Talk:Archaic Dutch declension

message: þThis page pertains mainly to an invented (by linguists) Archaic Dutch Declension system which was never in popular use. To this extent the article is about 100 years out of date at least. This declension system was prescribed in writing (it was never used in the spoken language) by linguists who felt Dutch should be more like Latin grammatically.
Besides, like the article Archaic Dutch Declension, this is not at all an accurate description of the Declension System which was prescribed the Dutch in the 1800's. This article is full of errors. Regarding its errors please see  Talk:Archaic_Dutch_Declension
These errors notwithstanding, Modern Dutch these days in both writing and speech in fact has a much simpler system of declension and inflection which is nothing like this.
The article on Archaic Dutch Declension appears to have been merged with this one and this whole thing is very misleading.
It desperately needs an overhaul! It either needs to be corrected and re-titled "Archaic Dutch Declension" or re-written totally to reflect the Modern Dutch situation. But I'm not going to do this if someone's just going to come along and revert everything the next day.
Modern Dutch has only one active case: common case; two genders: common and neuter; two numbers: singular & plural and two adjective inflections: -e and -Ø (ie no/zero ending); one indefinite article; two definite articles etc. etc.
EG:
*de man, de vrouw, het kind - de mensen
*de goede man, de goede vrouw, het goede kind - de goede mensen
*een man, een vrouw, een kind - (Ø) mensen
*een goede man, een goede vrouw, een goed (Ø) kind - goede mensen
All other declensions and  inflections for oblique cases are archaic [such as "den goeden kinde" (to the good child), "eener goede vrouw" (of a good woman) etc.] and used and recognized to about the same extent that English speakers would use/recognize archaic English declensions such as "þæm godum childe" (to the good child) or "anes godes wifmannes" (of a good woman). (In other words, not at all.)
Finally this article should be titled "(Archaic Dutch) Morphology" not "Declension". "Declension" only refers to how nouns and adjectives show gender and case by taking endings, "inflection" refers to how nouns and adjectives show number by taking endings. These two taken together, are called "morphology". 
Duprie37 10:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

message: Good heavens, what's going on here? We have:
* (created 23 May 2006 by Bombshell, never moved)
* (created 14 March 2007 by Bombshell as Dutch Declension System, recently moved to ArchaicDutch Declension, now moved to present title Archaic Dutch declension by myself)
* (created 4 October 2006 by Bombshell, merged into what was then Dutch Declension System on 23 March 2007 and turned into a redirect but with history preserved)
This is absolutely chaotic and unacceptable. Just a few obervations:
*The move to the misspelled "ArchaicDutch" (presumably intentionally, in order to avoid the already existing Archaic Dutch Declension) was unacceptable. If you want to move a page and the target is already taken, you do a Requested Move, you don't move it to a bad spelling instead.
*Both Archaic Dutch Declension and ArchaicDutch Declension were misspelled anyway, because the capitalisation was wrong.
*The existence of two or even three separate articles on basically the same topic is inexplicable. Okay, I understand there is a tension within Dutch grammar writing, between a more conservative system preserving more inflections, and a more progressive system where most of them have become obsolete. And apparently there are some POV issues here among contributors about how to weigh these different strands of the grammar. But I can't understand why it shouldn't be possible to treat these together in one article. The state of affairs here smacks of POV-forking, which is very strongly frowned upon. Come on, guys, it can't be that difficult, can it.
For the moment, I'm moving the page from ArchaicDutch Declension to Archaic Dutch declension, just to get the spelling right. (Incidentally, that spelling isn't taken yet.) However, I expect you guys to find a way how to then merge that page back into the main article Dutch declension. These simply must be de-forked, in my view. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Update: As I now see that Archaic Dutch Declension and the present Archaic Dutch declension are virtually identical anyway, I'm going to do a history merge between the two. I've also moved the old talk page of Archaic Dutch Declension into an archive under the main Dutch declension, at Talk:Dutch declension/ArchiveADD1. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Update 2: The history of the POV fork formerly at Archaic Dutch Declension (edits between October 2006 and 23 March 2007) has now been hist-merged into the present page at Archaic Dutch declension. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV-forking chaos 

