[Taxacom] Fwd: New species of the future

Wed Oct 30 09:20:19 CDT 2013

I don't agree that the Code says "-colus" is an adjective; my argument was particular to the case before us. I concluded that "cavernicolus" was a latinized adjective because it has a Latinized ending and the author gave an adjectival etymology. The -us ending in itself does not indicate if a word is a noun or an adjective.

There are at least two correct ways to form a word like "cavernicolus":  with the ancient Latin ending "-cola", which produces nouns (Oxford Latin Dictionary), with the ending changed [for whatever reason: euphony, fiat, error], or from the neo-Latin "-colus", which produces adjectives.  If an author does not give a derivation or indicate that a word ending in "-colus" is an adjective it must be interpreted as a noun under Article 31.2.2 and so is invariant. 

I do not think it is advisable (as suggested under the thread "mea culpa") to publish an emendation of the name. It would just result in two versions to keep track of.

Gary Rosenberg
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
Drexel University

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Heads
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 3:29 AM
To: Stephen Thorpe
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Fwd: New species of the future

I'm not using the precedents as the justification. I just cited them for interest. The Code is clear. -colus is an adjective (latinised, not Latin) and it agrees with the gender of the genus (Eupolybothrus, Parus etc.).

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 8:19 PM, Stephen Thorpe
<stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>wrote:

