Talk:Ending (linguistics)

AfD[edit]

I put this up for deletion (see reasons there). The only part of this article that informs the reader about the topic of word endings is the first:

In linguistics, an ending is a group of one or more letters added to the end of a stem to denote inflection, i.e., either declension of nouns and adjectives or conjugation of verbs. It is distinguished from a suffix in that it does not carry additional semantic meaning but serves only to establish the word's use in the sentence. Examples in English include the -s added to nouns to form the plural and the -ed added to verbs to form the past tense.

... and it is wrong. "A group of one or more letters": not linguistics. Confuses letters with sounds. "To denote inflection": it might not be inflection (could be a clitic). "Either declension ... or conjugation": Could be other things as well. "It is distinguished from a suffix...": if it's an ending and it's not a clitic, then it's a suffix by definition. "Does not carry additional semantic meaning": well, besides the fact that semantics implies meaning, what about the plural -s? It doesn't carry meaning?

The rest of the article has nothing to do with the core idea except tangentially.

When I came by, "Ending" was linked from a few other places. In some cases it was wrongly linked (e.g. from "ending song"), comprehensibly because the word is so general. It was linked from two linguistics-related articles; in one I replaced it by a link to suffix (which was the intended meaning) and in other it was simply part of the expression "verb ending" (self-explanatory in its context).

Moreover, "ending" is not a linguistics term. It's a common word that you can find in non-professional grammars or in informal speech. I don't think this very general word should have an article, so I proposed to delete it. I could live with it being renamed to "word ending" and turned into a disambiguation page, if there's something to disambiguate to (suffix, (en-)clitic, etc.). --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 13:37, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, if you feel this article should be renamed. But I think it should not be merged with Suffix because it is not the same. I am not a native English speaker, so I could choose an improper term. I was searching several Czech-English dictionaries for English equivalents of "koncovka". All suggest "ending", some also mention "desinence" or "termination". The term koncovka is used in the Czech linguistic literature regullarly for morphs (not letters) denoting inflexions. It corresponds to the definition you cite. Koncovka is distinguished from přípona (suffix). This distinction is very important in Czech, as it is a strongly inflected language.

It really does not carry semantic meaning. It has syntactic function (and meaning). Plural carries meaning but not semantic.

I think "word ending" would be OK. --Pajast 11:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Word ending" should be a redirect to suffix. I guess "ending" by itself could be a disambiguation page. Pajast, I don't understand the distinction you're trying to make between "ending" and "suffix". Could you give some examples from English? Remember that affixes can be inflectional or derivational. FilipeS 11:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, English liguists use the term "suffix" for both inflectional and derivational (I don't know). This may be the source of confusing. Koncovka (or ending – in dictionaries) is inflectional, přípona (or suffix) is derivational in Czech linguistic theory. Well, "word ending" could be redirected to Suffix, but there should be more examples. --Pajast 14:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]