message: I propose to merge the contents of the present page Archaic Dutch declension back into the main article Dutch declension. Unless there will be some very good reasons presented here as to why there should continue to be two separate pages, by next week, I'll boldly redirect this page to Dutch declension and leave it to the parties to work out how to transfer and merge whatever parts of the content are applicable there. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You want to make it look like Dutch wikipedia ... do you see an interwiki? There is no article like this on Dutch wikipedia.Rex 12:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey hold on. It's the people who use Dutch daily simplify things, not just me and Rex. You cannot even provide a single source in English (Yes it's about Dutch but bear in mind this is English wiki), nor you can provide any reliable source in Dutch either. On the other hand when I keep reverting back you tag the article as unreferenced and I referenced it straight away, and I do remember one come from a uni in Netherlands. How on earth would referring to Dutch wiki which by the way, not referenced as well, and without a background, not reliable at all. And also, I did not delete anything. I found it terribly different from what I learnt in uni thus noticing Rex was contributing to the Dutch language articles, I ask to to rewrite. And then the reverts. Some unnamed user keeps reverting back (let's say is vandalism) and never made any comments. OK now suddenly comes Govert with all the "no oh do you actually know Dutch, please read Dutch wiki and that will be the definitive version of the current Dutch language". And Taalunie is the official regulator of the Dutch language and in their site it provides some excellent links to sites which pretty much follows the way what Rex wrote and none of all the complex unknown inflections like Govert or Bombshell wrote/insists. If you're telling everyone the Official regulator of the language - Taalunie is wrong, please tell me who is the most superior of all. matt-(my page-leave me a message) 17:19, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

text: If you have nothing to add to this discussion other than your own opinion and personal attacks, then leave Govert. Now. Rex 20:38, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Call for another merger

message: It looks like there is (amongst other things) some mixing up of categories here:
::Nominative
::The nominative (eerste naamval) is the most frequent case in Dutch, normally following sentence elements are allways in the nominative:
''
::    * The direct object (only pronouns demand the accusative case): Anja schildert de muur (Anja paints the wall)
::    * The indirect object (only pronouns demand the dative case): Joop geeft het meisje een ijsje (Joop gives an ice-cream to the girl)
::    * All other objects are allways in the nominative case: Deze maandag is hij niet naar school gegaan (This Monday he didn't go to school)
::    * The nominative is required after all prepositions, except for the preposition te, fixed expressions and some prepositions with a figurative meaning (only pronouns demand the accusative case): aan de boom (on the tree), door het huis (through the house) ==
To the best of my knowledge, even if nouns are not formally inflected, this does not automatically mean that they all assume the nominative case no matter what their grammatical function. If this were the case, one could claim the same thing for instance for Latin (e.g. singular and plural neuter forms (parvum animal est, parvum animal video; parva animalia video etc.) and German (e.g. neuter nouns (das kleine Kind spielt, ich rufe das kleine Kind), feminine nouns (ich sehe die schöne Frau, etc.) on those grounds. Iblardi 06:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that would probably be the source of the error. Iblardi 18:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Sorry, but unless you provide credible sources for this remarkable statement, I have to assume that you are confusing the morphology of nouns (i.e. their form) with their grammatical function (i.e. how they relate to other words in a sentence). Iblardi 21:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting grammar 

message: See the discussion, including the list of blocks of some editors who were active here. It is conceivable this will make it easier for the remaining editors of this page to finish some reforms that they were recommending. EdJohnston 15:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This page has been discussed at [[WP:AN/I]] 

message: I left a message for the administrator who blocked him previously. This time he is editing with the IP  . I assume that his recent additions to the article are incorrect just like the previous ones, but I'll leave it to someone who knows Dutch to look at his changes. It may be necessary for someone to revert all his article contributions. EdJohnston 17:52, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, thanks for being alert. Iblardi 22:06, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bombshell is back, enhancing the article again with his unique theories 

message: I've been reworking the article on Dutch declension lately, and as far as I'm concerned, this one, which lacks references, perspicuity and factual accuracy, is up for deletion. What good information there is may be included in the other article. Iblardi 11:27, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I pledge full support to that. On factual accuracy, for instance: the "tje" diminutive is the norm in the dialects (!) of Western Flanders (excepting Kortrijk). Last time I checked, Western Flanders is still a part of Belgium. --Pan Gerwazy 11:40, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundant article 

message: The view of this article does not coincide with Dutch sources (e.g. Dutch Wikipedia) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.39.64.59 (talk • contribs) 
:Could you please specify which information does not correspond to which information elsewhere? Remember to keep in mind that Wikipedia doesn't qualify as a reliable source. AecisBrievenbus 00:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: Copied from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language
:Dear friend on the English Wikipedia,
:With apologies for my lack of knowlege about English language, I want to write you the following:
:Your article Archaic Dutch declension is realy concerning me. Indead, Dutch knew a long time ago declension because of having cases. The article says right: this declension wasn't used in dayly talking, but just a formality in written language.
:But then... I cannot find any literature that tells about a vocative and a locative in (writen and archaic) Dutch at all. There are certainly ways, gramaticle constructions, that take over the function of these cases in Dutch comparing with Latin, but this seems to be really nonsens. Also does declension of all pronouns. It looks like some one translated the German grammar with Ducht examples.
:The indefinite article has no plural as such, but "vele" (many) may be taken as its plural? May taken as a indefinit article? Vele is a collective numeral, also specified in Dutch grammar as a so called indefinite numeral (e.g. much, manny, lots, few).
:The chapter Diminutives is not about archaic Dutch! Is about modern Dutch since the last two times we officially changes our spelling in 1995 and 2005.
:I hope some one with more knowlege of English and Dutch both can review and overwrite this article. It's worth explaning about languages on this Wiki, but this article is not telling the truth.
:Last thing: furthermore your English Wikipedia is a succes full project and I like the most of your articles. Please go on succeeding!
:Mark Coenraats (talk) 21:29, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for contributing. If you don't feel able to make changes yourself, the place to discuss the problems in the article is in its talk page. --ColinFine (talk)
Mark Coenraats (talk) 12:56, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article contains doubtable information 

