Wiktionary talk:About Portuguese

form-of templates
The templates, , and display, respectively, "[Form] of verb foo", "[Form] of noun foo", and "[Form] of adjective foo". This doesn't strike me as good English: there should, I think be a "the" after "of". Or drop the words "verb", "noun", and "adjective", as (I don't know Portuguese, but AFAICT) they don't seem necessary. &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 02:09, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with dropping the POS from the definitions. The POS is already in the heading. — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:21, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Linking to augmentative and diminutives
Augmentative and diminutive forms (= non-positive forms) of nouns should be linked to from the lemma entry. But where should the link be? I can think of: — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) in the headword line; the problem with this is that some words have many non-positives ( has four augmentatives (three of which have a different gender) and two diminutives), causing the headword line to be too long. There are enough Portuguese words with four non-positives to make this a frequent problem.
 * 2) in Derived terms (this is how Latin entries treat diminutives). This is perhaps the preferable option linguistically, because most augmentatives and diminutives have much more meaning than “big X” and “small X”. However, I’d prefer if they were listed as forms of the lemma, and reserve Derived terms for cases where a separate word is formed from the non-positive (for example, which derives from the augmentative of faca;  is from the diminutive of ). Compare how Latin lists participles in its conjugation tables, even though they have lemma entries.
 * 3) in an inflection table with three cells (one for the positive form (lemma), one for augmentatives and one for diminutives, with each form displaying its gender and a qualifier indicating (in)formality and rarity. Many months ago I created a template for this, but now I believe that it should only link to the augmentative and diminutive lemmas, not to their plurals and feminines, to prevent confusion.
 * 4) list them in the Inflection heading, but without a table.


 * I prefer option three. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I strongly disfavor option 1; no strong preference among the others. DCDuring TALK 15:49, 22 December 2012 (UTC)`
 * I'd pick option two. Augmentatives and diminutives in Portuguese look to me more like derivation than inflection; they are often irregular, multiple, or even absent (does plágio have an augmentative? any of the putative forms strikes me as odd). This all makes "Derived forms", I think, the best home for them. --Pereru (talk) 02:15, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with Pereru. I oppose Option 1 (the Dutch method) and Option 3 (the hyperinflected method) as inappropriate for Portuguese, which doesn't really inflect its nouns per se. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 02:20, 23 December 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅ Derived Terms it is. — Ungoliant (Falai) 00:52, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Entries of augmentative and diminutives
As I mentioned above, the meaning of non-positive forms is much more complex than “big X” and “small X”. In fact, sometimes augmentatives and diminutives have augmentatives and diminutives of their own! I can think of the following ways of addressing this issue: Note that I am proposing that we apply this only for non-positive forms of nouns and pronouns for now. The meaning of the augmentative and diminutive of adjectives is clearer. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) treating non-positive forms as merely a form of the lemma. All dictionaries that I know do this (in other words, they don’t have entries for non-positive forms, because we’re the only ones have entries for all inflected forms).
 * 2) treating each citable definition as a lemma definition, without using  or . From what I’ve seen this is what Latin entries do.
 * 3) treating the non-positive term as a form-of (using the templates mentioned above) and listing each citable definition as a subsense. This will help discern between non-positive definitions and lemma definitions derived from the non-positive form (like noitinha and facão mentioned above).


 * I prefer option three. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Dutch has regular diminutives for most words. They are treated as lemmas, but are put in a separate category. See huisje for an example. 16:56, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer Option 3, but not necessarily with subsenses. I think the Yiddish solution is good (see שיפֿל for an example). —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 02:21, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I tend to prefer CodeCat's suggestion above. I see augmentatives and diminutives in Portuguese as derived, and thus as deserving of their own lemma as any regularly derived forms (nouns in -ção, -dade, adverbs in -mente, etc.). But I would mark them with some sort of template definition, so as to get them into the right category -- at least as long as the "normal" augmentative/diminutive sense is still a possible one. (For those "augmentatives" like carranca who are quite irregular and whose meaning has gone their own way -- no longer really related to cara -- I suppose some reference to their original augmentative status can be placed in the Etymology section.)
 * Would you support option 3 then? The augmentatives and diminutives will have their own lemma definition as a subsense of a definition with / (which will in turn categorise them as such), and words like carranca will have lemma definitions of their own (not a subsense), because they fall under “lemma definitions derived from the non-positive form”. — Ungoliant (Falai) 01:04, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Inflection table for Portuguese adjectives
The template is used for conjugation tables of Portuguese adjectives. I have three complaints about it: Here is what I have in mind:
 * The augmentative and diminutive forms are listed in the superlative row. I don’t think that is apropriate, because their meanings (diminutive = “somewhat X”, augmentative = “quite X”) don’t look like augmentative to me. I propose that a new row be added for each.
 * Confusion. It lists two superlatives, even though they have different meanings (“o mais X” is the English superlative’s equivalent, while “Xíssimo” means “extremely X”). It also doesn’t explain what the augmentative and diminutives of adjectives imply, and doesn’t tell the user that the are informal. I propose that the superlative be split into two rows (the title cell using rowspan="2"), and a new column be added which contains the English gloss.
 * Links to entryless words are black. IMHO this just shamefully hides the fact that we lack content, and users might get the impression that we don’t want to have entries for them.

— Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree. This table looks much better. (I'm not sure if forms in -íssimo should even be called superlatives, since their meaning is more intensified than made superlative, as you point out; but it is indeed traditional to call them "superlativos" in Portuguese, so let it be...) Do you think it's necessary to provide an English gloss? Most inflection tables I see here don't do that. --Pereru (talk) 02:29, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I wouldn’t mind going without them, but I insist that there should be (formal) and (informal) qualifiers somewhere. In the first column perhaps? — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:35, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Just found out something: words with -íssimo are called synthetic superlative. I couldn’t find out what’s the name of “o mais X” type superlatives though. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:15, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe "analytic superlative"? (If memory serves me, o mais + ADJ was simply called "superlativo", nothing else. But I don't have my Cegalla grammar here with me, so I may be wrong.) --Pereru (talk) 01:20, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Found it. It’s “superlativo relativo”. — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:48, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Adverbs with with -mente dropped
When multiple adverbs suffixed with are listed in a row, the suffixes may be dropped, except in the last one, and a hyphen is added to the root. Here is an example:
 * The city was destroyed quickly, coldly and violently.
 * Would normally be: A cidade foi destruída rapidamente, friamente e violentamente.
 * However, the correct formal manner of writing it is: A cidade foi destruída rapida-, fria- e violentamente.

I don’t know if other languages do this, but I propose that we create entries for such forms (per the second sentence of WT:CFI: “A term should be included if it’s likely that someone would run across it and want to know what it means.”), and that they be linked to in the headword lines of adverbs. I have no idea what the entries’ definitions should display though. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * English only does this with compounds under some circumstances: "hard- and soft-cover books". In principle, hard- and soft- are deemed not entry-worthy, but the words have entries. It seems to me that stems are not entry-worthy. That the formal register of writing requires this is an aspect of grammar/stylistics, not really lexical. How is the formal orthography pronounced in a reading or a speech in a court of law? DCDuring TALK 16:06, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The suffix is also dropped in pronunciation. — Ungoliant (Falai) 16:12, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I concur with DCDuring. Moreover, I think a wider discussion covering every language which exhibits this tendency ought to occur before changing the status quo, which forbids such entries. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 02:24, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree with Metá and DCD above. Certain forms don't seem to be "entry-worthy", and this Portuguese case strikes me as such. German also can do that with compound nouns (Haus- und Gartenwelt "House and Garden World," the name of an Austrian shop), and yet there is no entry for Haus- by itself. (Is the hyphen obligatory in Portugal? In Brazil, we were taught to write those as simple words, without hyphens, even restoring the stress marks when necessary: "A cidade foi destruída rápida, fria e violentamente.")
 * I was taught not to use accents and to use hyphen, also in Brazil (I don’t know about usage in Portugal), which is probably a good reason to have entries for these forms: they go against the rule that all proparoxytones must have accents (assuming I was taught correctly). I disagree with the comparisons with English hard-cover and German Hauswelt. These are word+word compound, and if you remove a word from the compound you are still left with a word. Rapidamente is a single word (well, historically it’s adjective + noun mente, but we’re not talking about Vulgar Latin here), and if you remove the suffix you are left with a non-word, a radical, but still functioning as an adverb. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:11, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure. Here's a better English example: Both the pro- and anti-abortion activists were found to have abnormally high rates of incarceration, the team of German sociologists reported. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:15, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * You got me there. The only defence I have is that “pro-abortion” already has a hyphen. — Ungoliant (Falai) 04:30, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, I thought you were from Portugal -- sorry about that! :-/... I wonder if the difference in what we were taught is some of those orthographic agreements?... Is there disagreement among (normative) grammars on that? Should we find good sources? Still: hyphen or no hyphen, the forms are not only regularly formed, they are homophonous and homographous with the simple adjective, except (in the rules you were taught) for the lack of stress marks. That does not at all look like a derived form; it's more like an orthographic quirk (like the way the Dutch have of capitalizing the second word in a sentence when the sentence starts with s: s Morgens ga ik naar school (just because there is no capital equivalent to an apostrophe). This makes these forms, I think, quite equivalent to the others mentioned above, like Haus- und Gartenwelt. In other words: these aren't cases of indepedent words, but more ways of handling words (like "infixation" in English, in cases like "fan-fucking-tastic"). I'd mention the rule in the Appendix in a page on Portuguese adverb formation, or under "usage notes" for the suffix -mente -- but I wouldn't create special entries for "rapida-". --Pereru (talk) 01:08, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * OK OK, you convinced me. None of my grammars mention any rule regarding whether they should be accented and/or hyphenised. — Ungoliant (Falai) 01:17, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅. Entries for adverbs with -mente dropped are banned. — Ungoliant (Falai) 01:10, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


 * PS: @Pereru: "infixation" is actually called tmesis. Oh, and I like the usage note idea at .—Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 01:22, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Enclitics and mesoclitics
Portuguese has proclisis, enclisis and mesoclisis. Portuguese proclisis is not confusing at all, so this discussion won’t apply to it, but in some cases enclisis is confusing and mesoclisis is quite confusing! Here is an example:
 * “He would kill himself”
 * There are three ways to translate this using the accusative pronoun:
 * Note: He → ele; would kill → mataria; himself → se;
 * Proclisis: “Ele se mataria”;
 * Enclisis: “Ele mataria-se”;
 * Mesoclisis: “Ele matar-se-ia”.

