Talk:Lemma

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[edit] unredirect

Un-redirecting this talk page, to provide a place to discuss whether this should be a dab, or whether the mathematical meaning should be primary with a dab notice at the top. I'm currently undecided. --Trovatore

The following discussion has been copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics:

The article lemma was moved to lemma (mathematics), with the former being made into a disamibig. I disagree with the move, as the absolute majority of pages linking there are about the mathematical term. And even if one agrees with the move, one needs to disambiguate the links, and having them point to the correct destination. I asked the person who did the move to comment here. Other opinions welcome. Oleg Alexandrov 21:58, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

It should be moved back. This should be a case of "primary disabiguation". The primary meaning is the mathematical one. Paul August ☎ 00:26, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

I agree - the mathematical meaning is likely to remain primary. Charles Matthews 07:08, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I think we should maybe tread a little lightly. It's true that a large majority of the links are mathematical, but that could reflect the vigor of the mathematics project, our 10k articles and all that. If it's an important term for linguists, maybe they should get equal time in the dab page. (Like Alice, I only said "if"--I don't know enough linguistics to know how important a term it is.) --Trovatore 03:16, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

And the OED has another set of definitions entirely: ranging for "motto" to "basic definition" in lexicography. Go comment on that talk page, but we should not be rash. Septentrionalis 03:46, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

As the editor who moved the article, my main concern was to fix the lemma page that looked like this at the time. So the main purpose was to create a disambig page. I decided to move the page because (as others here have already pointed out) experts in other disciplines link to lemma with the same confidence that they know what it means. If that article is a {{disamig}} page, that will be noticed and fixed by Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links (because internal links should not go to dab pages). — That said, I anticipated that some might not agree with the move I made, so I created direct links to lemma (linguistics), but didn't fix articles to point to lemma (mathematics). In other words, it's easily undone if you don't like it, but please bear in mind that the WikiProject Mathematics may be a tad biased, and it's going to be more expensive to fix if you wait until the other disciplines realize that they've been had :-). Algae 06:27, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I think it is probably better this way. --MarSch 11:12, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

The best solution is to have the mathematical sense as the main article, and use a disambiguation on that page (ie. See Lemma (disambiguation) for other uses). The mathematical sense is far more commonly used than the linguistics sense. Dysprosia 11:45, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Dysprosia's solution is in line with the official policy: Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Page naming. Oleg Alexandrov 15:22, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, that's assuming that the mathematical meaning really is the primary one. Is it? It's certainly my primary meaning, but then I'm a mathematician. I think we should hear from some linguists about how much they really use the term. --Trovatore 16:01, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

By the way, I suggest that this discussion (that is, all the above text) be moved to, and continued at, Talk:Lemma. That's a better place for people to find it in the future, and it's "neutral ground" so to speak. --Trovatore 16:41, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

End copy

I think the vast majority or people who, when searching for "lemma" or linking to it, will want the mathematical meaning. For reference here are some Google search results:

search string	hits
lemma	5,310,000
lemma proof	4,200,000
lemma theorem	3,880,000
lemma mathematics	2,080,000
lemma corollary	1,870,000
lemma word	630,000
lemma morphology	81,600
lemma linguistics	80,700

Paul August ☎ 19:06, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

I am not so sure that the primary meaning is the mathematical one. I thought that the linguistic meaning is also widespread, especially when referring to entries in dictionaries. Paul's results seem convincing though, and looking through the first hundred hits of "lemma", I estimate that 70% is about the mathematical meaning, 10% about the linguistics meaning, and the rest about various products or people called Lemma. However, maths is probably overrepresented on the internet. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 19:15, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I advocate keeping this change, especially in light of the widespread use of the term "lemma" in linguistics (80,000 hits is a significant number, imho). As mathematicians, I think we should be cautious in asserting that various terms have their "primary" meaning as the mathematical one. In cases of doubt, I think it is better always to exercise caution, rather than simply claiming the term as our own and cleaning up the ensuing mess later on as other groups recognize what we've done. If the term has other meanings in widespread use (as it appears to in this case), then we should point to a disambiguation page. - Gauge 21:51, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

