Disputatio:Fractio (mathematica)

Numerator → numeratrum, denominator → denominatrum

As usually when we encounter a word in -tor that refers to an object, the word is medieval or modern. This seems to be the case of numerator and denominator, which should not be possible unless we mean “a man who counts” and “a man who designates”. Romans had a different way of writing fractions, therefore we will never find the classical names for “numerator” and “denominator”. However modern Latin should use nominatrum and denominatrum if it wants to be good Latin. Curiously, we do find the word numeratrum in modern Latin for meaning “electricity meter” (i.e. what counts the electricity – cfr. “.hom meter” apud Morgan, Davidem (2013). Lexicon Anglum et Latinum. Paulopolis: Darcy Carvalho. p. 302 [PDF]). But, on the other hand, I have not found any occurrence of denominatrum (i.e. “the thing/object that designates”). --Grufo (disputatio) 00:39, 7 Iunii 2023 (UTC)

I suppose you'll next be telling us that a cursor is a curtrum. (It's cursor in Traupman, where you'll find numerator for 'numerator' and numerus dividens for 'denominator'.) IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:04, 7 Iunii 2023 (UTC)

It would be curstrum (usually you take the feminine – curstrix – remove the -ix and add the -um)… I don't know what is worse, whether coherently creating a new word or instead incoherently inventing a new meaning for a word that means “a runner in a race, a courier, a slave who ran before the chariot of a grandee”. I am indeed more inclined in favour of the first one. --Grufo (disputatio) 12:41, 7 Iunii 2023 (UTC)

In good Latin, modern and not, words in apposition aren't always of the same sex and aren't always at the same point on the animate/inanimate spectrum. According to Lewis & Short, "cursor iambus" made sense; according to British regnal titles (which we have been glancing at recently) a monarch could be "Indiae imperatrix" and also "fidei defensor" (that's Victoria, by the way), although "defenstrix" is classical. So it was OK for Nicolaus Oresmius in the 14th century to write "Et ita irrationalis continebit rationalem a qua denominabitur, semel vel pluries, et aliquam vel aliquas eius partes. Et istius partis seu partium unus erit numerus denominator et alter numerator" as found in Edward Grant, ed., De proportionibus proportionum; Ad pauca respicientes [Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1966]; I saw it cited at footnote 41 on this page. As Oresme kindly makes clear, "denominator" and "numerator" are in apposition to "numerus". Yet "defensor" is in apposition to "Victoria".

If I've doubted, when writing the first sentence of an article, whether this gender trick would be clear to the reader, I might have begun the sentence with "Numerus denominator ...", and that is something like what Oresme did; or I might have said "Neogenicum (scil. 'aevum') est periodus geologica ...", and in fact I did say that :) Geologists form their names for geological ages in the Latin neuter, leaving Latinists to pick up the pieces. If mathematicians and computer scientists choose the Latin masculine, we can deal with it. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:39, 7 Iunii 2023 (UTC)

Of course, nouns do not have to agree with the grammatical gender, like adjectives do. In fact we can say “Lavinia est caput, Carolus est bracchium societatis”. However some words must agree with the biological gender (as opposed to the grammatical one), and words ending in -tor, etc. belong to this group. And so, after saying that Lavinia is the head of the company we can add “Hoc caput est celebris scriptrix”. If numerus in your example had been a male person you could definitely say numerus est denominator, while if numerus had been a female person you would have to say numerus est denominatrix instead. But numerus is neither, so it should be numerus est denominatrum (in your specific example, without “est”, classical Latin would have preferred an adjective to an apposition, and so numerus denominans or numerus denominatorius). As we discussed in another page, there are cases in which “things” are apparently accompanied by this class of gendered nouns in apposition (e.g. “philosophia, expultrix vitiorum”, or “Legio VI Victrix”, etc.), however

• they are always personifications to some extent
• the feminine seems to be the preferred “personifiable” gender
• they are always transient, temporary (i.e. philosophia is momentarily called expultrix, but no way that expultrix alone is used as a stable synonym of philosophia).

