Wikidata:Lexicographical data/Documentation/Lexeme statements

Lexemes, like items or properties, have statements (claims) that provide information about the lexeme that is not specific to one of its forms or senses.

Depending on how a particular language works, and depending on the lexical category of the lexeme, some statements will be more applicable to a given lexeme than others. This page aims to provide general information about properties that may be used for statements on lexemes.

While statements exclusively used on senses and forms are described in the documentation subpages regarding Senses and Forms, some of the properties listed on this page may be applicable to a lexeme's forms and senses as well; this will be noted in the appropriate subsection. Many other properties applicable directly to lexemes are listed in Template:Lexicographical properties.

Properties about inherent grammatical features edit

grammatical gender edit

grammatical number edit

This is normally used on lexemes for pronouns with one of the following values:

singular (Q110786), when the word refers to a single person, e.g. I (L487)
dual (Q110022), used in many languages when the word refers to two people, e.g. the Skolt Sami (Q13271) word muäna (L669598) or the Tok Pisin (Q34159) word yumitupela (L1012879)
trial (Q2142560), used in some languages when the word refers to three people, e.g. the Tok Pisin (Q34159) word yumitripela (L1012881)
plural (Q146786), when the word refers to multiple people, e.g. we (L483), or the Tok Pisin (Q34159) word yumipela (L1012877)

These values are the same as the ones used as grammatical features on forms, if a word has different forms based on number.

grammatical person edit

This is normally used on lexemes for pronouns with one of the following values:

first person (Q21714344), when the person speaking is included, e.g. I (L487), we (L483)
second person (Q51929049), when the person speaking is not included, but the person being spoken to is included, e.g. you (L482), thou (L18745), y'all (L747216)
third person (Q51929074), when neither the person speaking nor the the person being spoken to are included, e.g. he (L485), she (L484), it (L507), they (L371)

These values are the same as the ones used as grammatical features on forms, if a word has different forms based on person.

Some languages make additional distinctions specific to that language. For such cases, the documentation for the language should explain which values to use.

grammatical aspect edit

has characteristic edit

This has many potential uses. Some of the notable ones:

On lexemes for pronouns, this is used to indicate distinctions not covered by grammatical gender (P5185), grammatical person (P11053) or grammatical number (P11054), in particular:

clusivity (Q311784), using the values inclusive (Q75365274) or exclusive (Q25416585), e.g. the Pukapukan (Q36447) first-person plural pronouns tātou (L1143139) (inclusive) and mātou (L1143140) (exclusive).
animacy (Q1250335), using the values animate (Q51927507) or inanimate (Q51927539), e.g. the Dagbani (Q32238) third-person singular pronouns ŋuna (L618526) (animate) and dina (L655570) (inanimate).

Properties about lexeme provenance edit

described by source edit

described at URL edit

usage example edit

attested in edit

officialized by edit

Properties about lexeme origin edit

derived from lexeme edit

combines lexemes edit

Properties about lexeme morphology edit

word stem edit

conjugation class edit

paradigm class edit

creates lexeme type edit

Properties about lexeme syntax edit

requires grammatical feature edit

auxiliary verb edit

This property is used on lexemes for verbs when the auxiliary verb used to form a particular compound tense is not the same for every verb. The two lexemes linked by this property should be for the same language.

It is most commonly used for Romance and Germanic languages which form a compound past tense (e.g. "have been", "have done") using the equivalent of "have" for some verbs and "be" for other verbs, e.g.

French (Q150) uses avoir (L1886) for some verbs and être (L1882) for others
German (Q188) uses haben (L4179) for some verbs (e.g. machen (L315212)) and sein (L1761) for others (e.g. gehen (L1026))