Talk:Greenlandic language/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

I will begin reviewing this article soon. G Purevdorj (talk) 16:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks. I know it is not ready as it is, but hope that with your keen eye and my work we can get it there within the time of the review.·Maunus· ƛ · 16:52, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I’ll start with a few easy things so late at night. G Purevdorj (talk) 00:07, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Citations: It is always nice if you can see at once what and how many sources have been used for an article. As the sources used in some articles are extremely diverse, it makes sense to provide full citations in footnotes. For this article, though, a separate bibliography (and shortened citations like Bjørnum 2003: 33-34) would constitute an improvement.
 * Pictures: The two images need alternative texts per Alternative text for images. For the sign, I would suggest to describe it and provide its text in full.


 * Thanks G. Its my first time working with another citation system than Harvard short cite - I chose to try it out since it seems to be deprecated by a lot of editors. But I think it makes very much sense to have a full bibliography at the end of the article and have short inline citations - I will do this. I will also supply alt-text. Both of your concerns are outside of the GA criteria, which only demand inline citations and image captions. I'll take care of those things anyway, but I would encourage you to begin by evaluating the article's compliance with the GA criteria specifically.·Maunus· ƛ · 06:05, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I guess you must still be somewhat patient. Haste makes waste. First of all, I'll gonna have to read all of the article in its current form. Still enough spelling mistakes. It will probably be advisable to ask some seasoned native-speaker copyeditor for her assistance, but later - first the article has to assume its final form as far as content is concerned. The content of the history, classification and phonology part appears to be okay as it is. A few comments, though:


 * “It is closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada, such as Inuktitut.” “the languages … such as” doesn’t appear grammatical to me, but maybe I’m wrong.
 * If the first two paragraphs of “history” make use of the same source, they should be unified, thus clearly indicating the source and avoiding two rather short paragraphs.
 * -Done.·Maunus· ƛ · 08:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)


 * “yet it is still considered to be in a "vulnerable" state by the UNESCO Red Book of Language Endangerment[7]. Carl Christian Olsen, founder of the Oqaasileriffik (The Greenland Language Secretariat), has been credited with an important role in revitalizing and promoting the language as the official tongue” - The first of this first statements might better be explained (possibly within a footnote), and the second statement is a bit disconnected with the rest of the article: stating something about his activities (or maybe rather the activities of the Oqaasileriffik) might be helpful.
 * - I agree, this is information left over from an earlier version that I don't really think fits.·Maunus· ƛ · 08:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Another dialect around Uummannaq and the Disko Bay. - What did you want to say by that?
 * -I've tried to clarify that.·Maunus· ƛ · 08:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Footnote 14 seems to contradict itself: syntax - phonology.
 * -Right you are of course!·Maunus· ƛ · 08:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)


 * “Vowels” - If possible, the footnote should be at the end of this section, indicating that the whole section depends on it - every independent claim has to be referenced in a GA.
 * If (according to footnote 16) /w/ is phonemic, it should be included in the table, or at least discussed within the actual text.
 * Its not /w/ its a geminate /v/ - that is two consecutive v'es. In this combination they are devoiced and pronounced and written as ff.·Maunus· ƛ · 08:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The part of the section on prosody that is based on footnote 18 (syllable weight) reads a bit confusing. E.g. when reading “In words without long vowels or consonant clusters the antepenultimate syllable is stressed. In words with less than four syllables without long vowels or consonant clusters, the last syllable is stressed.”, it is not clear why the first sentence doesn’t follow the second sentence.
 * -Done·Maunus· ƛ · 08:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)


 * “And that the word Inuktitut itself, when translated into Kalaallisut, is Inuttut, for example.” Wrong style.
 * -I don't see the style difference myself, maybe you could be bold and try to rewrite that phrase in a more suitable style, or suggest a better phrasing?·Maunus· ƛ · 08:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, and before I forget about this totally minor point: the article would look more attractive if some picture could be placed within the grammar part. Needn't be, of course. G Purevdorj (talk) 19:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I am very patient and enjoy your comments as they come, I am not in a rush to get the article passed, only to get it improved. I hope you will be as patient as it turns out I have less time over the weekend than I had planned. I had Qaqqalik a native speaker administrator of the Greenlandic Wikipedia check the Greenlandic examples and he caught some embarassing mistakes as well. I will consider what kind of image could be introduced into the grammar section.·Maunus· ƛ · 08:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)