message: I've rewritten a lot of this article now, and tried to remove the POV bias so that it is more clear that it describes a historical language and not a current one. Can someone have a look to see if everything is ok? CodeCat (talk) 20:12, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It is in much better shape now, but why would we modernize the spelling? The lead explicitly states that the article gives a description of how people used to write until 1946/7, which is when the -sch of mensch was dropped along with the case endings. It isn't supposed to be a manual for using an ancient case system in modern writing, at least not at present. Iblardi (talk) 08:18, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is supposed to describe the archaic case system, not the archaic spelling used in the written standards that required it. The case system is not generally used anymore, and the standard doesn't mandate its use, but it doesn't forbid its use either. They're still part of modern standard Dutch if anyone decides they want to use them. And people occasionally do use them. And when they do, they use modern Dutch spelling. For example, a single -e- is used in enerzijds and enerlei. So we should use the modern spelling here. If we want to describe the archaic spelling (which we should if we want to be complete), then we should do that at Dutch orthography or History of Dutch orthography. CodeCat (talk) 14:17, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrite 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I was interested in learning the now archaic Dutch case system when I came across this article. Unfortunately some of the information in the article seems to be inconsistent with written texts from the late 19th century and early 20th century. For example, the article says that the accusative case was used with all prepositions except "te". However, reading a 1900 Dutch Bible, one finds sentences like (Matthew 8:16): 
en Hij wierp de boze geesten uit met den woorde, en Hij genas allen, die kwalijk gesteld waren
Clearly, "den woorde" is the dative form of "het woord" and is being used with the preposition "met" (cf. the use of the dative with "mit" in German).  
Also, the article claims that the dative singular and accusative singular forms for neuter nouns were identical in the written language by the early 20th century. However, in the same 1900 Bible, I found (Matthew 10:15):
Voorwaar zeg Ik u: Het zal den lande van Sodom en Gomorra verdragelijker zijn in den dag des oordeels, dan dezelve stad. 
Again, we see that the dative form "den lande" differs from the accusative/nominative form "het land".  In the same verse BTW, one can also see the genitive form of a neuter noun ("des oordeels"). "In den dag", on the other hand, appears to be a masculine accusative form (based on the use of "dag" rather than "dage") although, in German for example, a similar construction would, I think, require the dative case.
In summmary, the use of the accusative or dative cases  with different prepositions in early 20th century written Dutch is not clear at all (as it does not necessarily match German usage for example)and the information in the Wikipedia article seems questionable. I would appreciate if an expert could fix it and provide us with more reliable information.191.184.66.209 (talk) 17:58, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Use of Accusative/Dative with Prepositions

message: «[T]he only remaining distinction is the one between singular and plural.»
I was taught in junior high school, while studying Dutch as a foreign language, that there exists two other distinctions in the agreement of the adjective: between attributive and predicative, and in the neuter singular attributive between definite and indefinite, as follows:
* A predicative adjective never takes -e: deze man is goed this man is good, dat huis is wit that house is white, etc.
* An attributive adjective used with a "de" word (masculine or feminine any number, or neuter plural) or with a neuter singular word accompanied by het, dit or dat takes -e: de goede man, een goede man, de goede mannen, sommige goede mannen, het witte huis, de witte huizen, sommige witte huizen, het kleine meisje (the little girl) etc.
* An attributive adjective used with a neuter singular word not accompanied by het, dit or dat (or, in a different formulation of the same criterion, accompanied by een, geen, elk, welk or nothing) takes no -e: een goed kind (a good child), een wit huis (a white house), welk klein meisje? (which little girl?) etc.
AFAIK this rule has not changed in the decades since I came out of secondary school, and in particular all authors of the Dutch Wikipedia still abide by it, or when they don't it's regarded as a typo and soon corrected; this article seems to assume that in the neuter singular there is no difference between the definite (shown) and the indefinite (not shown) agreement of the adjective. The difference between attributive (French: épithète) and predicative (French: attribut) uses of the adjective is also not shown. (I should beware of false friends: my mother language is French) — Tonymec (talk) 01:13, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Later 20th century to present