I don't see a difference between your formulation and that of the article. If a morpheme is a set of morph then that set is defined by its meaning (e.g. plural), this would mean that it is correct to say that for Hockett the morpheme is a unit of meaning, not a miniaml form/meaning pairing as it was for Bloomfield. If you can clarify the article, please feel free to make the point clearer. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:48, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Two points: first, I'm pretty sure that Hockett would say that if you think what I've said is different from what Bloomfield said (wrt how meaning does or doesn't play a role in morpheme identification), then I haven't made myself clear. There's nothing in Hockett 1947 that distances himself from Bloomfield on this important point.

Second, neither Hockett nor Bloomfield (nor, I suppose, anybody else) would identify a morpheme solely by virtue of meaning; the English word 'plural' has the meaning that we associate with the plural morpheme -s, but the English word 'plural' is not an allomorph of the plural morpheme.

If you read Nida's response to Hockett, for example, in the next volume of Language (1948), you can see that he (Nida) is very uncomfortable with the strict distributionalism that Hockett subscribed to (distributionalism being the commitment to looking at the form, not the meaning); Hockett (like Zellig Harris) was committed to exploring the consequences of taking methodological stances, especially regarding distributionalism, much more strictly than most of their colleagues. JohnAntonGoldsmith (talk) 23:42, 9 September 2012 (UTC)JohnAntonGoldsmith

The word "plural" does not mean the same as a plural morpheme does, it is the name of a grammatical category but it is not the meaning of the category, but the plural morphemes -en, -s, -Ø -umlaut all have the same meaning and that is what makes it possible to consider them allomorphs of a single underlying plural morpheme.
Krumdiek, 2007, on page 5 in "The morpheme - An approach to its meaning and function", writes " Charles F. Hockett breaks with Bloomfield's opinion, as he makes a clear distinction between the morpheme as a an abstract unit and the phonemic shape which represents it." He spends the next two pages discussing the differences between Bloomfields formal and Hockett's more functional definitions of the morpheme.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:19, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Tense

I've just noticed that a few people have completely gutted the previously consensus and long-term stable Grammatical Tense article. It's got almost none of the previous info in it anymore and is a weird mish mash now of tense and aspect and some mood thrown in. I at least deleted a few things where it attempted to assign entirely non-English aspects to the section on English, but overall this version (and the previous 200 or so versions) aren't even worth trying to salvage because they're all that far from correct.Drew.ward (talk) 03:58, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The article is at Grammatical tense. By the way, Drew.ward, I take your point and I agree that detailed description of aspect is misplaced in an article on tense. On the other hand, I think one bit you removed explaining that so-called "(English) future tense" is a misnomer has a place in the article. There is no future tense as such in English, but plenty of people think there is. Cnilep (talk) 07:01, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
I had planned on rewriting the bit I deleted about future in English but then noticed that people had stripped so much out of the article in general that there was no way to add in correct versions of this without restoring the main body of the article first because the English section would not have matched with anything else on the page. Regarding future -- actually yes English does have future tenses just as all languages do. In fact, all languages can express the full range of tense (we unfortunately have a bad habit of speaking of A future, A present and A past tense, but in fact tense represents a range thus meaning that while we can speak of a single present tense because "now" is always an every changing immeasurably point, past tenses and future tenses refer to all times before and after that "now" point.
What varies from language to language is the manner in which tense information is conveyed. Some languages clearly and simply grammaticalize all tenses via nearly identical morphological changes to verbs. Others may rely primarily on contextual attributes and provide little clue via syntax of tense expression. English (like just about everything else in English) is a hybrid system. Every combination of aspect and perfection has three "tense forms" as conveyed within the verbal construction: an unmarked form that is usually incorrectly referred to as the "present tense form"; a præterite form that is sometimes used to express certain conditional moods without tense reference, but is almost entirely used to convey past and thus called the "past tense form"; and a third modal form which conveys various moods and sometimes tense information via verbal modal auxiliaries. Because all but two of the ten ways of expressing future tense in English use such auxiliaries, this third form is most often referred to (again erroneously) as "the future tense form". In fact, among these three forms, only the præterite form can be said to independently express tense because the use of this form alone is enough to convey 'past'. The unmarked form is linguistically technically a "non-past" tense if it is anything because it cannot be used to convey past. It does however allow for expression of present or future tenses and requires not only its verb form, but also this in conjunction with additional information as either implicitly as context or explicitly via some time-marking adverbial (adverb like now, today, tomorrow, or prepositional phrase like "in a few minutes, at the moment, next Thursday). Both components are required to convey tense with the additional feature that +Ø adverbial = present as default. Either the addition of a time marking adverbial or the specific omission of such is a grammatical feature and thus provides ways of expressing grammatical tense (both present and future). The modal form behaves similarly with the only difference being that the use of certain modals sans time-marking adverbial default to general unspecified future just as the unmarked form defaulted to present in such circumstances. This again is in itself grammaticalized and is thus a method of expressing grammatical tense (in this case primarily used for future, less so for present, and in rarer cases for past as well (ie "I would have gone but I couldn't find my keys" where both would and could represent a modal potential "future of the past" situation that is still clearly set in the past).