> Hi Michael,
>
> The number of "precedents" is tiny compared to the total number of 
> -cola names! When does a few errors become a "precedent"?? If errors 
> are repeated often enogh, do they become right?? Two wrongs don't make 
> a right, but maybe 20 do???? I admit the situation isn't entirely 
> clear, but my interpretation of Art. 31.2 is very firmly that it is an 
> error which is to be corrected.
>
> Cheers, Stephen
>
>   *From:* Michael Heads <m.j.heads at gmail.com>
> *To:* taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 30 October 2013 8:06 PM
> *Subject:* [Taxacom] Fwd: New species of the future
>
> Stephen,
>
> No, I think Gary is correct. The -us ending here is a 'latinised'
> (neolatin) adjective, not classical Latin. There are plenty of 
> precedents, e.g. Caprimulgus monticolus Franklin 1831, Parus 
> monticolus Vigors 1831, Sorex monticolus Merriam 1890, Neusticomys 
> monticolus Anthony 1921, Ellipes monticolus Günther 1977, Bicyclus 
> sylvicolus Condamine 1961, Molophilus sylvicolus Alexander 1924 (New 
> Zealand tipulid), Leptotyphlops sylvicolus Broadley & Wallach 1997. 
> It's a modern error in terms of classical Latin, as Robert Mill pointed out, but in zoology it's not to be corrected.
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 4:27 PM, Stephen Thorpe
> <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>wrote:
>
> > Not so fast! If your neo-Latin digression is, as you say "not 
> > relevant", then your argument is this:
> >
> >  In ancient Latin, -cola was a noun suffix; the adjectival form was 
> > -colaris (e.g., agricolaris)...Article 31.2 applies to adjectives, 
> > not suffixes and "-colus" is not a Latin adjective under the Code. 
> > Article
> 31.2
> > is still relevant however-- "Cavernicolus" is a latinized adjective,
> since
> > the authors gave it an adjectival definition, and used the ending "-us".
> If
> > it is later combined with a feminine genus, it should become
> "cavernicola".
> > The authors could also have named the species "Eupolybothrus
> cavernicola",
> > which would have made the name invariant, but the Code does not 
> > require this.
> >
> > This suggests that the spelling should be corrected to 
> > cavernicolaris, this being the correct adjectival form of the 
> > species epithet for the masculine gender. I dispute that just 
> > sticking an -us on the end makes it masculine, any more than rosenbergus would be a "latinized adjective".
> > Unless it is emended to cavernicolaris, it cannot be said that there 
> > is gender agreement with the original genus, as required by Art. 
> > 31.2
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Stephen
> >
> > From: "Rosenberg,Gary" <rosenberg.ansp at drexel.edu>
> > To: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> > Sent: Wednesday, 30 October 2013 4:00 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Taxacom] New species of the future
> >
> >
> > Eupolybothrus cavernicolus is correctly formed under the zoological Code.
> > In ancient Latin, -cola was a noun suffix; the adjectival form was
> -colaris
> > (e.g., agricolaris). In neo-Latin (e.g., Brown, Composition of 
> > Scientific
> > Words) -cola can be an adjectival suffix, with standard endings 
> > (-us, -a, -um). The Code (glossary) defines Latin as ancient and 
> > mediaeval Latin,
> so
> > the neo-Latin usage is not relevant. Article 31.2 applies to 
> > adjectives, not suffixes and "-colus" is not a Latin adjective under the Code.
> Article
> > 31.2 is still relevant however-- "Cavernicolus" is a latinized 
> > adjective, since the authors gave it an adjectival definition, and 
> > used the ending "-us". If it is later combined with a feminine 
> > genus, it should become "cavernicola". The authors could also have 
> > named the species
> "Eupolybothrus
> > cavernicola", which would have made the name invariant, but the Code 
> > does not require this.
> >
> > By the way, Jeff Nekola and I described the snail Vertigo marciae 
> > earlier this year, reporting Recent and fossil specimens, with a 
> > phylogenetic placement based on DNA sequences.
> >
> http://sev.lternet.edu/~jnekola/nekola%20pdf/naut-127-107-114.pdf.What
> otherinstances
> are there like this?
>
> >
> > Gary Rosenberg
> > Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia Drexel University
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:
> > taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Thorpe
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 9:46 PM
> > To: Doug Yanega
> > Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> > Subject: Re: [Taxacom] New species of the future
> >
> > Just to be absolutely clear:
> >  31.2. Agreement in gender. A species-group name, if it is or ends in a
> > Latin or latinized adjective or participle in the nominative singular,
> must
> > agree in gender with the generic name with which it is at any time
> combined.
> >
> > My understanding (which may be wrong) is that if, as Doug seems to, you
> > think cavernicolus was intended to be adjectival in this case, then the
> > correct adjectival forms relative to gender are cavernicola (masculine),
> > cavernicola (neuter) and cavernicola (feminine). Art 31.2 would therefore
> > appear to require correction of cavernicolus, in this case, to
> cavernicola,
> > even in the original combination ('at any time combined').
> >
> > The alternative interpretation would be to claim that although
> cavernicola
> > is almost always used as a noun in apposition (why??), it can also be
> used
> > as an adjective with "standard" -us, -um, or -a suffixes. But I see no
> > evidence for this!
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Stephen
> >
> > From: Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu>
> > To: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
> > Cc: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> > Sent: Wednesday, 30 October 2013 1:01 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Taxacom] New species of the future
> >
> >
> >
> > On 10/29/13 4:14 PM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
> >
> > On the other hand, although incorrect latinization is not a problem per
> > se, gender disagreement might be, even for an original combination? Since
> > cavernicola is gender invariant, it should be spelled cavernicola in
> > combination with any generic name, including Eupolybothrus.
> > Nope. Original spelling can't be overruled for this, because
> > "cavernicolus" cannot be assumed to be a noun; the authors' comments
> > apparently indicate it is an adjectivized form. If the original
> combination
> > had used "cavernicola" instead, in the absence of any statements from the
> > author(s), THEN it would be invariant.
> >
> > 32.3. Preservation of correct original spelling. The correct original
> > spelling of a name is to be preserved unaltered, except where it is
> > mandatory to change the suffix or the gender ending under Article 34 (for
> > treatment of emendations and incorrect subsequent spellings see Articles
> > 32.5, 33.2, 33.3, 33.4)
> > >What 32.3 refers to here (explicitly) is Article 34, which defines what
> > happens when a species is moved into a different genus (or rank). This
> does
> > not refer to changing the spelling while it is still in its original
> genus,
> > though that is (very occasionally) necessary, when authors don't do their
> > homework and are mistaken about the gender of the genus in which they are
> > naming taxa.
> >
> > This is why we need an exhaustive registry of names; it should not be
> > required for every taxonomist to be a Latin scholar. You should be able
> to
> > simply look up any given genus in a list, and see what gender it is, who
> > the author was, what its type species is, what the originally included
> taxa
> > were, etc., and likewise look up any given species in a list, and see
> > whether it is a noun or an adjective, what its type depository is, what
> the
> > type locality is, who the author was, etc. Once ONE person has recorded
> > these parameters, there needs to be a mechanism by which the record is
> > SHARED (at which point it would be reviewed for accuracy), and once
> > reviewed, it would be archived publicly into perpetuity, instead of
> forcing
> > each taxonomist from now until the end of time to do the same detective
> > work over and over again. To some extent, this function is part of the
> > Lists of Accepted Names (LANs) presently built into the Code (Article
> 79),
> > but the mechanism is
> >  FAR too cumbersome to be practical given the scope of what is needed.
> > What we want, ideally, is for the LANs to contain every name ever
> > published, but the way Article 79 is now written, that is not possible. A
> > resource like ZooBank might serve this purpose, but (as noted in the
> other
> > unwieldy thread) having redundant lists is wasteful, and ZooBank does not
> > represent a definitive Commission-sanctioned list, as the LANs do.
> >
> > Peace,
> >
> > --
> > Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology      Entomology Research Museum
> > Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314    skype: dyanega
> > phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
> > http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html"There are some enterprises in
> > which a careful disorderliness
> >        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
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> --
> Dunedin, New Zealand.
>
> My recent books:
>
> *Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics.* 2012.* *University of
> California Press, Berkeley.
>
> *Biogeography of Australasia:  A molecular analysis*. Available January
>
> 2014. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
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-- 
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My recent books:

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California Press, Berkeley.

*Biogeography of Australasia:  A molecular analysis*. Available January
2014. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
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