Proclisis is not confusing because the pronoun and the verb are always written separately and neither affects the other. Not so with enclisis and mesoclisis. When a verb form ending in -r is used with the pronouns, and their plurals, the -r is dropped, an accent added to the verb’s last vowel, the pronouns become  and  instead, and they are connected by an hyphen.


 * “I want to kill him”:
 * I want → quero; to kill → matar; him → o;
 * “Quero matá-lo”.

When o/a are connected to verb forms ending in nasalised vowels, they become /.


 * “They killed her”:
 * They killed → mataram; her → a;
 * “Mataram-na”.

Mesoclisis can occur in the future indicative and conditional tenses, and the same alterations that occur in proclisis apply:


 * “I would have done it”:
 * I → eu; would have done → faria; it → o;
 * “Eu fá-lo-ia”;

Latin deals with its clitic by not having any entries with them. That’s all fine and dandy for Latin, but in Portuguese the problem is much more complicated, as I’ve explained. How should we treat these forms?

— Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Should we create entries for every mesoclitical and enclitical possible combination of verb and pronoun? This would create an exponentially large amount of non-lemma entries, most of them unnecessary.
 * 2) Should we create entries only for those in which either the verb form or the pronoun is changed? It would be unfair to list only some forms, and it still would lead to the creation of a large amount of entries.
 * 3) Should we create an entry for each element of the combination (for example, in the case of “fá-lo-ia” an entry for fá and one of ia; or one for fá- and one for -ia). If so, what should the definition of such entries display?


 * I am leaning towards the third option, but I hope a more creative Wiktionarian can come up with a more elegant solution. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Catalan has a similar situation, but something like "fa-lo-ia" is unknown there. We don't have separate combined entries for words with clitics in Catalan. We have entries for reflexive infinitives but not for their inflected forms (which is a bit of a problem in itself, if the base verb doesn't exist). 17:03, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I tend to favor the first option. Yes, it's a lot of pages, but Wiktionary has no space problems, and they could be created by bots. (If you want to limit their number, it would be possible to create only those attested in some pre-agreed corpus of Portuguese texts.) They would be form-of pages of the original verb (with a link to the pronoun lemma form somewhere in the definition line). Words with hyphens are given their own entry, like je-m'en-foutisme in French or forget-me-not in English, right? It also strikes me as the simplest solution for the casual reader, who, if looking for fá-lo-ia, is probably going to first try to find the whole thing rather than go piece by piece. That's what I would do for all Romance languages where the problem applies, including Catalan. (By curiosity: would you feel differently about that if there was no hyphen, as in Spanish or Italian, were e.g. comérselo and daglielo are written as single words? Do people think that comérselo and daglielo should be separate form-of entries for comer and dare at Wiktionary, since they are spelled as one word?) --Pereru (talk) 02:56, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * This occurs in Old Portuguese (, seventh line, right column: contaruoloei = contar-vo-lo-ei). The problem, however, is not the use of hyphens, but SOPness. forget-me-not is the name of a flower, and there won’t ever (I hope) be an entry forget me not with a verb definition “Negative imperative with first person singular pronoun”. The problem with Portuguese is the phonological alterations, which are represented by the orthography and thus have lexicographical significance. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:48, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It looks like this is a remnant of the phrasal nature of the way the future and conditional were formed. Interesting. :) 03:51, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * But we're talking about form-of pages, where SOPness is not a problem, right? Plurals usually have obvious meanings, yet nobody says that hats shouldn't be an entry just because the meaning is obviously a sum of the meaning of hat + the meaning of -s -- i.e., SOP doesn't apply to form-of pages, right? So it seems the 'deeper' problem is whether or not you think that fá-lo-ia is one word, or two, or three. At least for dictionary purposes, I'd say hyphenated "things" should be treated as only one word. It simplifies matters. --Pereru (talk) 01:16, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * SOPness is also a problem in form of entries. This is why we don’t have entries for man's or will go, even though they are “possessive of man” and “future indicative of go”. To be honest, I could settle for creating the entries for forms with phonetic alteration, but certainly not for every verb+pronoun combination possible. It’s true that Wiktionary is not paper, but even computer storage has its limits and we should not abuse it too much. — Ungoliant (Falai) 01:50, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yet we do have forms for men and for regular plurals and past tense forms like gardens or played, even though their meaning is obvious SOP. So how come? Maybe there should at least be an entry for man's, I don't know... But here's the criterion that always seemed best to me: what will a casual dictionary user look for? My guess (and you may disagree with me) is that -- especially in cases of mesoclisis like fá-lo-ia, dir-se-ia; or cases like Getulio Vargas' famous fi-lo porque qui-lo -- the casual reader is going to look for the whole thing, because he won't know the rules of mesoclis and unstressed pronominal placement so well as to be able to analyze these forms and look the pieces up here. (In fact, if you can analyze the pieces, you probably don't even need to look anything up...). This may be less true of more easily analyzable cases like machucou-se or dizê-lo. I'd still be in favor of having all those forms bot-created as independent entries (just like every other form in the conjugation), but I admit this is a question of degree, and it's possible to disagree on where to draw the line. --Pereru (talk) 01:28, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
 * If pt-1 people are allowed to vote, I would vote for option 3 (form less the hyphen and pronoun). See fazê for how I would define them. See for how one online dictionary deals with them. SemperBlotto (talk) 16:37, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

