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Should a particle at the end of a hyphenated word join the word after it? (Paul Girard-le Brun gives middle 'Girard-le', family 'Brun') #1160
Description
parse("Paul Girard-le Brun") gives middle 'Girard-le', family 'Brun'. The family name is Girard-le Brun: two surnames joined by a hyphen, the second of which starts with the particle le. The particle is attached to the word before it, so P2 (particles join forward) never sees it. The same happens:
- in capitals (
Paul GIRARD-LE BRUN) - with a longer run after the particle (
Paul Girard-de la Tourgives middle 'Girard-de', family 'la Tour')
Measured 2026-11-07 in France's register of elected officials: 12 family names have this shape (X-LE Y, X-DE Y, X-VON Y), and the default reads all 12 wrong. That's out of 909 hyphenated family names.
Questions:
- Should a listed particle as the last segment of a hyphenated word join forward, as a standalone particle does? A segment test reads part of a word, and the spelling sweep in
nameparser/AGENTS.mdwarns that this path differs from the vocabulary path. - Which particles?
le,laanddeare also French words, but they don't end a hyphenated name word otherwise.
Activity
derek73 commentedon Nov 9, 2026
Dutch married names have this shape, and it's common: the spouse's surname, a hyphen, then the person's own surname with its particle (
Ans Jansen-van der Berg,Noor Bakker-de Vries).Measured 2026-11-08 on master 93de2cb:
Ans Jansen-van der Berggives middle 'Jansen-van', family 'der Berg', which also splits the particle run.Lotte Peeters-De Smetgives middle 'Peeters-De', family 'Smet').van,de,denandterare the Dutch particles that end the first half.vanalso has a given reading (ambiguous), so the question of which particles may end a hyphenated word covers ambiguous ones too.