Thread:User talk:CodeCat/Perfective and imperfectie forms/reply (17)

I haven't made up this criterion. It was adopted from paper dictionaries that use it, and that have been using it for a very long time. It is not at all a matter of debate. Requirements are not arcane - they're obvious. Speakers instinctively perceive forms such as šmrknuti, jeknuti and muknuti as secondary because they are very rarely used as such. Corpora search is an exact and reliable criterion to establish precedence.

As I've explained, etymological basis is arbitrary. šmrknuti can just as easily derive from šmrkati, and vice versa. Perfectivization and imperfectivization can go both directions. Yes my way is asymmetrical but that's how things are. Languages don't fit into some perfect mathematical formula. They are full of inconsistencies. Some verbal pairs of the exact same shape will have a form of one perfectiveness as a base lemma, and other verbs will have another. For a user looking up such verbs, in both cases the most common form will be shown with definition lines.

The distinction is orthogonal to meanings. There are many ways to perfectivize or imperfectivize a verbal stem. That's why I'm arguing that the way Russian and others are handling perfective/imperfective variants in the headword line with prefixed forms is too simplistic. However, for SC, the only verbs who are redirected are the ones where there is no semantic discrepancy between the pairs. That is your first bullet point (except for the last sentence).

You're making it seem like it's my own personal interest. It's interesting how when you're left without arguments you tend to personalize arguments by interlocutors. The bottom line is:
 * These are indeed alternative forms in the all of the other dictionaries. When you look up šmrknuti you're redirected to šmrkati . The only modification in meaning is whether the action has been completed or not.
 * We categorize all other alternative forms that are lemmas, in their own special categories.