With this article being on "grammatical tense" and not tense in general, it should reflect expression of tense via grammar. Just as with aspect and mood, tense in English (except for past tense via the præterite forms) is grammaticalized via a combination of verb form AND syntactic features beyond that verb form. This is still grammatical tense and not a feature limited only to English. It just goes beyond the simple idea that tense is equal to inflection of a verb or morphological change within a given element. So to wrap up, all languages can express all tenses or if you'd like all languages have all tenses. But, not all languages have all grammatical tenses. English however does grammaticalize all tenses and thus has grammatical present tense, past tenses, and future tenses. Make sense?Drew.ward (talk) 16:16, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Please back up assertions about English grammar with reliable sources confirming that this is the majority accepted analysis. Especially in article space, but also for the sake of making discussions on talke pages more productive.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:22, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Curious, which assertions do you feel need backing up? There won't be a lot out there on things that are obvious. For instance, "I am leaving" (present) and "I am leaving tomorrow" (future) doesn't leave much room for interpretation. One is future tense, the other isn't. Not being argumentative, just wanting to know what in my above post you'd consider an assertion that needs backing up.Drew.ward (talk) 16:57, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
All of them. I don't know of any grammarians who would analyze "I am leaving tomorrow" as being an example of the future tense. It makes a statement about the future but uses a present tense to do so as many languages do.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:33, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm fairly sure that what Drew is saying is backed up by sources. See for example the sources Tense-aspect-mood article - this article is talking about expression of tense, aspect and mood. The Grammatical tense article (which we are discussing here) uses "tense" in this way at some points: "Other tensed languages of the world are similar, or mark tense in a variety of ways". Count Truthstein (talk) 20:33, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
The analysis of tense suggested by Drew.ward is unlike the accounts of tense I have encountered, so yes, good literature is necessary if that account is to be seriously considered. Less verbiage, more literature! --Tjo3ya (talk) 16:34, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Tjo3ya, may I ask what your definition of tense is that is backed up by this literature and whether it successfully defines tense separate from aspect. Also, do they define tense as time (a problem with most of the arguments on the original article a few years ago), as in the two being the same thing, and further do they provide definitions for grammatical tense versus tense in general? At one time there was a separate general tense article on WP but I think it was at some point merged with the grammatical tense one. One point I'd make is that this article is about grammatical tense and thus should be focused on covering the grammaticalization of tense rather than the broader concepts of tense and time and language in general. This was before and should again be an article that is written as a counterpart to the other grammatical category articles including grammatical aspect, grammatical mood, etc. Likewise, definitions and sources should be dealing with grammatical tense and how tense is grammaticalized. I think the biggest problem that all of the articles on here (and most discussions of tense everywhere really) is that people try to define tense and grammatical tense only within the narrow scope of whatever their own language or language specialty is. This would be no different than trying to define mood only through using the traditional 7 or so germanic modal auxiliaries.Drew.ward (talk) 16:57, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Drew, the points you want to make may be taken seriously at the point in time when they are based on expert opinion. It might go like this: "The definition and discussion of tense in the article is too narrow. Expert XYZ defines tense as "......" (= Expert XYX's definition). Then you list the book or article of that expert. Doing this requires spending some time with what the experts have written, and it involves knowing the conventions of how to cite the literature. None of this is difficult, but it takes some time. The time is well worth it, however, since it increases credibility substantially. --Tjo3ya (talk) 17:20, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Tjo3ya. Discussions about what you consider to be obvious are not helpful to anyone. I will get a hand on Comrie's 1985 Cambridge introduction to Tense and then we'll work from there. Further discussion that is not based on sources will be unproductive.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:33, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Trask 2007 in Language and Linguistics: Key Concepts under the entry tense clearly states that English has a two tense system of past/non-past. This is also the conclusion of Comrie (1985). This seems to be clearly the most common analysis. Now Trask argues that Chinese has no tense (because it is a syntactic not inflectional category) but Comrie argues that tense can be grammaticalized syntactically - because his definition of "grammatical" is when a category is obligatory and paradigmatic. This is also the definition that leads some scholars to classify Greenlandic as tenseless, because inflection for tense is entirely optional and does not form a paradigm. So the article on tense should of course show that there are different definitions of tense that leads to different conclusions about how it behaves in different languages. