Disputatio:Gastropoda

E Vicipaedia

[recensere] Singular of -poda words

I claimed in the article that the singular of gastropoda should be gastropus. Alas, I am not so clear on this, now that I think about it. Greek adjectives in -πους -ποδος normally form their neuter in, of all things, -πουν. Therefore, the expected singular of γαστρόποδα would be γαστρόπουν. This in turn would be expected to yield Latin gastropun gastropodis, n. That's just freakin' absurd! So I looked for Latin -pūs words to see how they declined, and it looks like not a single one is attested in the neuter (so far as I can tell using only the online L&S at any rate). It seems logical to assume that they would be treated as one-termination adjectives, yielding the gastropus I used in the article, but I just wish I could find a darn attestation! --Iustinus 03:18, 7 Septembris 2006 (UTC)

I thought that the compounds ending in the Greek -πους (-ποδος) may be forced into being one-termination adjectives ending in -pus when Latinized. The online L&S shows "strūthŏpūs, pŏdis, adj." ("sparrow-footed") and that made me think that the word is a one-termination adjective like "vĕtus, ĕris." I can't find a Latinized compound ending in -pun (representing the Greek element -πουν). For those reasons, I think it might be a good idea to avoid gastropun and cephalopun. --Diaphanus 09:20, 26 Decembris 2006 (UTC)

Well, as I said above, no -pus adjective is ever attested in the neuter, so far as I can tell, so the fact that you haven't found a -pun isn't necessarily decisive in and of itself. I would rather avoid gastropun, but I'd rather know for sure that it's the right way to go. --Iustinus 01:09, 16 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

I know. I didn't mean to imply that my not finding a relevant word was necessarily decisive! I should have said that it might be better to avoid the absurd forms unless it's really necessary. At any rate, I agree with what you have there on the article (even though we can't find an attestation). --Diaphanus 12:48, 23 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

(I should add that this is especially important because I was planning on doing cephalopoda next) --Iustinus 04:14, 7 Septembris 2006 (UTC)

No attestations on my part as to whether it's a one-termination or a two-termination form, but I suspect one could in the interim shove the question aside and use gastropus, -odis, comm. in the singular, leaving the obnoxious singular-less plural for addressing the class of mollusca gastropoda as a whole. —Myces Tiberinus 22:24, 7 Septembris 2006 (UTC)

I am now wondering if there is a need to come up with neuter singular forms of -poda names when those -poda names are used in biological classification. Is Cephalopus -podis, n. referring to one individual cephalopod, while Gastropus -podis, n. refers to one individual gastropod? Why not use cephalopus, -odis, comm. or cephalopus, -odis, m./gastropus, -odis, comm. or gastropus, -odis, m. to refer to one individual animal? As far as I can tell, a name for a particular animal does not have to be of the same gender or form as its biological classification names. We seem to be using octopus, -odis, m. (or is that comm.?) over at the Cephalopoda article when there is the biological classification name Octopoda (a neuter plural form). We might write dinosaurus, -i, m. to refer to a particular animal (as Traupman does) instead of dinosaurium, -i, n. when there is the biological classification name Dinosauria (a neuter plural form). --Diaphanus 18:17, 12 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

I suppose there's always the option of doing a substantive adjective, like gastropodium. --Iustinus 00:24, 9 Septembris 2006 (UTC)

Why isn't it following a Greek declension: gastropodon, gastropodou; pl. gastropoda? IacobusAmor 02:19, 9 Septembris 2006 (UTC)

Because that's not the paradigm. -poda words are third declension! For confirmation of this, you can use Perseus to search for words that end in -podon vs. words that end in -pus --Iustinus 02:48, 9 Septembris 2006 (UTC)

If it's of interest: the Spanish term appears to be gastrópodo, pl. gastrópodos. IacobusAmor 03:09, 9 Septembris 2006 (UTC)