Category talk:English terms suffixed with -s

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Rather redundant with Category:English plurals, isn't it? Only 5 entries as of now. — Carolina wren discussió 03:15, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Well it's not quite a 1-to-1 correspondence. Some plurals don't use -s (e.g. alumni) and -s is used to also make [[Category:English adverbs]], [[Category:English third-person singular forms]], and [[Category:English pluralia tantum]]. I'm not sure how we've been handling suffixes that have multiple uses. Theoretically, category could be put to good use. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:33, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

True, but all the uses were from things like {{suffix|fossa|s}} apart from one, which wasn't English! I'm trying to think of one word that genuinely uses -s as a suffix other than a plural or a third person; maybe towards, backwards, forwards. That's all I have. So for the moment, I've emptied it without having to do anything other than common-sense edits. Mglovesfun 18:37, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Right, see w:Adverbial genitive. —Ruakh_TALK 19:18, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I guess this is the difference between a (deprecated template usage) suffix and a grammatical ending. Mglovesfun 05:15, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

• deleted — This unsigned comment was added by Jackofclubs (talk • contribs).

This deletion makes no sense to me. We intend to have categories for all suffixes, excepting the ones used productively and abundantly for inflection in the same part of speech, namely -s, -es, -ed, -ing. (There may be a few others.) The intent is to have the category for morphological suffixes that create new parts of speech, like -ly. In this case, as mentioned in the WP article Ruakh had pointed out, (deprecated template usage) -s was used productively in Middle English. It is no longer productive. The point of the category would be to collect all of the words that are form -s#Etymology 3. The time spent deleting and discussing would have been much better spent in properly populating the category and possibly including an explanation on the category page. I request that this be reversed. DCDuring TALK 16:21, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Buth -s isn't a suffix when it's used to form the plural, and inflection uses inflectional endings, not formative suffixes. Such endings do not create new words or new senses in most cases. I can see (deprecated template usage) weeds indexed as having an -s suffix, but only because there is a plural-primary sense. I could also see having a Category:Middle English words suffixed with -s. Are we planning to treat English differently from all other languages? --EncycloPetey 16:27, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I must not have been clear. I do not want to populate this with any plural ending in "s" or any third-person singular present indicative verb. I thought I had indicated that I am solely concerned with its use to group together the uses of -s#Etymology 3, that is, in words like (deprecated template usage) upstairs and (deprecated template usage) towards. This is likely to remain a small category because "-s" is not productive in this meaning. Having it has some value in helping people accept both (deprecated template usage) toward and (deprecated template usage) towards, (deprecated template usage) backward and (deprecated template usage) backwards, etc. DCDuring TALK 16:57, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

OK - it is back --Jackofclubs 16:23, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I appreciate the efforts to clean things out on these pages. An occasional slip (if that's even what this is) is an inevitable accompaniment to action. I'm sorry that I'm expressing my thoughts only two weeks after this was brought here. We should probably let this sit a while in case I've misinterpreted our practice about unproductive suffixes. My model and precedent for this is the unproductive suffix (not a combining form) (deprecated template usage) -head, as used in a small number of words like (deprecated template usage) Godhead. There are probably more. If this is contentious, It might have to go to BP for resolution of any general issue. DCDuring TALK 16:57, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

• I have begun populating the category. I had not realized how many entries might have adverbial forms with "-s" that go here: All 12 months, all 4 seasons, all seven days, almost everything ending in "ward" (perhaps 30), time words ending in "end", "night", "day", "time", almost any noun referring to a holiday or an event ("Labor Days, we'd have a barbecue.") I could imagine someone saying "Ten-thirtys we'd go on break" (though I've yet to find it outside my imagination. (For that matter, consider: "Breaks we'd play cards".) Though there are a good number of these (100-200?) that would be attestable, it is not unmanageable. Any thoughts on this? DCDuring TALK 05:47, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Labor Days seems like a normal plural noun serving as a fronted temporal locative. It could be replaced with Every Labor Day, Brock 20:34, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we can expect our users to find that description helpful any more helpful than what we have. We make some effort to connect with concepts a casual user would already know, even if they are not the latest and best. Serving a mass audience is inherently conservative in many ways. Your classification would allow us to justify not adding Adverb sections to words that don't really need it. The problem is that we do not have a WikiGrammar for rules so we end up treating many things lexically. That does make us a resource for detecting some conflicts between rules sometimes.

The "Labor Days" example might as easily mean "on some Labor Days" or have a more context-specific meaning like "on the Labor Days following the summers I've been talking about." I looked at as a grafting of adverbial "days" onto "Labor Day". If that violates an analytical principle of the science (?) of linguistics, please refer me to a source, because any valid simplifying concepts would be welcome. DCDuring TALK 23:37, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I misinterpreted your previous as claiming that the -s was an adverb-forming suffix. According to Wiktionary's classification, Labor Day is an adverb. But Labor Days is clearly a plural. I am new here, so I have no suggestions on how to deal with plural adverbs. I don't think this s has any relation to the s in -wards though. Brock 00:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Is backwards really backward suffixed with s? Ah well. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:59, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Improved, so kept. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:29, 21 November 2009 (UTC)