 * first citation Fortescue 1993 on word order: no page number
 * new or emphasized information generally come last. This is generally the verb, but it can also be a foregrounded grammatical subject or object. - How can that be given the strict word order requirements?
 * We frequently have gendered glosses in interlinearization. If it is only about 3. person, there should be another way to mark this, maybe always (s)he or so. G Purevdorj (talk) 17:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll take care of the page number.
 * The paragraphs I have tried to paraphrase are rather densely written: Fortescue Writes: "First, however, we must be clear as to the nature of word order patterns in modern WG and just how 'free' these actually are. In what follows I shall be talking about narrative style as reflected in written texts, principally tales from the oral tradition recorded in written form, but the basic principles involved can be taken as applying generally across the various styles/media and registers of the language. They are exemplified in some detail in Fortescue (I984: 173-I99) and can be summarized thus: the most pragmatically/contextually neutral order of major clausal constituents is S-O-X-V, where 'X' is an oblique case NP other than the object (the latter may be in the instrumental case in the 'antipassive' construction). In copular clauses the order is (rigidly) S-Cop-Comp, where 'Cop' is a copular particle (or enclitic) and Comp, complement, may be an NP or a participial mood clause. The first pattern is relatively labile: various alternative orders are possible, depending on factors of contextual emphasis, stylistic balance or constituent 'heaviness' (the 'heavy' modifying constituents of an object NP may be postposed, for example, leaving only the head behind in neutral preverbal position - what Dik (I989: 350) calls 'Prefield leaking'). It should be borne in mind, however, that the verb on its own is a minimal clause in WG and that it is rather rare in texts for all possible nominal arguments of a verb to be explicitly present as independent constituents rather than cross- referred to by the verb's inflection alone. What I called in Fortescue (I984) 'thematicized' - that is, Given Topic - NPs find their natural place in initial position (following any conjunctional or 'frame-setting' material), whilst heavy or emphasized material representing new or otherwise 'newsworthy' material (to use Mithun's term) tends to come last in the clause. Normally this will be the verb: since in WG the verb contains inflectional reference to both its subject and object it tends to have greater 'communicative dynamism' than in European SVO languages. When this is not the case - notably in presentational sentences with verbs of minimal semantic content - the foregrounded subject or object typically follows the verb. However, especially in the spoken language, 'afterthought' or clarifying material may also follow the verb, typically with lowered pitch. It should also be pointed out that deviations from SOXV order are statistically not very frequent, especially in subordinate clauses and when a clause contains both plural subject and object (morphologically undifferentiated). Deviations from the rigid NP word order patterns of possessor-possessum and head-modifier(s) are not tolerated at all."
 * I don't know how to solve the interlinear gloss best - I would prefer writing 3pSg but I have preveiously been told that that is too technical - I think generic HE is too not gender sensitive and possibly confusing when the example have female or neuter participants., Ill go with whatever you suggest though as no solution seems perfect.·Maunus· ƛ · 17:52, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Too much to do in the real world, I'm afraid. "3pSg" is technical, but maybe we can explain the first instance via a footnote. As simple as possible, but not simpler. G Purevdorj (talk) 23:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually I am thinking that maybe "IT" is the best gloss to show that its not gendered.·Maunus· ƛ · 13:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I've changed the gloss to 3p and added an explanatory note. I hope you'll have time to continue the review soon.·Maunus· ƛ · 15:17, 20 January 2010 (UTC)


