Template talk:en-verb

Replaces Template:regverb?
Are we to assume this template is to be used instead of Template:regverb? Personally, I like Template:en-verb (this one) better, but I wish there was a policy (consensus).

V-ball 02:25, 24 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Template:regverb has been deprecated. Ncik 00:09, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Third Person Singular
Shouldn't the second box in the template note that this is Third person singular present? I realize this would make the box wider, but perhaps we could abbrev. as '''3rd pers. sing. present'''. --EncycloPetey 05:45, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * This is pretty obvious and doesn't need to be mentioned. Similarly for other grammatical qualifiers like mood, aspect, etc. Ncik 03:00, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, of course it should follow convention, and list it properly as "Third person singular present." --Connel MacKenzie T C 00:32, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know. It seems excessive to say "Third-person singular present indicative" when "Third-person singular" is pretty clear for English speakers. Rod (A. Smith) 00:44, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It might be obvious to English speakers, but this is an international site used by people learning English as well. Saying "thrid person" might be taken to mean the singular and the plural.  Most other languages inflect their verbs far more than English does -- English is singularly weird when it comes to verb forms.

Add support for split verbs
It would be nice if there was some support for split verbs, so that it would be easier to add an inflection line for them, see e.g. fork over, where it has to be entered like this:. Something along the lines, which would result in


 * to en-verb over, (third-person singular simple present en-verbs over, present participle en-verbing over, simple past en-verbed over, past participle en-verbed over)

or something the like would be very nice. henne 11:11, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Use inf=fork over|forks over|forking over|forked over SemperBlotto 22:04, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, no the ‘to’ disappears then, so at least, but do we want red entries for forks over etc?  H. (talk) 08:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I think we do. A split verb is treated as a word and all its inflections should have entries like all other words. __meco 11:39, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

pl:Szablon:en-czasownik vi:Tiêu bản:eng-verb

Accommodate for US/UK differences
There are quite some verbs (e.g. label), that have different spellings in the -ing and -ed forms for US/UK. It would be nice if this could be accomodated for with some parameters (or a separate template, maybe). H. (talk) 14:43, 20 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Are more than, say, a hundred such verbs? If not, it may be best to stick with the admittedly cumbersome syntax used in the label: entry.  If there are more than a hundred such verbs, we'll need to get input from a more public venue (e.g. WT:GP), because in the past, Connel has expressed considerable objection adding any more complexity to  and its kin.  Rod (A. Smith) 19:19, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


 * My understanding is that the difference exists for many (possibly even "almost all") multisyllabic words ending in consonant-vowel-consonant.&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 19:25, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's quite so broad as that; for one thing, I'm pretty sure it's only when said vowel is unstressed. And actually I think it might only be verbs ending in unstressed -Vl (label, travel, trammel, gambol, cavil, carol, and so on); for example, parroted and covered seem to be the standard spellings everywhere (but with parrotted and coverred being common misspellings). —Ruakh TALK 08:49, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I would have liked this feature. DCDuring TALK 18:02, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Second person singular
Why don't we put how is the second person of the singular, nominative case?--200.127.229.244 18:38, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Example: to go


 * Because those forms have not been used in any standard dialect for centuries. Further, why would we provide goest and not also goeth? -- Visviva 02:55, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if there are verbs that have 5 of any of the following (the following renderers without error):

The quality comes before the form, example: write

Are there any second-person plural English verbs? --NoToleranceForIntolerance (talk) 20:31, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Category for use on pages outside N(0)
Most common templates when used outside principal namespace don't seem to become inserted into principal namespace categories. This one does. See Category:English verbsat "Template". As evidence I will leave the offending on a test page. I have been "nowiki-ing" them (about a dozen). (I know, I should have "noinclude"d them instead.) DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 19:16, 21 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The   near the end needs to be changed to   . This being one of our very most widely transcluded templates, I'll wait a few days before making the change, in case anyone has any objections, or (conversely) in case anyone brings up any other changes that should be made at the same time. —Ruakh TALK 21:01, 21 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Not urgent, but was highly visible in the category. Had been noted by a user on cat talk. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 01:26, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Done. (Note that the change will take a while to work its way through the job queue. If there are any specific pages you want fixed, just go to their edit pages and click "Save page".) —Ruakh TALK 03:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

