Re: "Chuniaoae" Ji et al. 1998

[Nick Pharris <npharris@umich.edu>]

Quoting Nick Gardner <ratites637@hotmail.com>:

> II. In my first post, I suggested that the latter part "-ae" of Chuniaoae 
> might mean "wings".  I confused the terms "alae" and "-ae".  CMIIWA, but 
> "alae" is the one that means "wings" or "wing" and "-ae" is a suffix used 
> like "-ia" for the end of taxon names -- such as Coeluria.  Am I right?

Yes.  a^la (plural a^lae--^ indicates long vowel) means 'wing'.  -ae is the 
nominative plural for a very large class of feminine nouns and a small class of 
masculine ones.

Nick Pharris
Department of Linguistics
University of Michigan