 * “it is also sometimes used with the meaning of "that".” The meaning of “that” escapes me, unless you mean it is used as a mere complementizer. My friends think it’s funny that I tend to use this term of generativist provenience but I think it is quite useful. Similarly, “X ing” is quite too Englishy.
 * I have tried to rephrase these in more specific terms.·Maunus· ƛ · 10:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The description of the conditional and causative mood might be changed accordingly now. The “when” in the causative mood description is especially problematic. G Purevdorj (talk) 23:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * A short classification of derivational suffixes (not en detail, but just within the paragraph) would be interesting. If derivation is so important, it should be treated a bit lengthier.
 * I don't know if anyone's worked with such a classification. I'll look around·Maunus· ƛ · 08:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * “Verbs can be fixed in their time reference by using different derivational affixes expressing pastness, presentness or futurity of time, or by using temporal expressions like "today", "yesterday" or "tomorrow" in the clause.” This sentence is very awkwardly formulated.
 * “It is broken” is not a past meaning, it is resultative, but present. All of this smells fishy, and certainly without any trace of grammatical tense.
 * The example shows that the verb "aserorpoq" can have either the reading "it is broken" (present) or "it broke" (past).·Maunus· ƛ · 08:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * "verbs that describe a change of state only have past readings" - That seems to contradict that translation, then. 'break' clearly denotes a change of state and thus shouldn't have a present reading, be it as aspectually close to past as it may. G Purevdorj (talk) 23:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the basic meaning of Aserorpoq is not "to break" but to "be broken" i.e. a stative verb rather than a change of state one. The example comes from the same source that mentions the fact about semantics/aktionsart determining the possibility of a past/present reading of verbs. (trondhjem 2009).·Maunus· ƛ · 06:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)


 * “It is often translated with the perfect past or with a hearsay marker.” Häh? There is no “perfect past” in English, as far as I know, and much less is there something like an obligatory hearsay marker that everyone would know.
 * That is not what that sentence means. It means that it can be translated either by the simple perfect (has/is) or with a hearsay marker depending on context. Much of this comes directly from sources so I find it a little hard to second guess them.·Maunus· ƛ · 08:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * “This argument is supported by the fact that many morphemes require a nominal work almost syntactically identically as canonical noun incorporation and allow the formation of words that express an entire sentence with verb, subject and object in English.” The grammar of this sentence is incorrect somehow.
 * Yeah somethings missing - I'll take care of that.·Maunus· ƛ · 08:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * “He makes a house” - What is that supposed to mean? “builds”?
 * I chose make to show that the suffix -lior- has a broader meaning than "build". Maybe I'll just use "make" in the gloss and build in the translation.·Maunus· ƛ · 08:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Did as you suggested. G Purevdorj (talk) 23:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * “It is also used with numerals and the question word qassit to express the time of the clock, and to mean "per"” - Again, “per” does not express a sufficiently properly defined meaning.
 * Thats why I give an example with the meaning "per" below.·Maunus· ƛ · 08:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * “The equative case describes similarity of manner or quality. It is also used for languages.” I don’t properly understand why this is the case. It looks so derivational. You might provide an explanation.
 * What kind of explanation? I show how it works with examples. I am unsure what kind of explanation you want.·Maunus· ƛ · 08:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * “"Y'alls house"” - I don’t get it.
 * It should be You (pl) to conform with the rest of the article's usage.·Maunus· ƛ · 08:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Please interlinearize the sample text.
 * I'll have to choose a nother text then.·Maunus· ƛ · 08:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * In fact none of the other language articles with sample texts such as the FA's Nahuatl, Swedish language or Turkish language gloss the example. I think the example is merely meant to give a feeling of what the written language looks like.·Maunus· ƛ · 17:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't really know what the sample text is meant for, but WP languages recommends it nevertheless. For a sample text to be meaningful from my point of view, it would have to contain orthography, a phonological transcription, an interlinearization and a translation. You would get a slightly better idea of how texts look like in that language then. But it is difficult. I would like to do something like this on Mongolian language, but as we now have an audio file included there for no apparent purpose whatsoever, it should be THAT text. So I would like somebody to provide me with the orthography. Anyway, the question of the sample text will be of no relevance whatsoever for the assessment. G Purevdorj (talk) 23:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