It is not a question of asserting the term of "lemma" as "our own". And it is not a question of which usage is more "important" or anything like that. The only relevant question is which term most of the users of this encyclopedia are interested in most of the time. I would say that the above Google data would suggest that that would be "lemma" in the mathematical sense. Paul August ☎ 23:40, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree that the "only relevant question" is which term "most" users are interested in most of the time. In general, the expected use of a term may vary widely between different groups of users. Mathematicians expect a certain result when they access a link to "lemma", and linguists expect something else. Also, while it is true that at this point in time most links point to the article with the mathematical meaning, this is subject to change over time. In the long run, I think it is better to rectify possible confusion now instead of waiting for the complaints to start coming in from the linguists or other groups. I would prefer that the linguist, upon linking to "lemma", accidentally links to a disambiguation with a link to the appropriate meaning, rather than getting a blue link to the unrelated mathematical meaning, and accidentally forgetting to check that it points to what they expect. - Gauge 03:29, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I am not so much concerned about what mathematicians or linguists will expect, but what will the general reader expect (think millions and millions of high school students). And I expect that our general reader will generally expect, lemma in the math sense. My guess is, while most high school students have heard of the mathematical lemma, few have heard of the linguistical one. Anyone care to take to make a bet? Paul August ☎ 02:19, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

I will not take a bet, but high school students will find exactly what they are looking for at the disambiguation page, so I don't really see an issue here. The disambiguation page will serve everyone better, for reasons that I have already explained. - Gauge 02:05, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Move to Lemma (disambiguation). English Wikipedia has a big linguistics section, but only two serious links to Lemma (linguistics), from Morpheme and List of linguistic topics, and three linguistics links to Lemma: Lemmatisation, Scholium and perhaps English plural though not Mathematics as a language. --Henrygb 00:59, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

As Trovatore said, this probably reflects the vigor, size, and organization of the Wikipedia mathematics project as compared to the linguists, rather than reflecting in any serious way the relative importance of the two terms. I have added references to the term on several more articles where it's relevant, and a comparison between the whatlinkshere pages for the pages is no longer as misleading about the importance of the term as it was previously. Nohat 21:01, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Primary topic disambiguation should only be used when one term is clearly and substantially more salient than all the others. This is not the case for "lemma". It is true that mathematics as a field is larger and older than linguistics, and thus the term is overall more commonly used for mathematics. However, the importance of the two meanings is about the same, and there is no legitimate reason to prefer the mathematic term simply because mathematics is an older, larger, and more powerful field. Those facts do not make it a more important field. Nohat 18:51, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Note about the use of lemma in linguistics: The term lemma is not used all that often in theoretical linguistics because the thing it describes has only a practical use, not a theoretical one, because a lemma is just a form chosen for convention to represent a lexeme. However, among lexicographers, a group that has even smaller representation on Wikipedia than linguists, the term is critically important. I think it is very provincial (and frankly offensive) of any mathematician to presume that the linguistic meaning of the term is so insignificant so as to deserve only secondary topic disambiguation and not standard disambiguation. Nohat 19:29, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I also want to note that that primary topic disambiguation is not meant to be used in all cases where the distribution of usage is not exactly equal, but only where one meaning has a clear and obvious precedence over all the others. If the former were the case, then every disambiguation would be primary topic disambiguation, because every term has some usage which is greater than all the others (if only by a tiny margin). Clearly this is not how the policy was meant to be implemented, so the burden of proof lies with those who advocate primary topic disambiguation to demonstrate compellingly and clearly that one meaning is truly primary in a qualitative way, and not merely first among equals. Nohat 20:47, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discision

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved. Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 00:46, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Merge to lemma" notice in the article "uninflected word" article

I have now removed the above template from the article "uninflected word" as this and the article "lemma" should not be merged as they are two entirely different and separate concepts. If need be any discussion about this should take place in the talk page of "uninflected word" rather than here. Dieter Simon 23:59, 3 August 2007 (UTC)