Zool— Vol. I.] MILLER— GREEK AND LATIN DERIVATIVES. 117 



a compound adjective the stem icefyaka- of Ke^dXrj and the 

 stem ovpa- became, after the irresistible analogy of the o- 

 stems, ice<f>a\o- and ovpo-, and to those stems the masculine 

 nominative case-ending -? was added. Such changes will 

 be more apparent as we proceed. 



Hybrid Words. 



In building a compound name the two classical languages 

 should never be mixed. The new word should be wholly 

 Greek or wholly Latin. Hybrid words are always objec- 

 tionable, and such compounds as Swainson's Felichthys, 

 as Longicephalus, Leptogunnellus, Flavigass- 

 ter, Gymnocorvus, Arboro-phila and the like, are 

 enough to make one's hair stand on end. 



Latin Compounds. 



Latin is, comparatively speaking, poor in compound 

 words. In place of doubling up words, significant suffixes 

 are added, or the words, retaining their proper syntactical 

 relations, are simply written together as one: e. g. pater- 

 familias, iuris-dictio, etc. Still, the language contains 

 many genuine compounds of every part of speech — substan- 

 tives, verbs and adverbs. 



In entering into composition as first member of a com- 

 pound, a noun or adjective appears not in its familiar, nom- 

 inative singular form, but as its stem or a modification of its 

 stem. 1 If the stem ends in a vowel and the second member 

 begins with a vowel, the vowel of the first is elided: e. g. 

 somn-ambulus (somnus, stem somno--f--ambulus), 



'But less than the stem must not be used in any case; no change in a word 

 may be made except in the variable terminations. "A name made up of the 

 first half of one word and the last half of another is as deformed a monster in 

 nomenclature as a mermaid or a centaur would be in zoology." A worse 

 linguistic monstrosity than Cor-corax (from Corvus and riuppo-xopa!;'), 

 both hybrid and mutilated at that, it would be difficult to conceive; and yet 

 it stands. Other examples of the same violation of law we have in Cyps- 

 nagra (zu^eAoff-j- Tavdypa"), Merulaxis (Merula -j- SuvdAXagts), Bu- 

 corvus (Bovxiputs -J- Corvus), etc. 