G Purevdorj (talk) 22:34, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The section on “tense” is certainly not “good”. As aspect is my profession, I would like to see it revised in a way that links the assessments of particular linguists to more general theoretical assumptions. I might try to do it myself, but I must see whether I’ll be able to do so. It pretty much depends on whether I will find the time to get to Cologne and use the libraries there, and whether or not the literature that you used is present in Cologne. But this point is probably too difficult to review if I don’t have all the data.
 * I would prefer if you try to do that - on purpose I have kept the section as a summary of the fact that there are divergent opinions about the presence or absence of tense in Greenlandic. I would be afraid to misrepresent the theoretical framework if I were to try to connect this somehow. However I thought I was fairly neutral in shopwing that both interpretations are valid depending on whether one defines "having tense" as being able to express tense or as obligatorily inflecting for tense.·Maunus· ƛ · 08:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The wording of the article is insufficient and might do with some copyediting. I have asked User:Truthkeeper88 for assistance.
 * After my points have been addressed and copyediting has taken place, I will try to assess whether or not the article meets the GA criteria.
 * G Purevdorj (talk) 22:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, I just saw from the edit history that Truthkeeper88 has already done a number of edits here. Well, let her/him proceed. G Purevdorj (talk) 22:51, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I've been through a number of times and seem to have weeded out the errors. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:26, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Comment/Suggestion: Excellent. Since there is a separate section "Orthography" and the reform of 1973 is discussed, it could be interesting to show a sample-text comparison old/new orthography. Just a thought... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 20:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I will see if I can find a suitable text.·Maunus· ƛ · 06:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Starting the assessment

3. Broad in its coverage a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic - as far as I can discern, yes. All areas usually relevant to the proper description of a language get addressed to some degree b) focussed. That one is tricky. The article is at the upper limit at Article_size. This was caused by a presentation style that works with an abundance of language material even of sentence length to illustrate how grammar works. E.g., see the section Obviation and switch reference. Basically, this is more appropriate for a grammar article than for a language article. Yet, splitting this article into two such articles would leave both articles somewhat shallow given the current content. So while it is difficult to argue that this article always observes summary style, the details that are given are not exactly “unnecessary”. Thus, it passes focussedness. Anyway, a growth by another 20 KB or a nomination for FA would make a split mandatory. Pass.

4. Neutral: what kinds of controversies could we have? Pass.
 * Classification is short and to the point.
 * Noun incorporation: two opinions, both presented and with reasons. Not evaluated against a general linguistic theoretical background, but that may well wait until FAR.
 * Tense: maybe so neutral as to collide with Factually accurate. Neutrality is certainly not violated.

5. Stable: no edit wars or major disagreements on content. Pass.

6. Illustrated: the typical image for distribution and one pic of sociolinguistic relevance. All the other grammar things are hard to illustrate via images. Pass. G Purevdorj (talk) 17:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

'''Pertaining problems to related to 1. Well-written and 2. Factually accurate'''


 * The article should make clear the relationship between the introduction of the new script and the “policy of Greenlandization”. Just juxtraposing these two passages doesn’t work.
 * “The second consonant in a cluster is always assimilated to the first one resulting in a geminate consonant.” “iglu ("house"), is illu in Greenlandic“ - Shouldn’t it be iggu then? But all examples seem to point to progressive assimilation. So the first sentence seems to be wrong.
 * “Native words may begin only with a vowel or with /p, t, k, q, s, m, n/; they may end only in /p, t, k, q/ and rarely /n/.” lacks a reference. If it is footnote 15, just draw the paragraphs together.
 * Footnote 8 still lacks its page number.
 * Petersen 1990: on which pages of Collis (ed.)?

I'm through with copyediting until the "Verb" section. Apart from the points noted above (and maybe a few other issues with notes and literature), I now consider these sections to meet GA standards at least as far as the criteria 1a and 2 are concerned. G Purevdorj (talk) 00:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think there is any relation between the introduction of the script and the policy of Greenlandization. The script was introduced 6 years before Greenland achieved homerule and Greenlandization policies began.
 * There needn’t be any relation between the causes for the results to be connected. I.e., the reversal would have started earlier. As it is put now, it did not. G Purevdorj (talk) 11:47, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * theres a special rule for clusters involving l - they always become ll regardless of the whether the l is first or last.
 * I have done that now.
 * I have added "passim" to citation 8 as inughuit is used throughout and not in a single instance.
 * I have added the page numbers.·Maunus· ƛ · 10:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Have we arrived at an impasse or at a "pass"?·Maunus· ƛ · 08:19, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * At neither. The time I spent on Wikipedia since my last actions here were just enough to create a tiny article on Baarin to relax a bit. I continue here when I find the time to spend at least two hours of copyediting and assessing. Today I must still busy myself with a bit of language acquisition (having invested the rest of the time into research). But it will not take awfully long till I'm back. G Purevdorj (talk) 17:30, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, take the time you need, I didn't mean to rush you.·Maunus· ƛ · 18:24, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Started with the noun section and then did the beginning of the verb section.