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:13, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is the key. The article needs to make it clear that there are competing views of tense. I think it already does this to an extent. As a linguist, I understand tense to be a morphological marker on verbs, in particular, of finite verbs - English has just two tenses. As a language instructor, however, I teach tense in terms of point in time with reference to speaker time. On this latter understanding, one can argue that English has at least six tenses (past perfect, preterit, present perfect, present, future perfect, and future) plus a progressive version of each of these (past perfect progressive, preterit progressive, etc.), which means one can acknowledge at least 12 altogether. I think an article on tense should make it clear that these competing views of tense exist. That is what is most valuable to the type of reader who is going to be reading a Wikipedia article on tense. That reader will likely have been exposed to tense first in the course of learning English or some other language. They will then be confused when they are exposed to the linguists' much narrower understanding of tense. A good example of what should be accomplished, in my view, is that the confusion should be headed off immediately in the introduction and then explained fully further below. To get a sense of what I mean, compare the article on the predicate, an entirely confusing concept to most students of grammar and linguistics due to the inconsistent and competing uses of the term in various traditions (term logic vs. predicate logic). --Tjo3ya (talk) 19:39, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

As I have pointed out repeatedly and as Count has also pointed out, this is not a general article on tense, this is an article on "grammatical tense" -- the expression of tense (temporal contrast) via the grammar of a language, be it morphologically or syntactically. This article is not the place to try to position various narrow definitions of tense from a theoretical standpoint. That would belong in a general "tense(linguistics)" article. Also, "present perfect" and such are not tenses. They aren't tense under any system. They are combinations of multiple grammatical categories taken in tandem. Simple versus progressive is a dichotomy of aspects with each occurring in the entire tense range. Perfection is an entirely different category altogether and even Comrie points out that it only gets lumped in with Aspect because linguists haven't been able to agree on what else to do with it yet but that it is not an aspect (see the section on Perfect in his book "Aspect"). Any aspect can be perfected and that perfection can occur at any point in time as expressed via the tense of the verbal construction (which in perfected constructions refers not to the time at which the verb "verbs" but to the time at which or by which that "verbing" is completed (aka perfected). The only things that belong in an article on grammatical tense is a discussion on how languages grammaticalize temporal contrast and examples of this in various situations (for example the various combinations aspect, perfection, and mood).
It shouldn't be the place for debating the definition of tense or whether tense exists at all or whether a given language "has tense". There is no agreement about this among linguists. There are various schools of thought and there are groups that support such ideas in regard to various languages. However, when you read into all of them, these assertions that x language only has y tenses, or no tenses, or all the tenses, etc, at the core is always some very narrowly defined definition of what tense is and isn't that positions one or a few languages in a position of full temporal contrast versatility and then positions others in inferior positions. This goes back to the absurd cultural bias that used to dominate linguistics and limited our understanding of language because we never looked into things that were different instead just assuming that "inferior cultures" yielded less expressive languages that "lack ability to express" certain "unfamiliar ideas". Read some historical analyses. Many of these sources that argue that a given language "lacks tense" harken back to anthropologists who coupled their findings with the justification that because of the uncivilized nature of the speakers, they had no concept of nor need for expressing time. I don't think anyone here is silly enough to buy into such nonsense, but it's worth acknowledging that many of these narrow competing views of language have at their core some root bias and prejudice like this. It's not that theoretical differences don't merit inclusion and discussion on WP, but they should go where they belong and not falsely colour articles where they don't belong.
If someone wants to restore / recreate the old general article on tense -- or, more appropriately, start a new article on linguistic theories / views of tense, then that would be a great place to present the various complementary and competing views on the topic. For this article on grammatical tense however, the content should be focused on and limited to the aforementioned expression of temporal contrast (as opposed to temporal nature -- aspect, perfection, and sometimes mood (usually regarding certainty) at the grammatical level and the same lumped together as aktionsart at the lexical level) as expressed via the grammar of a language. Grammar, as Tjo3ya points toward above, deals with mechanisms of how a language conveys information via structures and meanings using the range of its communicative system. This however might be contrary to the constraints of certain theoretical constructs in linguistics which may define such in more limited ways, not to mention whether a given view within linguistics chooses only to focus on syntax or morphology or semantics and so on. There's nothing wrong with trying to discuss of figure something out only within the context of a given person's subfield or specialty, but it's not how language or the real world works. Comrie and Trask (both of whom I am a fan of and own most of their books and have read and often cited most of them including all of the ones mentioned herein) both are quite clear within their various discussions of concepts such as tense and aspect and historical linguistics that for the purposes of their own discussions or analyses that they themselves have chosen to limit the definition of or scope of whatever the concept at hand to something more narrow than it likely is for the purposes of making that discussion efficient and viable within the constraints of whatever project or book they are working on. They don't preclude other possibilities or interpretations, they just define a constrained framework for what they're working with. Chomsky makes similar statements in every book he's ever published about whatever he's writing about at the time. If more linguists actually read these scholars' books cover to cover rather than picking and choosing which sections to draw quotes from, they'd know this and we'd likely have far fewer arguments for and against extremes and narrow views.
