Talk:acaciifolius
Latest comment: 5 months ago by Grufo in topic Acāciifolius vs acācĭfolius
Acāciifolius vs acācĭfolius
editAcaciifolius might be an ill-formed neologism. Do we have other examples of a theme ending with vowel (acaci-) + connecting vowel (-i-) + suffix? I suspect there should be no connecting vowels for cases like this, and it should be acācĭfolius (simply from acācĭ- + -folium). Cfr. milĭfolium (mili-), arcuballista (arcu-), manuballista (manu-), and so on.
- Cfr. Allen, J. H., Greenough, J. B. (2006) New Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges[1]: "A final stem-vowel of the first member of the compound usually disappears before a vowel, and usually takes the form of i before a consonant."
- Cfr. Smith, Peter (2006) Greek and Latin Roots: Part I - Latin[2], Victoria (Canada): BCcampus: "No such vowel is needed if there is already a vowel at the juncture of the two bases; therefore magn-anim-us (E magnanimous), “great-spirited,” aequ-anim-itas (E equanimity), “level-mindedness,” and bene-fact-or (“well-doer”)."
See also the Talk Page of Spatiplanum on Latin Wikipedia. --Grufo (talk) 04:28, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
- @Grufo: Taxonomic names don't necessarily follow the rules of prescriptive Latin grammar. See the taxonomic code that governs plants (Article 60.10 part (b) )- note especially Ex. 35- and see an example of one name that was corrected to acaciifolia here. Very simply, acacifolius for a specific epithet would be considered incorrect and it would be changed to acaciifolius in any taxonomic publication. When it comes to botanical nomenclature, you can't get any more "standard" than that. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:30, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Chuck Entz: I hadn't edited a Translingual entry, I had edited a (contemporary) Latin entry that was already present when I arrived, which was later changed into a Translingual entry by an anonymous IP address. So I can answer only for the Latin language. I often contribute to Latin Wikipedia, and there when we are in front of this kind of situations, in which it is unlikely to find a publication written in Latin, we try to be rigorous in the way word formation behaves. In this regard, “acaciifolius” in Latin makes little sense. I believe that a scientific publication written in English that coins Latin terms can hardly be a strong authority concerning the rules of the Latin language, especially concerning word formation (unless the author is known as a good Latinist too, and not only as a scientist). The source that you mentioned (which is in general a good source) writes also ‘Annotation: as "acaciaefolia"’. “Acaciaefolia” would also be incorrect (it would need to be graphically split into two words), but would be less incorrect than “acaciifolius”. --Grufo (talk) 06:34, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Grufo This term seems to have been coined as a taxonomic name and pretty much only used as a taxonomic name, so describing it as a nonstandard alternative form of a spelling that isn't even allowed for a taxonomic name doesn't seem right. Whatever you may think about it grammatically, this is the main spelling in the context where it's actually used. Taxonomic Latin is a strange edge case, because up until Linnaeus' time scientists corresponded extensively with each other in Latin, but progressively used Latin less and less for anything except the names themselves. Now it's more of a captive creature solely kept for the names, like a hen in a small cage that just lays eggs. There are no verbs, adverbs, or prepositions- only nouns and adjectives in the nominative and genitive. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:59, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- I agree about the (sadly) more and more reduced use of Latin in science. But I believe things are starting to change, especially in the last 15 years… However, that page is in English; I would not have problems thinking about acaciifolius as an English word. But, again, if I had to write about it in Latin Wikipedia I would immediately normalize it as acacifolius, especially considering that the latter is attested in literature. The reason why acacifolius is correct and acaciifolius is incorrect is the same reason that makes mediterraneus correct and *mediiterraneus incorrect (< medius + terra). --Grufo (talk) 08:15, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Grufo This term seems to have been coined as a taxonomic name and pretty much only used as a taxonomic name, so describing it as a nonstandard alternative form of a spelling that isn't even allowed for a taxonomic name doesn't seem right. Whatever you may think about it grammatically, this is the main spelling in the context where it's actually used. Taxonomic Latin is a strange edge case, because up until Linnaeus' time scientists corresponded extensively with each other in Latin, but progressively used Latin less and less for anything except the names themselves. Now it's more of a captive creature solely kept for the names, like a hen in a small cage that just lays eggs. There are no verbs, adverbs, or prepositions- only nouns and adjectives in the nominative and genitive. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:59, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Chuck Entz: I hadn't edited a Translingual entry, I had edited a (contemporary) Latin entry that was already present when I arrived, which was later changed into a Translingual entry by an anonymous IP address. So I can answer only for the Latin language. I often contribute to Latin Wikipedia, and there when we are in front of this kind of situations, in which it is unlikely to find a publication written in Latin, we try to be rigorous in the way word formation behaves. In this regard, “acaciifolius” in Latin makes little sense. I believe that a scientific publication written in English that coins Latin terms can hardly be a strong authority concerning the rules of the Latin language, especially concerning word formation (unless the author is known as a good Latinist too, and not only as a scientist). The source that you mentioned (which is in general a good source) writes also ‘Annotation: as "acaciaefolia"’. “Acaciaefolia” would also be incorrect (it would need to be graphically split into two words), but would be less incorrect than “acaciifolius”. --Grufo (talk) 06:34, 27 January 2024 (UTC)