Обсуждение:офтальмология

Is there any reason to include the plurals in the table? Jcwf 20:36, 25 декабря 2008 (UTC)

We think there is (and this opinion is backed by A. Zaliznyak, the leading Russian morphologist). The point is - if the word's morphology allows to form the plurals, then we can always find contexts where these forms are appropriate (for example, even an abstract noun, say X, may be used in the sense a sort of X or an instance of X, so there may be several sorts or instances of it). --Al Silonov 20:46, 25 декабря 2008 (UTC)

The problem with this argument is that it is not up to us to create words that are not in use... If speakers feel the need to use such a word in such a context it is up to them to decide to do so, not us. The reason that this is an important point is that otherwise we open the door to any crackpot to come and create their favorite protologism and that is clearly not desirable.

We had a similar discussion at nl and as a compromise we put this kind of forms in (this format). Actually we took that idea from the Russian wiktionary (:-o), that has (had?) a number of such tables. Jcwf 21:03, 25 декабря 2008 (UTC)

No-no-no, we don't create words! We only describe their immanent morphology (which largely ignores their semantics!). After all, nobody will dispute the fact that, say, the word книгоманский exist in Russian, that it has a 3aX~ type of declension and that it can be used in dative singular. However, my search (Googla, Yandex) failed to give any occurrences of "книгоманскому" - but still we should put this form in our table for that word! I don't see any problem here. Morphology - nothing personal :) --Al Silonov 23:02, 25 декабря 2008 (UTC)

Let me put it this way for you, Jcwf: to me as a native Russian speaker, I can easily construct the plural of офтальмология and it will not sound weird to me; but if I try to construct a plural of, say, кутерьма, my mind will cringe and call it freaking weird. So it's not as much about "whether this word is in widespread use or not" as "whether you feel weird trying to construct one".

And by the way, plural of офтальмология [2] DOES exist in casual language ◆ Сегодня так устала - весь день ходила по офтальмологиям.

OK Wesha the latter is a very reasonable argument, although it raises another problem: quite often words have a plural, diminutive, whatever in one sense of the word but not the other. Apparently it does as медучреждение (whatever that is ;-)). The question is how to convey such information to the reader. On nl we sometimes put in a second table, sometimes just add a number behind a form in the table [2] or so.

Your argument about your emotional reaction is not that convincing. Such emotions are personal i.e. reflect the author rather than the speakers of the language and easily affected. One comic who uses it in a joke on TV may well suffice to change people's emotions about it.

The reason I nag about it is these diminutives that Dutch continues producing in large numbers. (One of the most active formative principles of our bizarre language, I'm afraid) Some are more common than the substantive itself, but others are mild or even severe cringe producers. There is a whole spectrum and I'm still not quite sure how to deal with that. Sometimes I leave them out because they make me cringe and then Tvdm puts them back in... Difference of cringe level I suppose. Wish I had more objective criteria. Anyway thanks for the answers! Jcwf 05:11, 26 декабря 2008 (UTC)

Please also note that oftentimes plurals of the words that otherwise "should not exist" as you say are used for diminutive purposes in Russian ◆ Как мне надоели все эти твои офтальмологии[1] ! -- mom to her student son who talks about his opthalmology studies way too much at dinner :) (oftentimes the indicator of that use is prepending words "все", "эти", "твои" alone, or in combinations for increased emotional effect). -- Wesha 15:49, 26 декабря 2008 (UTC)