Quantum redactiones paginae "Disputatio:Gastropoda" differant

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! --[[Usor:Iustinus|Iustinus]] 03:18, 7 Septembris 2006 (UTC)

::Hi Iustine, I got around to do some more research on this subject. Section 311.b of Herbert Weir Smyth's ''Greek Grammar'' points out that "Some compounds of πούς foot (ποδ-) have -ουν in the nom. sing. neut. and sometimes in the acc. sing. masc. by analogy to ἁπλοῦς (290). Thus, τρίπους three-footed, τρίπουν (but acc. τρίποδα tripod)." It turns out that, as far as I have found, all of the compounds of πούς that specifically give the neuter nominative singular forms have such forms ending in -πουν, not -πους. Here is a scan of the paradigm for διπλοῦς from ''A Grammar of the Greek Language'' by Charles Anthon: [http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/9315/dipous0078py3.jpg image]. In that case, we would expect the hypothetical Greek compound γαστροπους to have the forms -πους, -πους, and -πουν in the nominative singular, where the γαστροπουν is declined like ἁπλοῦν (a contraction of the second-declension ἁπλόον). So now the question is "How is the contraction οῦν regularly Latinized?" The answer is ''-um'', as we see in ''triplus'', ''-a'', ''-um'', the Latinization of τριπλοῦς, -οῦς, -οῦν. According to that information, we would expect γαστροπους (declined like πούς), -πους (declined like πούς), -πουν (declined like ἁπλόον) to be Latinized as ''Gastropus'', ''Gastropus'', and '''''Gastropum'''''. So it seems that ''Gastropum'' is the singular form of ''Gastropoda''. Now that seems just freakin' absurd! --Diaphanus [[Specialis:Conlationes/156.34.210.107|156.34.210.107]] 08:35, 5 Martii 2008 (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. --[[Usor:Iustinus|Iustinus]] 01:09, 16 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)