use for phrasal verbs and verb phrases
It would be handy to add a parameter for phrasal verbs, e.g. for kick out we write which would generate the same as  --Rising Sun talk? contributions 22:58, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Something like Template:en-phrasal, but of course better. --Rising Sun talk? contributions 23:07, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't see the net advantage to humans of showing full inflection for all phrasal verbs and predicates or of facilitating showing such. It seems like a waste of vertical screen space on the landing screen. As in all of these cases the inflection is just a click away if the inflection line is properly formatted with a wikilink. Of course, it would make a better database for machines to always have inflections for anything called a verb. DCDuring TALK 23:37, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I replace these as found with . It saves masses of space. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:26, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Please implement this more general idea (the p argument) proposed here--Dixtosa (talk) 09:14, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

use for commonly derived noun (-tion)?
Pros and cons of expanding this template to identify "-tion" nouns? E.g. nationalize -> nationalization

Facts707 17:24, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

If or if not above, an entry in the documentation something to the effect of "don't forget the noun form, eg: ...tion" would be helpful. Facts707 17:45, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The vast majority of verbs do not have such forms. There's no, for example, *worktion or *indulgtion. Any that does can list it s.v. "Related terms" (or "Derived terms" if appropriate). &#x200b;—msh210℠ 17:51, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose it's out of the template's remit. en-verb is used for verbs. What I guess you mean to say is adding  will create something like (derived noun nationalisation) but per msh210, put those in derived terms. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:25, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Isn't -tion an example of derivational morphology, while -ing -ed -s are inflectional morphology? As such it shouldn't be included in the "inflection line". Conrad.Irwin 21:29, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Prefacing verbs with to in Template:en-verb
Currently, Template:en-verb automatically adds to to before the base form of the verb. I suggest that we do away with this for the following reasons: --Brett 17:04, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) The word to is no more part of the verb than the is part of the noun. Rather it is a subordinator that marks the following verb phrase (VP) as subordinate and infinitive, similar to the way that that marks the clause as subordinate in ...that he arrive on time
 * 2) It is not the infinitive form of the verb that is being shown but rather the base form, which happens to be used in the infinitive, the subjunctive, and the imperative. These are all types of clause or VP, depending on your definition of clause, not verb forms. Of these, only the infinitive employes to.
 * 3) Even if it were the infinitive, and not the base form, there is the marked to infinitive (e.g., I want to go), and the bare infinitive (e.g., make me go).
 * 4) The standard among other English-language dictionaries is to present the verb without the to.
 * The principal reason for retaining the "to" is that it is yet another backstop against users mistaking a verb entry for another PoS and that some of our term template glosses retain "to" to make clear that the etymon is a verb, not a noun or other PoS. I suppose the backstop is redundant where inflection is shown. But we also have many entries for phrases that are headed by a verb that do not show any inflection. IOW, "to" in an entry or entry section serves as a marker that the entry/section concerns a verb. In some cases (eg, glosses) it is not redundant. The uses in the inflection line are redundant because of the PoS header and sometimes the content of the inflection line. DCDuring TALK 18:33, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It is in the inflection line that I'm suggesting it be removed. It is both redundant and misleading. I don't know what a "term template gloss" is, but I agree that you couldn't remove the to in cases like crawl: to move slowly unless you moved to full sentence explanations such as If something crawls, it moves slowly, a change I'm not advocating.--Brett 18:48, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep the 'to' and keep the 'a' in . Mglovesfun (talk) 22:05, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Why?--Brett 00:58, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Just feels right. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:08, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * In an inflection line, "to" seems like a pretty clear way of indicating that the following word is the base form of the verb. But is such an indicator necessary or helpful? I don't know. —Ruakh TALK 14:11, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You have some good points there, including the predecent of English dictionaries. However, it seems that most of the points also justify the removal of "to" from the definition lines, which is not customary. I don't really know; interesting points, anyway. --Dan Polansky 14:42, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The other thing is that our inflection line displays the principle parts for a verb, making it a bit like a kind of grammatical table rather than just a dictionary lemma. And while the to-form is not that common in dictionary headwords, it's very common in declension tables and the like. < class="latinx" >Ƿidsiþ 14:52, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that removal from the definition lines is not customary. Of the one-look dictionaries, only COBUILD learners and Wordnet do so. COBUILD uses complete sentences. Only Wordnet uses to-less infinitive clauses. But I don't agree that the arguments are the same. The word forms should show the word on its own. The definitions, however, are typically infinitive clauses: words used with other words. And in English, when we use infinitive clauses as subjects or complements of linking verbs, it is always marked with to (e.g., subj: To join a group is..., comp: ...is to join a group.) Notice that this is also an issue of mention vs use, where when you mention a word, the typical syntactic properties it has don't apply.
 * I also think the argument regarding declension tables is misleading. First of all, for the reasons I pointed to above, I think this practice is a mistake even in those tables that employ it. Secondly, again as I pointed out above, many dictionaries list all the forms. These could be equally said to resemble declension tables, but the major dictionaries don't use to here. Finally, more modern declension tables often don't list to. For example, the Azar English grammar series (Pearson Longman), one of the most popular ESL grammars in the world, simply gives the verb alone in its lists of irregular verbs.--Brett 16:28, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