I still do not know examples of classical words in -tor or -trix that are used alone (like numerator here, i.e. not in apposition) to refer to objects. The idea of repopulating the relatively unproductive -trum was felt right among modern Latinists exactly for these reasons. But early humanists did not see the problem at first, and so errors were introduced and still persist today. You said it yourself concerning fidei difensor: “although defenstrix is classical”. --Grufo (disputatio) 20:48, 7 Iunii 2023 (UTC)

But I didn't say that for Victoria to call herself "defensor" was an error: there are modern writers (not only in Latin) who pay too much attention to sex! Put it like this: it is often felt as an error to overdo the markers. The royal drafter (who surely had Lewis & Short at hand) perhaps felt that "defenstrix" in addition to "imperatrix" would be overmarked, oversexed ... or perhaps that Cicero, with his hapax defenstrix, had his tongue in his cheek. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 06:41, 8 Iunii 2023 (UTC)

Though I am not focusing on sex here (yes, Latin is a nightmare for nonbinary people), but on the distinction between animated and inanimated. As for the first, the page en:Defender of the Faith mentions “fidei defensatrix” as the feminine form, with an apparent gemination, despite Cicero, of an -a- vowel (maybe the original was too hard to pronounce for an English speaker?). At en:Talk:Defender of the Faith#"Defensatrix" not correct for UK/Commonwealth you can read that apparently defensor was crystallized by the law at some point, despite defensatrix being used by Catherine of Aragon, Mary I, and Elizabeth I – but I am no expert about royalty. As for the main topic (animated vs inanimated), again, the problematicity of using -tor and -trix for things, as shown by the modern productivity of -trum, is felt by contemporary latinists. And, although we might not find direct attestations of numeratrum or denominatrum for the case in point (yet), we can still cite this general tendency as an indirect source. Not strong enough though, true, I will agree on this. --Grufo (disputatio) 16:47, 8 Iunii 2023 (UTC)

Ecquidem censeo, ibi esse locum de vocabulis disputandi, ubi terminologia inveterata nondum exstat. Plurimos vero habemus libros Neolatinos mathematicam pertractantes, ubi haec vocabula, supra in dubium vocata, adhibentur. Multo utilius existimarim, si usitatorum vocabulorum loco de dubiis rerum recentissimarum vocabulis, quae prius Latine non exstiterant neque in ullo opere Latino apparuerant, disputaretur. --Martinus Vester (disputatio) 13:42, 8 Iunii 2023 (UTC)

Recte mones, mi Martine. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:47, 8 Iunii 2023 (UTC)

Paginas disputationum habemus ad omnia dubia disputanda, a rebus “inveteratis” ad recentissima. Sed disputationum solutiones, sine aevum considerando, tantummodo fontibus dandae sunt. De disputationibus ad me attinentibus, haec est mea prima quae latinitatem humanisticam, quam amo et cui gratias ago, queritur; at surgit me putante investigationem perpetuam et sine dogmatibus ipsius humanismi fuisse vim. --Grufo (disputatio) 16:47, 8 Iunii 2023 (UTC)

Non omnia dubia, sed quae ad encyclopaediam augendam et corrigendam tendent. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:39, 8 Iunii 2023 (UTC)

Enim talem puto hanc quaestionem, at veniam peto quia nullos fontes adhuc tuli. --Grufo (disputatio) 21:53, 8 Iunii 2023 (UTC)

Fractiones Latinae

Numeri ordinales sunt alteri

Numerus	Latina	Plurale
1	integer	integri
1/2	semis	semisses
1/3	triens	trientes
2/3	bes	bessis
1/4	quadrans teruncius	quadrantes/a teruncii
3/4	dodrans	dodrantes/a
1/6	sextans	sextantes/a
5/6	dextrans	dextrantes/a
1/8	octans sescuncia	octantes/a sescunciae
1/12	uncia	unciae
5/12	quincunx quinque unciae	quincunces/ia
7/12	septunx septem unciae	septunces/ia
11/12	deunx undecim unciae	deunces/ia
1/24	semiuncia	semiunciae
1/48	sicilicus	sicilici
1/72	sextula	sextule
1/144	dimidia sextula duo scriptulum	dimidiae sextulae
1/288	scripulum	scripula
1/1728	siliqua	siliquae

--170.64.218.143 03:25, 20 Martii 2024 (UTC)