1. Nouns can be derived from verbs or from other nouns by a number of suffixes. E.g. atuar- "to read" + -toq becomes atuartoq "student" or atuar + -fik "place" becomes atuarfik "school".
 * If you give two examples, why not illustrate both stem types?
 * Good idea.·Maunus· ƛ · 10:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

2. possessive agreement suffixes on nouns and the transitive agreement suffixes on verbs have quite similar shapes
 * Similar or identical? The word “quite” is a bit confusing here. “often have identical” might also do if appropriate.
 * OK, done.·Maunus· ƛ · 10:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Still does not solve my problem altogether. The footnote gives an example of identical, not similar shapes. Then I guess some shapes will differ. We don't want to overload the text, but maybe the footnote could be more specific. G Purevdorj (talk) 13:49, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Again it is a problem of the actual facts being more complicated than broad statements allow. Some affixes are identical, some are very similar and others differ. Probably they do have a common history - but I dont know that anyone has determined this. Sadick who is the only one who talks about "transitive nouns" assumes they are the same. Others like Fortescue are not certain that they are the same affixes and only mention that the shapes are similar without claiming that they are the same, different or have a common history. I think this latter explanation is the most prudent.·Maunus· ƛ · 15:29, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It’s always a bit silly when one deals with a language that one does not know perfectly well. I tend to solve such problems by not mentioning opinions that clearly don’t confirm either to the data or to modern linguistic explanatory schemes. Even in specialized scientific articles, dealing in detail with all existing opinions would yield unreadable books, not to speak of actual lexical articles. Now you’ve chosen to name this opinion, which is okay, but if you have only one reference, you cannot write “some scholars”. I have shipped around this cliff by setting the ship onto another shoal, using the somewhat evaluative word “even”. This appears to be justified, though, if we understand “even” as a quantor and the opinion in question to be held by a minority. G Purevdorj (talk) 01:04, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

3. man-ERG seal eat-3p/3p
 * Shouldn’t the seal get an absolutive suffix, even if zero? The same would hold for “Peter”.
 * Of course.·Maunus· ƛ · 10:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

4. It is also used for naming languages through the expression "to speak like a" which uses the equative case on a nationality to express "like a person of x nationality".
 * “through the expression "to speak like a"” - only in the presence of a verb of saying? If not, this still has to be reformulated. For example,
 * It doesn't only work with verbs of saying, for nationality nouns the equative case is assumed to form the name of the language unless its contextually implied that it is some other part of "doing like an X" that is being referred to.·Maunus· ƛ · 10:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It is also used for deriving language names from nouns denoting nationalities, i.e. "like a person of x nationality [speaks]".
 * Ok, done.·Maunus· ƛ · 10:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

5. Derivational morphology includes processes of adverbial modification of verbs by a large number of different suffixes (numbering in their hundreds).
 * I don’t know how you are using the word “adverbial” here, but it doesn’t seem to fit.
 * I have reformulated thats sentence to: "Derivational morphology includes processes of modification of the meaning of verbs, in a way similar to that expressed by adverbs in English. These "adverb-type" derivational suffixes number in their hundreds."

6. Inflection
 * I have somewhat revised the introductory paragraph, but the last sentence confused me too much. “requiring 48 different suffixes to cover all possible combinations of agent and patient for each of the eight transitive paradigms”. So we get 384 suffixes? If so, we might want to spell out here which combinations of agent and patient with person are actually possible. Such info seems more crucial than providing a few tables below.
 * It is unfortunately slightly more complicated because some moods do not have all persons (contemporative doesn't have 3 person, participial doesn't have 4th person and imperative only has second person) - the actual number of verbal inflectional suffixes is 318. Maybe this should just be left out or stated in more vague terms.


