Re: [dinosaur] An etymological question

[Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>]

Hmmm...

I think what is going on with teuthis as well is:Â

===
teuthos (masculine gender with definite article ho), a calamary or squid of a larger kind than teuthis (feminine gender with a definite article he)

See:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dteu%3Dqos1


Greek had a third declension feminine suffix -is, with a long stem in the genitive case -idos. The word teuthis was formed from teuthos, it seems, with a feminine ending to indicate a smaller size.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-%CE%B9%CF%82

However, zoological nomenclature has adopted teuthis as the standard name for squid or similar cephalopods regardless of size (Architeuthis, the giant squid, for example).

Ancient Greek used the feminine -is (-idos) ending in various names for animals, usually smaller in size.

nykteris "bat"Â

alopekis mongrel between fox and dog

Also,Â

Titan (masculine), Titanis (feminine)

ÂZoological nomenclature has also used -is from Greek, but the gender in actual usage is not always feminine. There are -is endings from Latin as well, but they can be masculine or feminine.

Virus-free. www.avg.com

On Thu, May 23, 2019 at 9:35 AM David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at> wrote:

> Greek teuthis, genitive teuthidos (stem teuthid-)

In other words, teuthis is teuthid-s; the -is would theoretically be -its, but Ancient Greek did not consider ts pronounceable (in stark contrast to ks and ps); all its expected occurrences surface as just s. (Modern Greek is full of ts, though still not at the ends of words.)

This also explains ornis, genitive ornithos: ornis is the automatic outcome of ornith-s.

The same holds for Latin, BTW.

Virus-free. www.avg.com