I think it's important that those who want to explore and promote the gamut of theories on tense and aspect and as seems the case here on Wikipedia, even pushing the idea that tense and aspect are one in the same an inseparable, have an article in which they can document and discuss all these interpretations (without giving certain ones undue weight over others). That would be a good topic for an "linguistic theories of tense" article. Similarly some general definition of what tense is in linguistics, and perhaps a few variants showing the range of more and less narrow views of it (say morphological vs syntactic vs temporal contrast in any way) -- but excluding the arguments and promotion of theory (which belongs in the "theories" article) and presented in a manner that is both simple enough for lay readers yet in depth enough to be a starting point for linguists, AND matches in style and agreement with the coordinating articles on aspect, mood, etc would be the ideal content for a "Tense (linguistics)" article. This article -- "Grammatical Tense" should be as described above, limited to grammatical expression of tense regardless of theory and should be written within the style and coordinating content of the other "Grammatical Categories" articles. That means that the content and such should be in line with what is written in the Grammatical Category article itself, and should not conflict with the other articles that are filed under the grammatical categories grouping including Grammatical Aspect, Grammatical Mood, and so on.
In closing: Define tense however you want, just don't do it in this particular article. Instead, just show how your particular language specialty conveys tense (this may mean being closer to what's in grammar books than to what's in linguistic papers).Drew.ward (talk) 15:59, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your opinion. The distinction you seem to make between grammatical tense and general tense is not one I have ever heard of or read of in any linguistic work. You also seem to suffer from a basic misconception about how wikipedia works: wikipedia requires sources and quotations for every single statement that goes into the article. For that reason a two page thesis on your particular personal theory of how tense should be conceptualized is helpful to noone. Being sources to support your claims, with page numbers, or you are simply wasting your own and our time. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:17, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
This has nothing to do with sources! If it did the vast majority of things in the article as is would not be in there because the wording in the article doesn't even match the sources given. This is about using one article to promote views that belong in other articles! THIS IS AN ARTICLE ABOUT GRAMMATICAL TENSE, not about tense as a general linguistic concept. If you are basing your opposition to what I'm saying based on not being familiar with a difference between grammatical tense and tense in general as you mention above, then consider that your sources may not actually be talking about grammatical tense. Either that, or as was the problem with the article originally a few years ago, the sources you're reading don't actually know that there's a difference. If that's the case they probably also conflate tense and aspect and all the rest because that's how these debates seem to always go. Grammatical mood, Grammatical aspect, grammatical categories, all begin with X is a grammatical feature... There are separate articles on things like mood & modality that focus on theories. This article is about grammatical tense -- the use of GRAMMAR to express temporal contrasts in a given language. It is NOT about the various theories of what tense is or is not. If you need a source, the source is Wikipedia and the fact that the title of this article is GRAMMATICAL tense and just like the other GRAMMATICAL X articles it is supposed to be about what its title says it is.Drew.ward (talk) 16:47, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Nonsense. EVerything is about sources - if there is no sources that use the definition you are trying to introduce then it doesn't exist for wikipedia purposes. This is basic stuff. Wikipedia is not here for publishing yopur personal ideas about what linguistic concepts mean. It is not the case that there is a thing called tense that can be described independent of what linguists define it as being. The article about grammatical tense is about both how linguists inderstand and define tense as a grammatical category and how different languages express it. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:52, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Calling someone else's views "nonsense" is nothing but immature. The only nonsense here is the unwillingness to separate views on the concept of tense from the need for an article that documents how languages grammaticalize tense. You and others here are having one article's argument within the context of an entirely different article and you seem willing to invalidate this actual article and its ability to document what its title says it is about in order to protect your own theories of tense itself which belong in a different article from this one in the first place.Drew.ward (talk) 17:00, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
It is nonsense because it runs contrary to basic policies and practices of wikipedia. You have presented nothing to support your view that there are two different topics, you have been presented with authoritative statements to the effect by actual experts and contradict them flatly with your own opinion as if it matters. This really is a huge waste of time and I am not spending more here.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:18, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Drew, are you even reading what you're writing? "Calling someone else's views 'nonsense' is nothing but immature. The only nonsense here is [someone else's views]." Maunus is right that sources are important. In this case, you've been asked to demonstrate that your viewpoint is represented in scholarly literature. That should be easy enough if it's true. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 17:30, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Sources are not a valid issue here AND this whole mess has turned to nonsense because you guys are having a debate about an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SUBJECT! Maunus and others have disagreements with how to define tense. That's fine and would be great fodder for an article on that topic. This article and this section on here are not about that! If there's going to be a debate and argument let it be about GRAMMATICAL TENSE and the article about it, NOT about tense. There are no sources in the world that can support or oppose the fact that this article is titled Grammatical Tense and not TENSE. If this discussion were about an article for the colour green, the direction it's gone would be akin to a debate about whether colours actually exist or not. That would belong in an article about that topic but leaving things out of the article on the colour green that might allow for the existence of colours would not be appropriate.Drew.ward (talk) 17:51, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

You spent several paragraphs outlining your viewpoint, which it looks like nobody here accepts. All we're saying is that you'd need to provide sources to include it in article space. That's how Wikipedia works. Calling us names and yelling won't change that. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 18:21, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
