Talk:правило

RFC discussion: May 2007–November 2010
Why is a nonstandard numbered POS heading used here? Just to mess up bots? Or just to be incomprehensible? --Connel MacKenzie 16:16, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * No, it's because the entry has two homographs, each of which has a different declension. Our structure has no other way to match declensions when we have homographs that belong to the same part of speech but decline differently. I've handled levo (for Latin) by assuming that there are two different etymologies for the two words, though I don't know what those etymologies are, and they may not in fact be different. --EncycloPetey 16:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * That seems to be a non-sequitur...if they have the same etymology, then they are the same word (with the same declination.) If they are separate words (homographs) then something in their origin is different.  --Connel MacKenzie 17:20, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The lemma form is a homograph, but there are two different inflection lines because the other forms are different. It is possible for two words to share an etymological origin, but inflect differently.  The point is that outside of English, we seldom have etymologies entered.  For many languages, no good etymological research exists.  We have to be able to cope with this fact. --EncycloPetey 17:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Entering "Unknown" for an etymology section is perfectly valid (when accurate.) Why should an exception be made for other languages?  Etymology is equally counter-intuitive for definitions of English words.  To be less ambiguous about what I said earlier: each lemma homograph is a separate word, with a separate etymology (even if they all say simply "unknown.")  --Connel MacKenzie 03:35, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * In the same way that English sometimes has more than one plural to accommodate different senses (antennas, antennae), even though they have exactly the same etymology, Russian often will pronounce a word that has one spelling two different ways, with two different declensions, though they have the same etymology. Likewise, Arabic nouns frequently have different plurals for different senses of a word, sometimes even different genders, even though they share the same etymology. The same thing occurs in many different languages, and while there are occasionally different etymologies, usually the homographs share the same etymology. —Stephen 15:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, antenna is a good example of what I mean: the things sticking up on an insect's head are not the same word (lemma?) as the electronic devices used to relay radio waves.   Certainly, the etymology of the electronic device should not be the same, as that word's origin came from an imitation of the things sticking up from an insect's head.  (When the Latin word for the things atop an insect's head was devised, electronics did not exist.  When the term was borrowed from Latin into English, electronics did not exist.  When television sets were invented with two things sticking up from the "head", Latin was already "dead.")  --Connel MacKenzie 06:22, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * But surely they are the same, the radio devices being named after the insects' &mdash;Saltmarsh 05:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, the situation is generally different in the case of English, since English has borrowed the vast majority of its lexicon from other languages, especially Old French. Most languages have not done this, or at least not in historical times, and homographs are not borrowed from two similar languages, but are native vocabulary. So, the only etymological differences, if there are any at all, are the etymologies of the plural affixes. The stems of homographs usually have the same etymology. —Stephen 20:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I have, coincidentally, just runn into the same problem with θέρος with 2 genders, 2 meanings (harvest & summer) but surely 1 etymology. &mdash;Saltmarsh 05:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Or лебедь with two genders, two declensions, one meaning (but one poetic, one regular). Same etymology. —Stephen 18:55, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I am not sure that my logic above is right and philologist I aint. But if θέρος has 2 genders, it is 2 words not one they both evolved from Ancient Greek when both meanings (harvest and summer) had the same  gender. At some point the word for harvest changed gender so θέρος  θέρος  have different etymologies - the masculine version has a step beyond the neuter version - whether this was taken last year or 500y ago is irrelevant? &mdash;Saltmarsh 14:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Dealt with. — Beobach 18:13, 28 November 2010 (UTC)