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Wikifunctions:Type proposals/French subjects

From Wikifunctions

Why?

Similarly to the proposal Wikifunctions:Type proposals/French tenses, for the eventual plans to use Wikifunctions to power Abstract Wikipedia, having functions to conjugate French verbs (or groups of verbs, like regular -er verbs) are very important.

The conjugation for a verb depends on many factors, but one of them is what the subject (thing doing the verb) is. Basically, which pronoun it is OR if the subject is masculine or feminine (grammatical gender, and even inanimate objects have one) and if it's plural or not.

Currently, I made a conjugation function Conjugate être (Z21599) for être (a unique verb that needs its own function). The way you specify the subject currently is very bad, you have to type in the pronoun (or if it's not a pronoun "masc" or "fem") and then the number of subjects to determine if it's plural or not. [UPDATE: I've now migrated it to take natural numbers in the format described here, but an actual dropdown type would be better].

It (and all conjugation functions) would be improved by having a type specifically for French subjects that provides a drop-down list.

Structure

An enum, with 14 different values. The keys used are natural numbers.

Values

  1. je
  2. tu
  3. il
  4. elle
  5. on
  6. ce
  7. nous
  8. vous
  9. ils
  10. elles
  11. masculine (singular)
  12. masculine (plural)
  13. feminine (singular)
  14. feminine (plural)

Example values

{
    "type": "French subject",
    "value": "vous"
}
{
  "Z1K1": "Znnnnn",
  "ZnnnnnK1": "Zmmmmm"
}

Validator

Ensure that it is a natural number between 1 and 14.

Identity

Do they have the same ZID?

Converting to code

In both Python and JS, it will be considered a number.

Renderer

Display the label associated with the subject (see above). Numbers 1-10 (the pronouns) should NOT be translated and should be the same for every language but numbers 11-14 should be translated and localised to each Wikifunctions language.

Discussion and !votes

  • Support Support, as proposer. MolecularPilot (talk) 01:18, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support This drop-down list system will make it easier to use the functions. Jérémy-Günther-Heinz Jähnick (talk) 09:20, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support I support the idea but I'm not entirely sure about the proposed values. I'm also not sure if we should have a specific list for French, wouldn't it be better to have a list for all languages? (most persons can be found in most languages, it would be highly redundant to have 10000+ list for each languages with almost the same value each time). Cheers, VIGNERON (talk) 14:14, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose on preference to phab:T379338 Feeglgeef (talk) 20:35, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Same considerations as Vigneron above. I would like to see a smaller grammatical feature first. But in general, I think this is the right way to go! --Denny (talk) 14:56, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose I would prefer a more general approach. We could start with a universal type for subjects (independant from languages) and find out if we really need specific types for every single language. --Ameisenigel (talk) 20:31, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that we should have a single "subject" type across languages, and thank you for this suggestion! :) There's only a finite number and unlike tenses this could be something shared across languages. I'd propose (1-9 being pronouns):
    1. 1st person i.e. "I"
    2. 1st person plural i.e. "We"
    3. 2nd person (singular) i.e. "You"
    4. 2nd person (plural) i.e. "You" (no difference in English), as an example Chinese would be 你们
    4. 3rd person (singular pronoun, masculine) i.e. "He"
    5. 3rd person (singular pronoun, feminine) i.e. "She"
    6. 3rd person (singular pronoun, neuter) i.e. "They"
    7. 3rd person (singular pronoun, non-human) i.e. "This"/"That" etc.
    8. 3rd person (plural pronoun, masculine) i.e "They" (no difference in English), as an example Chinese would be 他们, French would be "ils"
    9. 3rd person (plural pronoun, feminine) i.e. "They" (no difference in English), as an example Chinese would be 她们, French would be "Elles"
    10. Referring to an object not as a pronoun - masculine singular
    11. Referring to an object not as a pronoun - masculine plural
    12. Referring to an object not as a pronoun - feminine singular
    13. Referring to an object not as a pronoun - feminine plural
    14. Referring to an object not as a pronoun - neuter singular (used by languages with no grammatical gender, i.e. English as well as ones with the neuter gender i.e. German, Latin)
    14. Referring to an object not as a pronoun - neuter plural
    Thanks again for the feedback, definitively I think a universal approach would be better for subjects. Have I missed any? :) MolecularPilot (talk) 05:38, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's so easy to get wrong. For example, there are languages that have an inclusive we (the speaker and the listener) and an exclusive we (the speaker and their bunch but not the listener). I am in full support of the idea of your proposal, but just wonder
    1. how to get it right
    2. whether a single universal set is right, or whether a (hopefully) small number of "grammatical person enumerations" would be better
    3. whether this should be decomposed, as your proposals really look compositions
    Just thoughts. --Denny (talk) 07:46, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]