As I mentioned up the page, the article already uses the word "tense" in the way that Drew understands it. For example: "Not all languages grammaticalise tense". If tense is only a grammatical concept, then there can be so such thing as "ungrammaticalised tense", as this suggests. What this means is "Not all languages grammaticalise time reference". What do editors think about the possibility of a "Time reference in language" article? And could this article be called "Tense"? It seems quite clear that time reference and tense as a grammatical category are two separate things, and could merit separate articles. I hope this suggestion is quite clear and nobody will accuse me of positing my own linguistic theories. Count Truthstein (talk) 22:02, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
Saying that some languages don't grammaticalize tense is not the same as Drew is saying - those langauges that do not grammaticalize tense are tenseless the category don't apply to them. Time reference and tense is not the same, time reference is semantics tense is only a grammatical concept. Languages have tense if they grammaticalize time reference. If they don't they don't and the concept doesn't apply. In the same ways all languages can refer to spatial location - but some languages do not grammaticalize it. Being grammaticalized also doesn't just mean being inflected, it means to be part of a grammatical system of categories that are syntagmatic and paradigmatic.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:16, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
So you're claiming that adverbs and prepositional phrases are not part of grammar?Drew.ward (talk) 23:23, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
I am quite sure I said no such thing.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:35, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
Your quote from above: "I don't know of any grammarians who would analyze "I am leaving tomorrow" as being an example of the future tense. It makes a statement about the future but uses a present tense to do so as many languages do.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:33, 10 September 2012 (UTC)" Now, last time I checked, the use of adverbs were both part of grammar AND syntax. The use of this verb construction which is not "present tense" but rather unmarked for tense in conjunction with an obviously future-marking temporal adverb -- all of which is part of the syntax of that utterance -- is either a grammatical expression of tense or it isn't. If it is, then I'm right. If it isn't, then I'm not right and you should probably get busy writing letters to the thousands of syntax and grammar books that mistakenly include adverbs. So what are you saying?Drew.ward (talk) 00:08, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Temporal adverbs and temporal prepositional clauses are grammatical but they are not tense, but a semantically defined subcategory of the grammatical categories of adverbs and prepositional clauses. They receive the exact same grammatical treatment as other adverbs and prepositional clauses, and therefore it is not time that is being grammaticalised - the time reference is entirely semantic. Advberbs referring to time doen't grammaticalize time anymore than expletives grammaticalize rudeness, or the proper noun Heineken grammaticalizes beer. Can you mention a single linguist who considers "tomorrow" to be an example of the future tense?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:17, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

@Maunus -- I for one do (a linguist who also has a specialty in how languages deal with time) but since that carries no weight here, I'll give it a shot to find something out there although it's not that often that journals bother to publish articles about the very obvious. Perhaps I'll find it in the same place as an article that discusses that question marks sometimes end sentences.

I would ask you to also do the same and find sources that exclude adverbs from syntax. I would also ask that you reread and reconsider your own words above: "Temporal adverbs and temporal prepositional clauses are grammatical..." and "They receive the exact same grammatical treatment as other adverbs and prepositional clauses..." In a single reply you have asserted twice that yes in fact, in my example that "tomorrow" is grammatical -- aka part of the grammar -- a syntactic feature of the sentence. Yet you then argue that "it is not time that is being grammaticalised - the time reference is entirely semantic." How, is a syntactic feature of that sentence -- in particular a syntactic feature of the overall verb which directly modifies the verb to describe WHEN it occurs, "entirely semantic" and likewise how is such a construction not considered to be grammaticalizing tense? It's you, not me that seem to be theorizing and in your theory, only some expressions of temporal contrast can count as tense while everything else just gets thrown out. Can you provide solid justification for this? Likewise can you explain why some things are tense and others aren't? And if so many things don't count as tense, what are they? One final question, what would make you think that semantics (even though I don't agree with your assertion that the aforementioned is "entirely semantic") are not part of grammar?Drew.ward (talk) 00:50, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

You are not reading what I am saying just repeating your personal unsubstantiated views. I explicitly say that advberbs are a syntactic category - temporal adverbs are a semantic subcategory of that syntactic category which means that they don't grammaticalize time. You apparent;y also have your own non-standard definition of "grammar" in spite of the fact that the distinction between grammar and lexicon has been foundational for the past 100 years of linguistic theory. In contrast to you I am able to produce literature in support of my claims. I don't know what you mean by "specialize" for me specializing means to be conversant with a body of literature, which I have seen no indication that you are. There is nothing obvious about the esoteric definition that you are trying to give to tense - perhaps that's why you can't find any published examples. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:11, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I see you've changed your reply slightly since I began my edit but my reply should still be clear. Regarding your added question at the end "Can you mention a single linguist who considers "tomorrow" to be an example of the future tense?" Although I have in fact had editors on here try and argue with me that "tomorrow" IS future tense, I doubt any serious linguist would argue such a thing. I certainly never have and never would. "Tomorrow" is simply a word. It's no more carries the quality "future tense" than "ate" or "walked" convey past tense, or "now" or "types" convey present tense. Tense is a feature of an utterance not a lexical quality. Nothing "has tense" or can express tense outside of being used in an utterance. It's the utterance itself (actually not the utterance but what I call a verdict -- an entire verbal construction including everything that modifies that verbal construction; there can be more than one verdict in an utterance and each one can express a different tense).