I am leaning towards the option 1. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 20:46, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Conjugation table for composed forms
I propose the creation of a conjugation table for compound tenses of Portuguese verbs (like the English “would have told”, which is the conditional perfect tense). I will have to do some research to find out what should go in such a table, but it’s things like Present Participle:  + + infinitive (Portugal),  + gerund (Brazil); Conditional perfect:  + past participle; Future indicative:  + infinitive; etc. German has a table for such forms, and I don’t see why Portuguese shouldn’t (or why English shouldn’t, for that matter). I also propose that the verb+pronoun combinations I explained above should also be listed in this table (or maybe a third table). — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It does seem like part of the grammar, not the lexicon. DCDuring TALK 16:09, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * But it does lead to having a table with essentially predictable forms, once you know the usage. In Dutch, once you know that zullen forms the future tense, you don't need to list it in any of the tables. Another problem is that there are many combinations. For example in Dutch, from you can make hebben gezongen "have sung", is gezongen "is sung", zal zingen "will sing", zal hebben gezongen "shall have sung", zal zijn gezongen "shall have been sung", zou hebben zullen zingen "would have been going to sing", zou gezongen zullen zijn geweest "would have been going to be sung" and so on. Such a table would become huge if it wants to cover it all.  17:09, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm cautiously in favor of adding some of these compound tenses to the table (probably ter/haver + past participle), but taking carefully into account CodeCat's comment above; ir+infinitve, estar+gerund/infinitive etc. also have present, past, future, and even compound tenses of their own ("eu estava indo sair", "ele teria ido comer", etc.). At least constructions like ir + infinitive, or estar + gerund / "a"+infinitive, are so transparent and so regularly formed -- like going to + Verb in English -- that it doesn't seem worthwhile to put them in the table. I'd consider each case carefully. (And you don't need to conjugate them in full, right? In Latin, they also don't conjugate the compound passive tenses like amatus sum in all forms here; they just describe how it is formed -- past participle + esse -- and leave it at that. I also did that for the Latvian conjugation table, as in tulkot "to translate": just mention the auxiliary and the necessary form of the main verb, without entering into details as to how to conjugate the auxiliary.) --Pereru (talk) 03:07, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol oppose vote.svg|20px]] Fails. — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:12, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Genders of proper nouns

 * Previous discussion: Tea_room.

Many Portuguese proper nouns do not take articles, and many consider these as not having genders. However, even in these cases adjectives and past participles must agree with the word’s gender and number, and they agree with the gender of a noun of which the proper noun is an instance, so, for example, adjectives describing articleless cities (, feminine) are feminine, while those describing articleless ships (, masculine) are masculine.

Evanildo Bechara’s Moderna Gramática Portuguesa implies that articleless proper nouns do have gender:


 * “Por isso são normalmente femininos os nomes de cidades, ilhas: A bela (cidade) Petrópolis. A movimentada (ilha) Governador.”
 * Therefore the names of cities, islands are normally feminine: The beautiful (city) Petrópolis. The busy (island) Governador. (note that in these examples, an article wouldn’t be used with the word alone. “Petrópolis”, not *“a Petrópolis”)

I propose that we consider these proper nouns as having gender. In any case, should have options for indicating that a proper noun doesn’t take articles unless it has an adjective, so I propose the creation of a second parameter taking y or n, causing the display of something along the lines of: “only takes an article when preceded by an adjective”. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The gender seems essential. The rest seems like syntax. DCDuring TALK 16:11, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that these should be considered as having gender. - -sche (discuss) 17:43, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds OK to me. Whether Munique is intrinsically a feminine noun or whether its femininity derives from the word cidade strikes me as not a really serious question (how could one tell either way?). Let such nouns have gender. --Pereru (talk) 03:09, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅, proper nouns must have a gender specified. — Ungoliant (Falai) 01:18, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Present participle
Currently, the templates and  call “present participle” the verb forms ending in -ndo. I think this should be changed to gerund, because:

— Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Portuguese grammars call it gerund (well,  of course);
 * 2) While there is much overlap between the English present participle and the Portuguese gerund, the usage is not quite the same. For example, the English PP can be used as a noun (“Reading is fun”); in Portuguese the infinitive is used instead (“Ler é divertido”);
 * 3) It is biased towards Brazilian Portuguese. When used as a verb, the gerund is only equivalent to the English PP in Brazilian Portuguese. In Portugal,  + infinitive is used instead. So, for example, “The man is walking” is “O homem está andando” (gerund) in Brazil, but “O homem está a andar” (infinitive) in Portugal.
 * 4) There is something else called present participle. Certain words ending in -nte (such as, , ) used to be called present participle. While they are no longer considered verb forms, some still call them present participle.
 * What do Brazilian Portuguese grammars or grammars used in Brazil call it? If they call it a gerund, then the matter would seem settled. DCDuring TALK 16:17, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * All I’ve come across still call it gerund. — Ungoliant (Falai) 16:28, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Is it used as an adjective to modify a noun? If so, that would make it a present participle. But perhaps it is really both... Latin had several forms that ended in -nd- (which we call gerunds or gerundives) and a present participle in -nt-. Is it possible that the -nt- and -nd- forms merged together in Portuguese so that a single word now fulfills both tasks? 17:14, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It is (and also as an adverb), but why does that make it a present participle? The Portuguese gerund (-ando, -endo, -indo) derives from the Latin future participle. — Ungoliant (Falai) 17:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * What I mean is that it can be both a present participle and a gerund. One word is used to refer to a form that fulfills several tasks in the same way that in Latin the ablative also functions as an instrumental case, or the dative in Germanic languages which is also a locative. If "gerund" in Portuguese is used to imply that it is also a present participle then I think it's ok to use that term. 17:27, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It only implies present participle in Brazil. I maintain that this is biased towards Brazilian Portuguese. — Ungoliant (Falai) 18:59, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * We have already received complaints from readers about this:, . — Ungoliant (Falai) 19:03, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm surprised that we don't already call it a gerund. I strongly support that. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 02:28, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, they're called "gerúndios" in Brazil, too; that's how I was taught when I was growing up. So "gerund" it should be here. But, Ungoliant, you say the "-ndo" forms can be used to modify nouns in Portuguese? I think they can't -- you can't say "um cantando homem" the way you can say "a singing man" in English. The -ndo forms in Portuguese are very adverbial, more restricted in usage than the English -ing forms (a sentence like "the man sitting next to you is my father" could never be translated with "sentando" in Portuguese). You'd have to use the (no longer regular) -nte adjectives for that, like nascente, crescente, fervente... except they are no longer regularly formed from all verbs, as they used to be in Latin, and some (gerente) have become fully independent nouns. --Pereru (talk) 03:14, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure they can! “Um homen cantando atravessou a rua”; “a criança chorando é feia.” — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:53, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * True, such usage is sometimes proscribed, but Wiktionary is descriptivist (thank goodness!) — Ungoliant (Falai) 04:11, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * But in this cases the -ndo gerund is not clearly modifying the noun; it could simply be an adverb modifying the verb. Paraphrases would be "Um homem atravessou a rua enquanto cantava, or "A criança é feia quando chora. I can see the ambiguity or "bridging context" between adjective and adverb here, but the examples are not clearly adjectival/present-participle-like. You'd need one in which the -ndo gerund is really in an adjectival slot, which is kinda difficult. Compare English "flying saucer", Portuguese "disco voador", not "disco voando"; "an emerging power", "uma potência emergente", not "emergindo"; "a reading machine", "uma máquina de ler" or "para ler", not "uma máquina lendo"; etc. Most cases I can see where the -ndo looks like a modifier of a noun, it could just as easily be an adverb modifying a verb, or the reduced form of an adverbial clause. But anyway, don't we at Wiktionary have to follow some sort of traditional account -- or at least some published source? Has anyone ever called those -ndo gerunds adjectival modifiers? Or can we propose a new analysis here, and immediately use it to classify entries? (I actually don't know the answer to this question, I'd be interested to know.) --Pereru (talk) 01:37, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm true. But I still think that “cantando” in the sentence “Um homem atravessou a rua” describes the homen, not the manner in which he atravessou. Remember that after-the-noun is not always the adjectival slot. The adjective grande, when synonymous with excepcional, usually goes before the noun (“João é um grande amigo.”) Anyway, the gerund should be classified as a verb form, as it already is, but with the correct name. — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:28, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I also get a similar feeling, now that I think about it. Maybe the -ndo forms are changing their range of meanings and uses. Maybe someday they'll agree in gender and number with the preceding noun, and then we'll know they'll really have become present-participle modifiers. But up until now, the cases I see in writing and hear in spoken language are still at best iffy (a bit like English "positive anymore" uses). --Pereru (talk) 01:41, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
 * (That actually brings to mind another strange thing with this maybe-modifying -ndo terms: they can never be placed before the noun (um homem cantando, but not *um cantando homem); the old Latin present participles in -nte, however, can sometimes be placed before the noun: um ardente cinéfilo, um cinéfilo ardente; to say nothing of those who are really simply adjectives, like interessante. Hm... Maybe that's the difference between the Portuguese -ndo forms and the English -ing forms: the former are not quite adjectival yet, the latter are actually very adjectival. English "a singing man" can mean "a man who is singing", but it's more likely to mean "a man who sings", "a singer"; whereas Portuguese "um homem cantando" always sounds to me like a reduced version of "um homem (que está) cantando", and could never mean "um homem que canta", "um cantor". Or so it seems to me...) --Pereru (talk) 01:41, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
 * : now displays Gerund instead of Present participle.
 * : accepts gerund as a parameter, and displays Gerund even if the parameter is present participle. Once a bot changes all occurrences, lines 37 and 38 should be deleted.
 * : I’ll wait for the discussion at to finish before changing it.
 * — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:02, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:02, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Long and short past participles
Certain Portuguese verbs have two PP forms, called curto (short) and longo (long). For example: has  (short) and  (long);  has  (short) and  (long). The long PP is used after the auxilliary verbs and, while the short PP is used after  and , and adjectivally. I propose the creation of a new template,, which will have separate rows for each and a footnote explaining the difference. should also be updated to accommodate this distinction, and possibly. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me. As I recall, there's a list of these double-participle verbs, and not a very long one. The template could also categorize them for further reference. --Pereru (talk) 03:17, 23 December 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅. . — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:02, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Banning accentless spellings
Sometimes, when accents are unavailable or when the writer is lazy, people just write words as if the accents didn’t exist. For example, “Nao faca isso” instead of “Não faça isso”. I propose that we ban this before it becomes a problem. This won’t affect alternative spellings which really don’t have accents (like obsolete spelling auditorio, now spelled auditório; or he, now é), nor respellings where accents are unavailable (like internet slang naum instead of não; eh instead of é). — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * This places more reliance on including the relevant accented form. Is the coverage by such templates complete? DCDuring TALK  16:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I don’t know. I rarely look at the See also line. — Ungoliant (Falai) 16:44, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand -- do you mean there are entries here for e.g. nao as "a typical misspelling" of não? I would also be against that, if that's what you mean. --Pereru (talk) 03:19, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * That’s what I mean. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:55, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Ban them for sure. Dictionaries ought to list terms under accurate orthography for languages that have a well-established standard that any author of a serious book would be expected to follow. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:19, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * But then, in defense of Ungoliant's idea... Why are there entries here at Wiktionary for frequent misspellings of English words? Shouldn't those be banned as well? --Pereru (talk) 01:41, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I better clear this up. I’m not proposing that common accidental accentless misspellings be banned. So, for example, in there is a definition “misspelling of à” (which is perhaps the most common misspelling in Portuguese) and it won’t be removed, because you find this misspelling often in texts which do use accents. — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:02, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅. — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:16, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Banning first-person imperative