 * The whole paragraph should be referenced.
 * Which paragraph? The one with the 48 forms?·Maunus· ƛ · 10:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was talking about that one. As I included all the info you wrote into a footnote into the text, the respective reference has come to conclude this paragraph. If this is appropriate, point 6 is solved. Let me ask one ignorant question, though: "Lennert Olsen" is a surname? G Purevdorj (talk) 13:49, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

G Purevdorj (talk) 23:46, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Lennert Olsen is a surname yes (two in fact). And I find your edits to the section to be appropriate.·Maunus· ƛ · 15:29, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

1. "for expression verbs" 2. Tense I don't get to any library these days, but if you could email me scans of the stuff stated by the proponents, I might try to deal with it. But in short: I do think that we can not unequivocally state screwed opinions - if the opinions of the proponents should turn out to be screwed (instead of the way that the article presents them, that is). G Purevdorj (talk) 15:19, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think that "expression verb" is a proper designation. Does he mean "verbs of speaking", or include some "verbs of thinking"?
 * "aserorpoq "It is broken / It broke"" - as far as these glosses indicate, this is present perfect and past, thus, past and present reference as well.
 * We need more info on -ssaa-, if possible. The nature and position of this suffix within the language system does not become clear.
 * The last part of this chapter is not referenced.
 * Which opinions is it that you don't find convincing? Most of this is online - I like this one best because its factual and describes usage rather than make generalizing theoretical claims. The Bittner stuff is all avaliable online. What is it you want to know about -ssaa- it is a derivational affix that usually occurs closest to the inflectional endings and fartest from the root. The debate about it is the degree to which it is mandatory with verbs referring to future events (it isn't as there are other derivational affixes that can be used for this as well).·Maunus· ƛ · 21:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

It's been a month since the last comment here; how close are we to passing failing the article? What's the status? Wizardman Operation Big Bear 04:06, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * As far as I know G Purevdorj is still reading the references I sent him in order to improve the tense section. Then I am going to expand the lead. ·Maunus· ƛ · 06:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Assessing the GA criteria
 * 1. Well-written
 * a) Proseand grammar correct? - The prose is definitely not engaging, but as far as Ican see it is correct and not awkward. Pass.
 * b) Confirms to guidelines:
 * LEAD: The lead of an article of this length should contain three paragraphs. The existing paragraph might be split into two paragraphs, but this leaves about a third of information that should be added here. I’ve flipped through the article and it is not actually easy to enlarge the lead, but some more very general info on the usage of moods might do, as might some info on the lexicon. On hold . Not bad ... Pass. G Purevdorj (talk) 19:52, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * LAYOUT: confirms with the layout of other GA and FA on languages. Pass.
 * Explain jargon: Where possible, slang has been evaded, and the rest is explained via links to the respective Wikipedia articles. Pass.
 * Words to avoid: Pass.
 * Manual of Style (writing about fiction), Embedded list: N/A
 * 2. Factually accurate and verifiable:
 * a), b)
 * The article is based on reliable sources and the information presented there isattributed to these sources.
 * The section on Tense contains obvious contradictions. On hold. Pass. G Purevdorj (talk) 20:32, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * c) It contains no original research. Pass.
 * 3. Broad in its coverage
 * a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic - as far as Ican discern, yes. All areas usually relevant to the proper description of alanguage get addressed to some degree
 * b) focussed. That one is tricky. The article is at the upperlimit at Article_size. Thiswas caused by a presentation style that works with an abundance of languagematerial even of sentence length to illustrate how grammar works. E.g., see thesection Obviation and switch reference. Basically, this is more appropriate fora grammar article than for a language article. Yet, splitting this article intotwo such articles would leave both articles somewhat shallow given the currentcontent. So while it is difficult to argue that this article always observessummary style, the details that are given are not exactly “unnecessary”. Thus,it passes focussedness. Anyway, a growth by another 20 KB or a nomination for FA would make a split mandatory.
 * Pass.
 * 4. Neutral: what kinds of controversies could we have?
 * Classification is short and to the point.
 * Noun incorporation: two opinions, both presented and withreasons. Not evaluated against a general linguistic theoretical background, butthat may well wait until FA nomination.
 * Tense: maybe so neutral as to collide with Factuallyaccurate. Neutrality is certainly not violated.
 * Pass.
 * 5. Stable:no edit wars or major disagreements on content. Pass.
 * 6. Illustrated:the typical image for distribution and one pic of sociolinguistic relevance. All the other grammar things are hard to illustrate via images. Pass.
 * G Purevdorj (talk) 17:57, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Pass. G Purevdorj (talk) 20:32, 25 March 2010 (UTC)