This issue doesn't seem to generate much interest, but I'll give it one more shot with another analogy. Putting to in front of the verb is like putting be in front of the present participle. Yes, it commonly appears there, but it isn't part of the word form, and it's inaccurate to include it.--Brett 15:52, 24 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I find your reasoning rather convincing. --Dan Polansky 16:30, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, since there don't seem to be strong opinions about this, should I "be bold", change it, and see what happens, or should we put it to a vote?--Brett 13:19, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Category:English verbs which are their own past participle
This template can be made to automatically categorize entries into Category:English verbs which are their own past participle by means (I think) of the following code:

Any reason not to do so? &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 20:24, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

past_ptc2
Not documented. Maybe add it? Thanks. Equinox ◑ 02:27, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure. The documentation may be outdated in other areas too, though. —CodeCat 02:31, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * "past_ptc2=" seems not to generate anything, not even an error message (See fretsaw.). This is not a very rare occurence and having a parameter for it that generated standard text would enable instance to be found conveniently. Sadly it is beyond my paygrade to fix as long as it is in Module:headword, which raises the question Why should it be in Module:headword?. DCDuring TALK 19:15, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry. Same points as below, but still not fixed. It might be time to fork from Module:headword. DCDuring TALK  19:19, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Possible bug
works, but does not. Equinox ◑ 01:51, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

qualifier after form
Please change this template so it shows the qualifier after the form, not before it. So not
 * past participle showed (very rare i.e. archaic or dial. in the UK, less common but standard variant in North America, but even there very rare and frowned upon in passive)
 * past participle (very rare i.e. archaic or dial. in the UK, less common but standard variant in North America, but even there very rare and frowned upon in passive) showed --Espoo (talk) 10:55, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
 * That's done in Module:headword, so it applies to all languages. I don't think qualifiers should be that long though, imagine how long the entire headword line would be! If qualifiers get to be that long, use a usage note. —CodeCat 13:56, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Undocumented single parameter
While parsing through the wiktionary data, I noticed there were many cases of this en-verb template being used with a single parameter, other than es / d / ing. The first example in the dump is "cat":. This is consistently parsed as:

The third person singular gets 's' added to the base word: cats.

The past gets "ed" added to the parameter: catted.

The present participle gets "ing" added to the parameter: catting.

So, indicates cases that are almost regular, but there is some different form of the word that the suffixes needed to be added to for the past and present participle.

—Darxus (talk) 20:46, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Undocumented parameter "ies"
If the second parameter is "ies", it gets added to the first parameter for the third person, *and* "ied" gets added to the first parameter for the simple past.

—Darxus (talk) 03:12, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Updates to the documentation
looking forward to the documentation being updated, as it’s not clear to me how the new parameters ++ and 1 work. :-) — SGconlaw (talk) 17:35, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Done. 1 no longer has any effect and will be removed; the "new" rules requested by this parameter are now the default. Benwing2 (talk) 04:20, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
 * great, thanks! — SGconlaw (talk) 04:50, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Where can one find the documentation for the "normal" uses of "+" and "*". I dno't this you mean "as understood my 'normal' users". I can tell you don't mean "normal" for regexes or normal for "*" as a wildcard, but I can't tell what you do mean. IOW, WTF is meant by "normal"? DCDuring (talk) 19:03, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Template suggests "spulyying" instead of "spulyieing"
...for the verb. A double-y should probably be avoided when guessing inflections, though this case is obscure. Equinox ◑ 14:57, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Past form bug
Returns the error Lua error: bad argument #1 to 'gsub' (string is not UTF-8) with the 3rd argument being "41%ed", but not with "41%d" nor "41%'ed". lattermint (talk) 22:14, 1 July 2023 (UTC)