In the example at hand "I am leaving tomorrow," it is neither am, nor leaving, nor am+leaving, nor tomorrow that express future tense. It is the whole combination of "am leaving" + "tomorrow" that express future tense (technically it's just "am" + "tomorrow" that express tense because "leaving" has no impact on tense).Drew.ward (talk) 00:50, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I'll take that as a no.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:58, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
You take what "as a no"? Are you actually bothering to read things before replying? Address the points in my reply if you want to actually have a productive discussion. I've taken the time (each time) to address your points.Drew.ward (talk) 01:01, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
I asked for a reference, you merely repeated your fringe definition of the concept. That means that I am not going to waste more on my time on you. Next time we are having a conversation be sure to bring good mainstream sources. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:11, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Two things for Drew:
  1. I appreciate that you are willing to look into sources. With the understanding that something so basic might not be covered in journal articles, you might consider looking at introductory textbooks as they often go over what is obvious to experts.
  2. It seems from your above comments that you might be defining "grammaticalization" differently than Maunus is. Maunus's usage, which fits with my own understanding, is that grammaticalization is the conversion of specific content words into function words. A good example would be the word pas in the French phrasing ne [verb] pas. While pas as a content word means "step" it has been grammaticalized within this specific phrasing to fit with a construction that means "not" (it's also my understanding that, colloquially, the "ne" is not always pronounced so that "pas" is the only marker of negation). In the phrase "I am leaving tomorrow" the construction itself fits a grammatical paradigm that might be expressed by "[pronoun] [verb, present progressive] [indicator of date or time]" so that "tomorrow" isn't itself grammaticalized, but fits within a grammatical paradigm. Maybe I'm oversimplifying the matter or overlooking something important (syntax isn't my forté), but the point is that "tomorrow" is still just a content word that can be replaced by lots of things (e.g. "Tuesday", "the 24th", "any day now" "when Chthulhu rises from the sea"). — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 01:27, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Aeusoes1, it's a good point and I have also noted the use of grammaticalization herein as well. There is an article on WP titled "grammaticalization" which you've linked to above. That use (and honestly this might be the only official use of the word within linguistics) might be part of the issue here. I used it above myself not because I was referring to that particular topic, but rather because it seemed a logical word construction for describing the process by which things are expressed via grammar. It's this grammatical expression (which may not have a name and may not be correctly called grammaticalization or perhaps "grammaticalizing"?) of tense that is the subject of the article in contention as its title says -- "Grammatical tense". If a language is expressing temporal contrast (that's what tense actually is) of an utterance via the grammar of that utterance, then the name for that is "Grammatical Tense". If it's been my potentially poor word choice of "grammaticalization" that's moved this discussion into the theoretical realm, then certainly we can ignore that as neither I nor this article have much concern with the grammaticalizaion article or its topic.
Regarding "pas", as you point out, as just a word it has no specific meaning really. However, depending on how it is used in the utterance in which it appears, it is assigned a meaning of either "step" as a content verb or as a negative marker when positioned in a specific manner (technically with ne but as you said, that gets often elided). However, the ability of the utterance to express negative polarity comes not solely from the inclusion of "pas" but rather from the specific placement of "pas" in a given manner that, when taken with the other parts of the overall verbal component of the utterance, conveys that negative polarity. It takes all these things together for that polarity to be expressed.
