Talk:9.15 cm leichtes Minenwerfer System Lanz

Article Naming

The lemma should be "9.15 cm leichter Minenwerfer System Lanz", as this is the correct form when used without article, or with indefinite article (ein schwerer..., but der schwere...). See also here. --Dekthep (talk) 03:45, 3 November 2009 (UTC) [native German speaker]

As you might have guessed, I'm not even a fluent German speaker, but while you may be correct I wonder about references in my German language sources to units like schwere Panzerabteilung 501 or weapons like the leichte Infanteriegeschütz. Does that rule apply to title of units or names of weapons? Or was the German Army bending the rules of grammar as the American Army has been known to do?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 06:35, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, it would depend on the grammar of the sentence and also on the grammatical gender of the nouns. Female adjective forms never have an r or s attached, so the 'Panzerabteilung' example doesn't count..... No, I don't think they were bending the rules.... ;-) Could you give some quotes from the sources you mentioned (it is necessary to see the full sentences)?

Here's an overview of the possible forms (cf. this):

gender | without article | indefinite article | definite article
female: schwere Panzerabteilung | eine schwere Panzerabteilung | die schwere Panzerabteilung
male: schwerer Minenwerfer | ein schwerer Minenwerfer | der schwere Minenwerfer
neuter: schweres Infanteriegeschütz | ein schweres Infanteriegeschütz | das schwere Infanteriegeschütz

As you can see, when used with the definite article, the adjective forms all become the same. But for an encyclopaedia entry, the title would be based on the 'without article' form. Hope that makes sense. By the way, these also need to be corrected: 25 cm schwere Minenwerfer & Schwere Wehrmachtschlepper. I can't find any German Wikipedia entry on these military things (seems English speakers are far more interested in all the details of WWII German weaponry!) to prove my point, but see for example this: Großer Arber and the German version: title = Großer Arber, but first sentence = Der Große_ Arber ist mit 1.456 m ü. NN der höchste Berg des Bayerischen Waldes......
--Dekthep (talk) 05:14, 4 November 2009 (UTC)