Re: [edict-jmdict] Conjugations and PoS tags for だ, くれる

[Jim Breen <jimbreen@*********>]

Catching up on emails that arrived when I was in Indonesia. These
POS issues really need to be settled one way or another. I've been
looking at Rene's comments (below) and Stuart's following detailed
response.

On 3 July 2014 05:35, René Malenfant rene_malenfant@hotmail.com
[edict-jmdict] <edict-jmdict@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> 1) The entry for くれる is marked more clearly now for human usage than it would be if the note were removed and the PoS changed to an obscure PoS tag.  くれろ used to be common, and it still gets used, so I think having it in the conjugation table with a usage note on the entry (as at present) makes more sense.

As I said earlier I'm a bit uncomfortable with having a special POS just for
one verb with an odd imperative. No-one else handles it that way (the 大辞林
entry begins: "命令形は「くれ」が普通", but has the regular POS markup.)

I take the point that it would make table-driven conjugation easier, but it's
a major call to say that くれろ is irregular because one mood  form is commonly
different from the norm in modern usage. I really think the current note is
enough, as in 大辞林.

[We are bit spoiled by Japanese regularity. I remember when I was
boning up on French prior to a sabbatical in France in 93/4 I wrote
a verb conjugator to help me do drills. I gave up eventually, as it seemed
every second verb that is regarded as regular has an odd twist somewhere.]

> 2) いい could be handled simply by splitting it out from the entry for よい and making よい [adj-i] while making いい an [exp] or [unc] with an xref to よい and a note that いい doesn’t inflect.  I don’t think an additional PoS is needed and if one is added, it definitely shouldn’t include よい; よい is just a regular old i-adjective.  And いい is just a modified version of よい that has no inflections of its own, so I think it would be wrong to say that it has its own PoS with its own inflection pattern that includes よくない, etc.; those forms belong to the regular adjective よい.

I found this suggestion, splitting the  いい and よい into different entries, a bit
radical to start with, but as I have thought it over, it's gained
appeal. Part of the
appeal is that we have a heap of entries with structures like XX[の|が][よい|いい],
and they are rather messy with all the restrictions to line the kanji
surface forms
with the readings. I just added a lot more because I noticed that
quite a few had
crept in the noun tags, and as I corrected them I also added a lot of
...[よい|いい],
forms. Splitting would certainly result in much cleaner entries,
indeed I've never been
happy with the rather messy いい/よい situation.

I notice that GG5, apart from in the 良い entry itself, never writes いい as
良い. If we go ahead with a よい/いい split, and I have to say I'm tempted, I'm
inclined not to use 良い in the kanji form for the いい. Thus we'd have entry pairs
such as:

頭のいい [あたまのいい] /(exp,adj-f) (See 頭がいい) bright/intelligent/
頭の良い;頭のよい [あたまのよい] /(exp,adj-i) (See 頭のいい) bright/intelligent/

> 3) A number of the entries we have marked as [aux] or [aux-v] have their own conjugation patterns (See for example here: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8A%A9%E5%8B%95%E8%A9%9E_%28%E5%9B%BD%E6%96%87%E6%B3%95%29).  In addition, which conjugation of だ is currently not covered by its own entry in EDICT? だろう・だろ, で, な, and なら are all in there already (though the entry for な needs work), and I’ve just submitted an entry for だった, which as far as I can tell is the only form that was missing.  (And of course である and です, etc. are in there too.)  Does it really need its own PoS when all of its conjugated forms have their own entry?  Have I forgotten some needed forms?  The [aux]/[aux-v] tags are there as a grab-bag for these kinds of items, so I think they are appropriate for だ.

It is a good point that most of the major inflections of だ are covered already.
(They really have to be, as the meanings can't easily be deduced from the
plain form.) OTOH does that really stop us having a "cop" POS for it? I think
is has a bit stronger case than くれる, for example.

Jim

-- 
Jim Breen
Adjunct Snr Research Fellow, Japanese Studies Centre, Monash University