The case is similar with tense in English. English tense is conveyed via a combination of the right-most auxiliary plus whatever other temporal information is provided. Certain auxiliaries in certain forms maintain a "default" which when used in the absence of explicit or implicit (contextual) additional temporal information, express a given tense. This is the case with the praeterite forms for the past tenses, the unmarked forms for the present, and for many of the modal forms for the future. That doesn't however allocate these forms to solely the realm of past, present, or future. It takes that combination of those auxiliary forms WITH the lack of further temporal information to express those tenses. Similarly, with something like my example "I am leaving tomorrow," the combination of unmarked auxiliary WITH a future-marking adverbial that expresses future tense. It takes both things. This argument (if I'm understanding it correctly) that Maunus and others are trying to propose, that only the morphologically signified auxiliary (don't confuse this with ignoring supposedly "inflected" verbs like 'walks' or 'walked' as these are representations of an auxiliary via the content verb -- does + walk = walks; did + walk = walked) is the sole means for expressing tense is untenable at least in many Germanic languages. If you take English for example, perfected verbs appearing in the present tense cannot be modified by a specific time marker (other than "now") because perfection shifts the temporal focus from the time the verb happens to the time at which it is completed. If a verb is perfected in the present tense ("present perfect" or "present perfect progressive"), that time of completion (TCOM) is always "now" or rather in technical terms 'coincides with TUTT, the Time of Utterance'. Because the TCOM is always "now" no other temporal information is allowed (with perfected progressive constructions, the duration of the verb up to the TCOM which is still 'now' may be measured and of course this temporal information given, but that's aspect rather than tense). The problem with this "morphology-only" proposal is that while perfection in the present precludes specific temporal adverbials, perfection in the past and future tenses REQUIRE it. *"The fish had swum." is ungrammatical but "The fish swam." is not and neither is "The fish has swum." The reason comes in recognizing the function of each construction. "The fish swam" places the swimming of the fish somewhere in the past with no reference to anything more than that. We can't know exactly when, how long, or when or if that swimming was completed -- we just know that the Time of Assertion (that swimming was performed by the fish) occurred at some time prior to the Time of Utterance (which unless otherwise specified is always "now". "The fish has swum" shifts focus from the swimming to the completion of that activity and tell us that the swimming of the fish occurred AND is complete as of the TUTT which is again, "now". This form doesn't have the capacity to get more specific than that an tell us exactly when that completion occurred, but does at least tell us that it is finished "as of now". The form that allows for this reference to a specific time of completion before "now" is the perfected past tense which not only allows it, but requires that specific time. Thus while "*The fish had swum." is ungrammatical, "The fish had swum yesterday." IS grammatical. It should be noted that that requisite specific past time of completion can also be satisfied via context or via previous placement to another known past or present time such as "The fish had swum before eating fish food."
Perfected future constructions similarly require a specific future time "by which" the verb is to be completed. If it is argued that tense can only be expressed via morphology, then that would mean that perfected verbs can never occur in past or future tenses. Perhaps Comrie and Trask hadn't thought things all the way through when they made their assertions regarding the limitation of tense to only morphological verb changes, but clearly at least in English (and German since the same rules apply to perfected forms although many Germans don't follow this part of their grammar) their definition of tense is not possible. It's certainly possible that this was missed because Comrie similarly failed to recognize that aspect and perfection in English require not only an aspectual (do, be) and perfecting (have) auxiliary but rather that auxiliary in conjunction with subordinating their following verb in a specific form (do + "bare form" = simple, be + present participle = progressive, have + past participle = perfected). Leaving out this second marker means that only part of the required information is given. Most verbal information requires two or more components. For instance, be + past participle = passive voice; have + "to infinitive" = mood (obligation, etc); be + "to infinitive" = mood as well. The only way be or do conveys aspect or have conveys perfection is in conjunction with those particular specific subordinate forms that together with them express that role. Aspect works this way. Perfection works this way. Mood often works this way. And, Tense works this way.Drew.ward (talk) 02:44, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Comrie and Trask hadn't thought things all the way through? Seriously? Comrie has written the only monograph I know of that is dedicated entirely to the concept of tense (others invariably include aspect and usually mood). Have you read it? Have you read any other books about the grammar of temporality that you can point to in support of your ideas? What is the theoretical basis for your claims about English grammar? What theoretical framework do you draw on? It does not seem to be one that is compatible with any of the larger mainstream frameworks. Also "the fish had swum" is perfectly grammatical English. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:46, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Whew! I was worried I was the only one who found "the fish had swum" to be grammatical. Since Drew says he's going to try to find sources that back up his view, let's give him some time to do so. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 15:16, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Sorry guys, "The fish had swum." is not grammatical without specifying the past time for the TCOM. That's not linguistic theory, it's a standard rule of grammar. The only way for a perfected past tense construction to be grammatical without giving a time reference is if that reference is already provided via context or in some previous sentence such as "Had the fish swum yesterday?"