#117363 - 12/09/03 01:34 PM
Virii again
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 07/20/03
Posts: 3230
Loc: Te Ika a Maui
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On another board, I posted a link to this page: http://www.perl.com/language/misc/virus.htmlSomeone took issue with it, so I came back here to check the last time I asked aboiut it. That thread surprised me for at least two reasons. One, the first responses to to my query all disagreed with the page cited above, and two, there was no input from Faldage. Also, as has been known to happen here once or twice, the thread drifted a little. I have no problem with the page being wrong, if it is, but I would like an assessment of its technical merits and correctness, or lack thereof, by those with the knowhow to provide such. Bingley took an active part in the earlier thread, so thank you, kind sir, and please feel free to weigh in again. It's a straightforward question, really. Is the page, which I cite often, any good, or is it all wrong, and just so full of grammarese that a lay person won't know its all bogus (or is that bogi?)
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#117366 - 12/09/03 02:03 PM
Re: Virii again
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journeyman
Registered: 11/22/03
Posts: 81
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That looks pretty thorough to me, and though I can't see anything wrong with it, there are several misleading things.
The examples of corpus/corpora and opus/opera are irrelevant. Those are from stems corpos- and opos- and have plural ending -a just like every other neuter. The adjectives are corpor-al but vir-al (not viror-al).
Any mention of vocative or accusative by analogy with masculine is irrelevant: neuters always had nom/voc/acc identical. The accusative and vocative of virus _must be_ virus, whatever its declension.
The Greek pelagus and cetus aren't relevant, because the Romans fitted Greek words into Latin declensions when they fitted easily, but kept the Greek endings otherwise: hence Greek plurals pelag-e, cet-e. The Greek for poison was ios, cognate with virus. (A quick look at the Greek dictionary tells us it's masculine, with no plural given, so that doesn't help.)
Fourth declension? My trusty Latin grammar (it had bloody better be trusty) says the neuter ending was -u, as in cornu = horn, gen.sg. -us, plural -ua as in cornua. As the word is virus, not viru, that seems to rule out virua.
I think it's a rule that neuter plurals always end in -a, regardless of the declension (sometimes -ia as in mare/maria, animal/animalia, and sometimes -ua as in cornua, but always final a).
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#117368 - 12/09/03 02:27 PM
Re: Virii again
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 06/28/02
Posts: 1624
Loc: Utter Placebo, Planet Reebok
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Pfranz, you see virus as fourth-declension plural?Nope, I don't see anything at the moment. All my Latin books are currently in boxes awaiting transfer to the same bookcase, but at a different location ... My (ever-faulty) memory just has this thing about single syllable stems in the fourth declension and how the plurals were sometime formed. Virus seems to fit. IF it's fourth. Jenet may well be right, and I'm not arguing! Aha, found what I was looking for on the net: Manus -us, nf, hand
Case Singular Plural
Nominative manus manus
Genitive manus manuum
Dative manui,manu manibus, (manubus)
Accusative manum manus
Ablative manu manibus, (manubus)
Locative mani manibus, (manubus)
Vocative manus manus This formation holds for both masculine and feminine nouns. For neuter nouns, as Jenet says, the form is
Cornu, -us, nn, horn
Case Singular Plural
Nominative cornu cornua
Genitive cornus cornuum
Dative cornu cornibus
Accusative cornu cornua
Ablative cornu cornibus
Locative ? cornibus
Vocative cornu cornua None of which, of course, supports my impression, because I still don't know if virus was 4th declension! However, I'll lay odds that if it is it is masculine or feminine. If it's second, of course, it's mostly likely to be masculine, although there were a few feminine examples.
Found this, though, in Notre Dame's on line Latin Dictionary. It's probably as authorative as we're going to get:
virus -i n. [slimy liquid , slime; poison, esp. of snakes, venom; any harsh taste or smell].
So it's second dec, and it's masculine more likely than not. Phew!
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#117369 - 12/09/03 02:43 PM
Re: Virii again
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 12/01/00
Posts: 13666
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A little googling reveals that there were defective nouns and they lacked the plural. They were of three types: 1. Most proper names: as, Caesar, Caesar; Gallia, Gaul.
2. Names of things not counted, but reckoned in mass:
as, aurum, gold áér, air; tríticum, wheat.
3. Abstract nouns: as, ambitió, ambition; fortitúdó, courage; calor, heat
Virus looks pretty type 2 to me.
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#117372 - 12/09/03 09:33 PM
Re: Virii again
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 04/09/00
Posts: 3065
Loc: Jakarta
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In reply to:
Found this, though, in Notre Dame's on line Latin Dictionary. It's probably as authorative as we're going to get:
virus -i n. [slimy liquid , slime; poison, esp. of snakes, venom; any harsh taste or smell].
So it's second dec, and it's masculine more likely than not. Phew!
I think you may find that n. stands for neuter rather than noun. That is how I would read the similar entry in Perseus' Lewis and Short (http://makeashorterlink.com/?N152524C6)anyway.
The article max referred us to suggests that the plural is unattested in Latin, and it is fair to say that it is a matter of some controversy how the Romans would have formed the plural had they ever had call to use it.
I do not see, therefore, that there is anything to criticise in using the normal English way of forming plurals by adding -es. This is the best policy anyway in pluralising naturalised English words. I doubt anyone would pluralise gamelan as gamelan-gamelan, though this is what it would be in the language it was borrowed from.
Bingley
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