Disputatio:Bison

To whoever marked bison as feminine

De: "Bison (-tis, f.) est taxinomica congeries. . . . Harum specierum solum vivunt duae: Bison bison, animal Americanum, et Bison bonasus. . . ."—If it's feminine, why does bonasus look masculine? IacobusAmor 23:59, 18 Iulii 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't matter—bonasus is a noun, so doesn't need to agree; it would be like Panthera leo. But bison is masculine anyway (and the extinct species' adjectival epithets antiquus and priscus agree). —Mucius Tever 06:42, 19 Iulii 2008 (UTC)

Ah, good; I suspected as much. That's why, not without a modicum of care, I asked why it might "look" masculine, rather than why it might "be" masculine. I'll fix the page, unless someone else has already fixed it. IacobusAmor 12:09, 19 Iulii 2008 (UTC)

To whoever would know

I find the declining of this interesting...is the genitive seriously "Bisontis"? Or is it implied that either the n disappears (i.e., "Bisotis") or a vowel is inserted between the two consonants (i.e., "Bisonitis")? I simply havent seen something like this before. Thanks for the help! CeleritasSoni 16:16, 25 Iulii 2009 (UTC)

The genitive of bison is 'bisontis', yes. -on, -ontis is very common for words of Greek origin (similar words are horizon and ion; actually I think Greek has a whole class of participles that inflect this way, too). —Mucius Tever 18:38, 25 Iulii 2009 (UTC)

Aha, I see! Blasted Greeks! =) Thank you very much! Another thing learned! CeleritasSoni 20:17, 25 Iulii 2009 (UTC)