 * Previous discussion: Talk:cantar, Beer parlour archive/2012/April.

I propose the replacement of the content of the two first-person imperative singular cells in with “use present subjunctive instead”, and delete every occurrence of, for the reasons I mentioned in the BP discussion.

Should this require a vote? — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Among Portuguese contributors/users perhaps, IMO. DCDuring TALK 16:29, 22 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I tend to agree with you, Ungoliant. But what's the usual policy at Wiktionary: to follow the grammatical tradition of the language in question (which would be to keep the name "first person imperative"), or can we innovate terminologically when the traditional terminology seems inappropriate? --Pereru (talk) 03:22, 23 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I don’t know for sure, as I’m not a grammarian and didn’t edit in many languages. I’d support innovating, but I don’t think innovation is necessary here. Check the quotation from Moderna Gramática Portuguesa in the BP discussion: when one wants to give an order to himself in Portuguese, the subjunctive present is used. I took a look at some entries for Portuguese verbs, and in all of them the first-person singular imperative is the same as the first-person singular present subjunctive. — Ungoliant (Falai) 04:04, 23 December 2012 (UTC)


 * If at least one published source does that, then I think it's OK for us to do likewise. I know that Wiktionary is not Wikipedia, but I'm always a bit afraid of introducing new terminology here, since this would suggest to the casual reader that the new terminology is somehow standard or accepted outside of Wiktionary. --Pereru (talk) 01:42, 24 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Pereru, do you think we should have a formal vote? — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:18, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

A new gender parameter in
The first parameter of is the noun’s gender, and can be m (masculine), f (feminine) or mf (both). However, mf can mean three different things:
 * 1) Words like, which is used as a masculine when referring to a male driver, and feminine when referring to a female driver;
 * 2) Words like, which some people consider it to be a masculine noun and some people consider it a feminine noun;
 * 3) Words like, which have some masculine definitions and some feminine definitions.

For the third item, my practice has been to use more than once. For example:

===Noun===
 * 1) [[head]] (part of body above neck)
 * 1) [[headman]] (person in charge)

But at least once someone changed it to: ===Noun=== ===Noun===
 * 1) [[head]] (part of body above neck)
 * 1) [[headman]] (person in charge)

And note that the entry cabeça actually uses “Noun 1” and “Noun 2”. Can we settle on one of them? I prefer my practice of course.

