The Grammar of Species Names
Grammatically, a binomen (and a trinomen, also) must be treated as if it were a Latin phrase, no matter which language the words were originally taken from. (This gives some justification to the popular usage of the phrase "Latin name" instead of the more correct phrase "scientific name".) Grammatically (using Latin grammar), the specific name must adhere to certain conventions. The specific name can either be formed as:
- A noun in apposition to the genus name, for example, the scientific name of the lion, Panthera leo. In these cases, the word for the genus and the word for the species do not necessarily have to agree in gender. Species names which are nouns in apposition are sometimes the vernacular name of the organism in Latin or Ancient Greek, or the name (specific or generic) of another organism which the organism itself resembles.
- A noun in the genitive case (i.e. belonging to).
- This is common in parasites: Xenos vesparum ("Xenos of the wasps").
- Proper nouns which are names of people and places are often used in the genitive case. For example the name of the coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae which means "Latimeria of Chalumna", is a reference to the area near the mouth of the Chalumna River in the Indian Ocean, where the coelacanth was first found, i.e. its type locality.
- An adjective which must agree in case and gender with the genus: Felis silvestris ("the forest cat")
Read more about this topic: Specific Name (zoology)
Famous quotes containing the words grammar, species and/or names:
“Syntax is the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages. Syntactic investigation of a given language has as its goal the construction of a grammar that can be viewed as a device of some sort for producing the sentences of the language under analysis.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
““If Steam has done nothing else, it has at least added a whole new Species to English Literature ... the booklets—the little thrilling romances, where the Murder comes at page fifteen, and the Wedding at page forty—surely they are due to Steam?”
“And when we travel by electricity—if I may venture to develop your theory—we shall have leaflets instead of booklets, and the Murder and the Wedding will come on the same page.””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
““Well then, it’s Granny speaking: ‘I dunnow!
Mebbe I’m wrong to take it as I do.
There ain’t no names quite like the old ones, though,
Nor never will be to my way of thinking.
One mustn’t bear too hard on the newcomers,
But there’s a dite too many of them for comfort....’””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)