RE: Pterosaur diversity (was: Re: Waimanu)

[Mark Hallett <marksabercat@yahoo.com>]

Hi Nick, In regard to the root opsi/ ops, is this
where we get the derived meaning for "eye" in medicine
and in some(possibly incorrect)paleontological
nomenclature?. If I remember correctly, the amphibian
name Eryops in the past has always translated as
"drawn-out eye", when according to what you've stated
it should be "drawn-out face".  --Mark Hallett 

--- Nick Pharris <npharris@umich.edu> wrote:

> Quoting John Scanlon
> <riversleigh@outbackatisa.com.au>:
> 
> >
> >>   We should be thankful that Makovicky named the
> taxon Leptoceratopidae,
> >> the
> >> first Latin-grammatically-correct ceratopsian
> "family" clade name to date.
> >
> > Hmm... well, as the name Leptoceratops is formed
> entirely from Greek roots
> > including 'ops' [face] (the stem of which is
> 'opsi'), Mackovicky has
> > actually been the first to get it WRONG. When
> borrowed into Latin, the Greek
> > word 'ops' would normally become 'opsis' (e.g.
> synopsis, borrowed by English
> > via Latin), so I don't know why anyone has ever
> assumed the stem in
> > ceratopsian names was '-op'.
> 
> It is *op-* 'face', from the same Indo-European root
> *H3ekw- as English 
> *eye*, German *Auge*, Slavic *oko*, Latin *oculus*,
> and so on.  
> *Op-si-s* contains an additional (Greek)
> abstract-noun suffix *-si-*.
> 
> Now if someone would get out there and name the
> genera *Ceratopsis*, 
> *Protoceratopsis*, and *Leptoceratopsis*, on which
> the families 
> Ceratopsidae, Protoceratopsidae, and
> Leptoceratopsidae could be based, 
> we'd be in good shape.
> 
> -- 
> Nick Pharris
> Department of Linguistics
> University of Michigan
> 
> "Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity."
>      --Edwin H. Land
> 


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