To distinguish between the first and second items, I propose the creation of a new value for the first parameter, possibly morf (masculine or feminine) for the second item, and reserving mf for the first. I have no idea what it should display though. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I think words of the first type are usually called "epicene", and they occur in other languages like French too. How are they handled there? 17:17, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The parameter for these is mf . Epicene (epiceno) in Portuguese means something else: animal names which don’t inflect in gender. For example is a feminine noun whether you are referring to a female or a male snake; when the gender must be specified, adjectives are used: ,  . Now that you mention it, how should this be handled? Probably usage notes. — Ungoliant (Falai) 20:30, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I had a parallel problem in Latvian with words like pļāpa "chatty person", which always declines as a feminine (except for the dative singular) but takes masculine gender agreement when referring to men, and feminine gender agreement when referring to women -- they are like (though not entirely like) motorista. I called them ambigenous and created a Category:Latvian ambigenous nouns for them, and I explained their quirks in the "Usage Notes" section. I think something like that would work for motorista as well. For diabetes, I would have the definition line say "m or f (variation)", again with an explanation in "Usage Notes" (and perhaps also a separate category for them, perhaps "Portuguese terms with varying gender" or "Portuguese terms with undecided gender" or something like that. Cases like cabeça I would handle as homophony, i.e. as separate nouns (with a common origin) that happen to have the same form -- basically the solution with two ===Noun=== headings. As for cobra, zebra, etc. -- I think only a mention in the "Usage Notes" section would suffice. Most animal names in Portuguese (and in other gender languages) only have one grammatical gender anyway (elefante, girafa, bisão, baleia, hipopótamo, alce, peixe, rouxinol, pardal, foca...); it's usually domesticated animals that have masculine and feminine forms, sometimes completely independent ones (cavalo, égua; but then again, so does English: horse, mare). So, for most animals, you do have to indicate "... macho" or "... fêmea" if you need to talk about their sex; just as you do in English. --Pereru (talk) 03:37, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Words like motorista: use mf;
 * Words like cobra: use grammatical gender and ;
 * Words like diabetes: use morf and ;
 * Words like cabeça: use multiple ===Noun=== headings.
 * — Ungoliant (Falai) 04:46, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * — Ungoliant (Falai) 04:46, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Forms listed by
(the headword line template for Portuguese verb lemmas) currently lists the gerund (but incorrectly calling it present participle; see above). I propose that we list: — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * the first-person indicative singular (it’s one of the most common forms, and it will be helpful for Romanicists wishing to compare it with the Latin lemma)
 * the third-person indicative singular (which is the most common, by my reckoning)
 * the forms which are may be used as another POS (gerund and past participle; technically also the infinitive, but it’s already the lemma).
 * I think the purpose of the headword line is to list enough basic information for someone to guess/derive most of the verb forms. I think they call them "principal parts". Which principal parts are there for Portuguese? 17:19, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * You can guess/derive verb forms from the infinitive, except for irregular verbs. So it would be OK to have no content at all other than the bold headword, but to me that seems a waste of useful space, and it’d be nice to display the most commonly used forms (1st and 3rd person indicative singular), and at least the past participle lemma, because it’s very often used as an adjective. — Ungoliant (Falai) 20:15, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks kind of messy... for entries with full inflection, I prefer principal parts only (and as there's only one principal part in Portuguese, that's easy). It's different in Latin where we must memorize those irregular bastards in a singsong recital (even common words like pungo: sometimes trip me up... damn reduplication). —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 02:33, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, I was thinking about Catalan which has two principal parts for basic regular verbs, the infinitive and the present stem (since verbs in -ir can have two possible present stems, like the -iss- verbs in French), and knowing the imperfect and past participle covers almost all but the most irregular verbs (see Appendix:Catalan verbs). You mentioned that several verbs have two possible past participles in Portuguese. Maybe the irregular one of the two can be listed, if there are enough of them? 02:40, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I like that idea. — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:54, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with CodeCat above. I'd list the infinitive, the first person singular present indicative, the first person past tense (because of the irregular verbs), and the past participle (because of irregularities and double-participle verbs) as principal parts. I can't think of any form that can't be derived from one of those (except for a few very irregular verbs like ir). --Pereru (talk) 03:42, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Currently the only forms suggested by two or more people are first person singular present indicative and past participle. I’ll wait a few more days and change to display those if there is no further discussion. — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:39, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅. — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:03, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Hyphenation vs. syllabification
Hi everyone! In particular,. There's being some doubts about the usage of, in particular the differences between the concepts of and  (see Talk:ventoinha or some edits: ). I think it would be worth it to clearly state the standard here in this About page in order to avoid future confusion. Furthermore, I've being using hyphenation to classify the words according to the number of syllables in the Rhymes pages, but maybe I should be using syllabification, so it would good if we could clearly write a standard. I was thinking something along the lines 1, 2:

