Wikidata:Property proposal/Punjabi tone
Punjabi tone edit
Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Lexemes
| Description | the lexical tone or pitch accent class of a Punjabi language form |
|---|---|
| Represents | Punjabi tone (Q112784508) Punjabi tone / ਸੁਚ / سُر |
| Data type | Lexeme form-invalid datatype (not in Module:i18n/datatype) |
| Domain | Wikibase form (Q54285143) Wikibase form |
| Allowed values | high tone (Q112784550), level tone (Q112784560), low tone (Q112784578) |
| Example 1 | Lexeme:L680110#L680110-F5 |
| Example 2 | Lexeme:L680110#L680110-F6 |
| Example 3 | Lexeme:L680221#L680221-F1 |
| Source |
|
| Planned use | on Punjabi lexeme forms where tone is a distinguishing characteristic |
| Expected completeness | always incomplete (Q21873886) (always incomplete) |
Motivation edit
This property is proposed to indicate lexical tone or pitch accent in Punjabi lexeme forms, mirroring the function of tone or pitch accent class (P5426) Japanese pitch accent type. This characteristic of Punjabi forms has been described as tone or pitch accent, but tone is the most commonly used word in the literature in English. The literature in Punjabi calls these ਸੁਚ /سُر . Having a property for this would be helpful for similar reasons to the Japanese pitch accent type property, and keeping a separate property for this would help prevent confusion due to the fact that tonal or pitch accent languages can have names for their tones that are similar to each other but do not necessarily map one-to-one in the concept they describe. The tones are "high tone" (falling), "level tone" (neutral), and "low tone" (rising).
Tone is a distinguishing factor in form is not ubiquitous in Punjabi lexemes and most, something like 80% would only consist of "level tone" forms that might be thought of as having no tone. I do not think it is necessary to add this property to every form for that reason, but some very common words are represented by lexemes which do have forms distinguished by tone. It would make sense in these cases where there are forms that otherwise identical to each other in writing to distinguish which of the three tones is present.
Discussion edit
Comment I wonder if it might be more efficient to convert P5426 into a general "tone or pitch class" property, rather than creating a new one for each language. Mahir256 (talk) 02:25, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
- One advantage I see to have several properties is we can tune specific constrains. That's said, I have no specific example so far. Pamputt (talk) 13:10, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
- I was thinking this at first, but when I looked at how the Japanese pitch accents and Chinese tones have been modeled thus far it seems like things could get confusing quickly as different languages can have different tone systems, or even different senses of what tone is. As the Bhardwaj citation points out, Punjabi tone has more in common with what is called pitch accent for other languages, but the use of tone to describe the phenomenon persists due to convention (it would be more confusing than necessary to call it something else when most of the literature simply calls it tone, and tone doesn't have one generalizable definition).
- I think it would be beneficial to have a property constraint set up as @Pamputt suggested above, to avoid situations like having to find the correct item between various slightly different notions of "neutral" or "level" tone, or accidentally adding a tone to a form which doesn't exist in the tone system of that form's language. I am not sure if it is possible to set up a more complex property constraint on a per language basis for a more generalized tone/pitch accent property. --Middle river exports (talk) 16:52, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Support and I'd also support a more general property if the details are worked out. Arlo Barnes (talk) 00:10, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
Withdrawn Upon further consideration, I am in favor of broadening the scope of tone or pitch accent class (P5426) 
as @Mahir256: has suggested. This is more consistent with paradigm class (P5911) which takes language-specific values, and seems to have evaded my concerns thus far. While tone and pitch accent have language-specific components, they can also share supplementary properties such as position of devoiced vowel (P5428) and position of accent nucleus (P5427) . Complex constraints could be used to identify any issues which could come up. I have gone ahead and adjusted the property label to accommodate this; if there are any objections we can discuss further. --Middle river exports (talk) 17:06, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
