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unknown fly
Zeegers	#21 Posted on 16-12-2006 14:48
Member Location: Soest, NL Posts: 18539 Joined: 21.07.04	Hi Igor, OK, what I ment was an original, classical source. Because 'volva' is in my classical dictionary, but 'volvus' isn't. As I said before, I sincerely suspect that 'volvus' in no classical Latin at all, which makes it quite difficult, if not impossible, to decide whether it is a noun or an adjective. Theo


Louis Boumans	#22 Posted on 26-12-2006 15:48
Member Location: NO Oslo Posts: 262 Joined: 09.06.04	Theo said: "quite difficult, if not impossible, to decide whether it is a noun or an adjective." Well, if - we agree that -ul is a diminitive suffix, and - this suffix only applies to nouns (probably Latin has diminutive nouns only) - a de-nominative adjective requires some overt morphological marking (a suffix), then vulvulus must be a noun. Based on the European lges I know, this seems likely to me, but i hardly know any Latin. Then the question is: is it grammatical in Latin to juxtapose two nouns in nominative case, with the same referent? If yes, it shoulnd't be a problem that the two nouns have different grammatical gender. Such 'adposition' constructions exist, though somewhat marginally, in e.g. English: Her majesty the queen or German Bundeskanzler Merkel Latin examples would be: Tirannosaurus rex, Victoria regina. True, here we have gender agreement, but rex and regina are nouns. For inanimate objects, and most animals too, separate female and male nouns are not available. This probably holds for volvulus - whatever it means, and musca or -mya. So Phyllomya volvulus "leaf fly little bulb". Diptera examples would be combinations with -pes "foot" masculine or manus "hand" feminine. E.g. Platycheirus (masc) albimanus (fem.) and Cordilura (f.) albipes (m.). Edited by Louis Boumans on 26-12-2006 19:13