Hyphenation
is a template, used in the Pronunciation section, that indicates the hyphenation of a word, thus highlighting where a word can be divided when changing lines in a text. Although similar, hyphenation is not the same as syllabification, that is, the division of the word in syllables. Syllabification should be indicated in pronunciation templates such as or. Hyphenation spots are indicated by the symbol ·. Hyphenation usually follows the rules of syllabification (ábaco: á·ba·co), but there are some special cases:
 * Digraphs written with different letters (ch, lh, nh, qu, gu) and the following vowels are never hyphenated (chocalho: cho·ca·lho, aguarela: a·gua·re·la);
 * Digraphs written with the same letters (rr, ss) are always hyphenated (carro: car·ro, passo: pas·so). (NOTE: This differs from the syllabification (carro: ca-Ru, passo: pa-Su));
 * Clusters of consonants in the same syllable and the following vowels are not hyphenated (metro: me·tro, praça: pra·ça), corresponding to the following sequences: bl, cl, dl, gl, pl, tl; br, cr, dr, gr, pr, tr.
 * The following sequences are divisible if not in the beginning of the word: bc, bd, bm, bp, bs, bv, cc, cç, cm, cn, ct, dg, dj, dm, dn, fn, ft, gm, gn, mn, pç, pn, ps, pt, sc, st, sp, tm, tn, ts ou tz (e.g.: stresse: stres·se, magnético: mag·né·ti·co, but mnemónico: mne·mó·ni·co, ritmo: ritmo (NOTE: pronunciation: ri-tmu)) (NOTE: I added sc, st, sp as they are now accepted in European Portuguese)
 * (NOTE: the rules for vowel division)

When the word is a compound with hyphens, the hyphen corresponds to a hyphenation break. In this case, the hyphen is duplicated (cor-de-rosa: cor-·-de-·-ro·sa). (Should this be done in the template or only indicated that it happens in a text?)

Please share your thoughts about the idea and/or its current contents! I'm not exactly sure about the rules for dithongs, so I didn't dare to add them yet. - Sarilho1 (talk) 12:23, 3 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Excellent idea. I’d rather add this information (other than the first sentence) to Appendix:Portuguese pronunciation - or perhaps a new Appendix:Portuguese orthography - than WT:About Portuguese. I feel it will be more useful to readers than editors. Of course, the About page can link to it.
 * Some comments concerning the content:
 * Include tch and dj under tri/digraphs
 * Consider mentioning that those sequences are not always digraphs (notably qu and gu)
 * There are some exceptions to your third rule; for example
 * Ritmo is rit.mu in BP
 * The paragraph on hyphenated compounds could be a bit clearer.
 * I think the following items are important to include:
 * Many diphthongs are treated as hiatuses in syllabification. This occurs especially in falling diphthongs where the semivowel is spelled with &lt;e&gt; or &lt;o&gt; ( - but let’s find an example that also works in EP), rising diphthongs, and words that historically had a hiatus.
 * Brazilian Portuguese may feature a paragogic /i/ in syllables that would otherwise end with a consonant other than /w/, /j/, /w̃/, /j̃/, /s/~/z/~/ʃ/~/ʒ/ or /ʁ/, or with certain clusters. For example,, and  may be pronounced ,  and  respectively. This varies from speaker to speaker and is often avoided in formal contexts and in technical terms. This phenomenon is not reflected in the hyphenation.
 * The following is niche information. Not sure about adding it:
 * Conversely, hypercorrection often causes the loss of an /i/: and  are sometimes pronounced * and *.
 * In some dialects of Brazilian Portuguese, a sequence of untressed /Cis/ may lose the vowel and be incorporated into the preceding or following syllable. For example, and  may be pronounced  and  respectively. Similarly, this varies from speaker to speaker and is not reflected in the standard spelling.
 * Include historical digraphs (ph, th).
 * Mention historical syllabification of et al. (fazel-os for fazê-los)
 * Mention how loanwords are treated.
 * Mention so-called false hiatus?
 * — Ungoliant (falai) 22:25, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Archaic accentless forms
I was reading a dictionary from 1890 (the one in ) and, in page 31 (footnote 40), it is said that they frequently don't put accents on words unless they're trying to distinguish a word from another. The entire dictionary (both of its editions) and a big chunk of the deviations compared to modern-day Portuguese (Y instead of I, doubled consonants, etc.) seem to have been done based on Latin. I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case for the lack of accents too; they only add accents in order to distinguish a word from another (this still exists in limited ways currently, like por/pôr and forma/fôrma, but even then, back then it was for EVERY word). Just like with Latin, they really only write the accents when they're trying to teach people how to pronounce a given word.

This means that pretty much every single word with an accent currently on Wiktionary would need an alternative page without the diacritic with some text to the effect of what's in ; "archaic spelling of X, now a common misspelling". We would have to do this for thousands upon thousands of words. Should we really be adding these? Should we make a statement here in About Portuguese specifically barring these alts? It'd be reminiscent of how we treat Latin: diacritic or not, it only gets 1 article. ...Or does the fact that we know this about a-few-centuries-ago Portuguese mean we should get to making them pages? MedK1 (talk) 03:45, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
 * This is actually a bit of a follow-up to Wiktionary_talk:About_Portuguese now that I think about it. It was agreed to make an exception for old forms that "really didn't have accents" and now I'm suggesting we go over it one more time... MedK1 (talk) 03:50, 11 November 2023 (UTC)