..."The fish had swum (yesterday)." That's not to say people don't use that ungrammatical form, but it is ungrammatical. It's just like how you see people write things like "She has written a book last year." It's totally ungrammatical but there are plenty of examples like this out there. And Maunus, since you seem to feel that personal attacks are more effective than discussion (or maybe because by insulting me you hope to deflect attention from the fact that you seem incapable of actually debating any of the points I raise), yes, I have read several of both Comrie's (including his book on Tense and his book on aspect which are sitting on a shelf in my library) and Trask's books. I actually traded emails for a bit with Trask regarding some of this before he died, he's a nice guy. However, while I've read what they've written about tense and what many others have written about tense, I have never limited myself to only regurgitating what others have written. I have written plenty on this subject myself and continue to actively research and write on this topic. I'll gladly debate any statement I make and provide solid scientific linguistic evidence supporting what I say. However, if you are so ready and willing to dispute or criticize what I say, I expect you to put your linguistic money where your mouth is, be an actual linguist rather than someone who only googles things to quote, and do the same. Prove your arguments. Disprove mine. But don't disparage me or my approach just because you disagree with them or because they run counter to the things you're comfortable with. That's immature, rude, unprofessional, and about as far from the spirit of science and linguistics as you can get. This is an interesting topic and a discussion I'd be glad to have with you, but only if you are willing to participate.Drew.ward (talk) 17:12, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
There is no such rule in any variety of English that I know of, and your saying so does not make it so. Provide a source that says so. You seem to have your own definitions of the words tense, grammar, grammaticalization, and grammatical, which honestly makes it very difficult to debate anything with you - especially since you are unwilling to disclose where you get your definitions from. Indeed it runs counter to what I am comfortable with - such as standard linguistic theory. I do apologize for the tone in my responses, but your complete disregard (even contempt) for the standards of academic debate is rather infuriating to me - I'll try to do a better job at controlling my temper. Now, academic debate usually includes being able to support statements with supporting evidence from authorities (yes, it is in fact necessary to regurgitate, especially in wikipedia which is entirely based on reliable sources). We are not here to prove or disprove pet theories about tense or grammar. But only to describe what the main scholarly authorities on the topics have written. If you are not up to doing this but prefer to try to argue your own pet theories then wikipedia is not the place for you. Lets not have a "who's a real linguist" pissing contest - at least not here - because that is not what this place is about, if you want to settle it that way you can email me your publication list and I'll send you mine then we can clear up that matter off-wiki. Wikipedia is not for that, is about reading literature and summarizing it in articles. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:24, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Maunus -- anytime you'd like you can drop this childish bullshit of calling things "pet theories" and yelling that I should provide sources on every little thing. You keep yelling for sources, yet you haven't bothered to back up 90% of your own statements with the slightest source at all. Instead you've just asserted that your version is "standard" and left it at that. If you want to make this a grown up academic debate, go back and address my replies to you and back up YOUR replies with sources -- not general sources, but specific statements that are counter to what I say and exactly support what you say. This double standard crap is pure BS and you know it. You can also quit saying insults about me having "complete disregard (even contempt) for standards of academic theory". That's just you being a jerk and since you yourself are unwilling to hold yourself to even the slightest semblance of these standards that you keep accusing me of ignoring, it just makes you childish. Live what you preach or get off your soapbox!Drew.ward (talk) 19:01, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

As to perfected forms, a simple look in a grammar book or you having bothered to google would have answered your question, but here's a slew of results from the few seconds it took to type "use of perfect in English" into my search window:

- http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/presentperfect.html - http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/present-perfect-use.html

I'm still digging around online for something that specifies that you have to use specific times for the past perfect because everything that is coming up assumes that is understood and just gives examples with either specific time phrases or references to context specifying that past time. If you have an actual written grammar of English it should have it in there. If I can find one of mine, I'll manually type in the quote and reference later.Drew.ward (talk) 19:01, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Those links do not support your claim that "the fish had swum" is ungrammatical. IF you have an actual written grammar of English then why don't you find the place where it says so for me. I am happy to provide sources for specific claims of mine that you challenge, but I cannot provide sources to prove that your claims are incorrect, that is called proving a negative and shifts the burden. You make specific claims about what tense is and about what is grammatical English. I have provided sources that contradict your definition of tense. You claim that they haven't though things through. I obviously cannot be expected to provide a source saying that "the fish had swum" is not ungrammatical. I am not asking you to provide sources on every little thing, I am just expecting you as would any academic in the world to use sources, and to back up your claims with them. That is not unreasonable. You are trying to shift the burden of evidence, and that is neither grown up or academic or mature. Meanwhile you haven't backed up a single of your claims with supporting evidence. Nor even suggested a title or a scholar who might agree with you. I call bullshit Drew.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:29, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
"I obviously cannot be expected to provide a source saying that "the fish had swum" is not ungrammatical." Oh, why can you not be expected to provide such a source? You've made exactly this claim above so certainly you were doing so with some assurance that you were correct, right? Back up your own statements! And for that matter if as you say "I am happy to provide sources for specific claims of mine that you challenge," then go back through all your replies throughout this thread, and DO SO! What's good for the goose...Drew.ward (talk) 19:40, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
This conversation is needlessly ballooning and both of you are being uncivil. Stop. Both of you. Now. — Ƶ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 02:17, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
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