Nomenclature

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
"Nomenclatura" redirects here. For the Soviet elites, see Nomenklatura.

Nomenclature (

conventions of everyday speech to the internationally agreed principles, rules and recommendations that govern the formation and use of the specialist terminology used in scientific and any other disciplines.[4]

Naming "things" is a part of general human

taxonomy as people distinguish the objects of their experience, together with their similarities and differences, which observers identify, name and classify. The use of names, as the many different kinds of nouns embedded in different languages, connects nomenclature to theoretical linguistics, while the way humans mentally structure the world in relation to word meanings and experience relates to the philosophy of language
.

descriptive linguistics
.

The scientific need for simple, stable and internationally accepted systems for naming objects of the natural world has generated many formal nomenclatural systems.[

scientific names of organisms
.

Etymology

The word nomenclature is derived from the Latin nomen ('name'), and calare ('to call'). The Latin term nomenclatura refers to a list of names, as does the word nomenclator, which can also indicate a provider or announcer of names.

Onomastics and nomenclature

Main article: Onomastics

The study of proper names is known as onomastics, which has a wide-ranging scope that encompasses all names, languages, and geographical regions, as well as cultural areas.[5]

The distinction between onomastics and nomenclature is not readily clear: onomastics is an unfamiliar discipline to most people, and the use of nomenclature in an academic sense is also not commonly known. Although the two fields integrate, nomenclature concerns itself more with the rules and conventions that are used for the formation of names.[citation needed]

Influence of social, political, religious factors

Due to social, political, religious, and cultural motivations, things that are the same may be given different names, while different things may be given the same name; closely related similar things may be considered separate, while on the other hand significantly different things might be considered the same.

For example,

Moroccan Arabic, Yemeni Arabic, and Lebanese Arabic, are considered to be the same language due to the pan-Islamism religious identity.[6][7][8]

Cultural nomenclature

Main article: Philosophy of language

Names provide us with a way of structuring and mapping the world in our minds so, in some way, they mirror or represent the objects of our experience.

Names, words, language, meaning

Main articles: Proper name (philosophy) and Semantics

Elucidating the connections between language (especially names and nouns), meaning, and the way we perceive the world has provided a rich field of study for

structure of language
.

Folk taxonomy

Main articles: Folk taxonomy and Binomial nomenclature

Modern scientific taxonomy has been described as "basically a Renaissance codification of folk taxonomic principles."[12] Formal systems of scientific nomenclature and

nested hierarchy of internationally accepted classification categories. Maintenance of this system involves formal rules of nomenclature and periodic international meetings of review. This modern system evolved from the folk taxonomy of prehistory.[13]

Folk taxonomy can be illustrated through the Western tradition of horticulture and gardening. Unlike scientific taxonomy, folk taxonomies serve many purposes. Examples in horticulture would be the grouping of plants, and naming of these groups, according to their properties and uses:

  • perennials
    (nature of life cycle);
  • culinary herbs and spices
    (culinary use);
  • herbs, trees and shrubs (growth habit);
  • wild and cultivated plants (whether they are managed or not); and
  • weeds (whether they are considered to be a nuisance or not), etc.

Folk taxonomy is generally associated with the way rural or indigenous peoples use language to make sense of and organise the objects around them.

Bronislaw Malinowski who maintain that names and classifications reflect mainly material concerns, and "intellectualists" like Claude Lévi-Strauss who hold that they spring from innate mental processes.[14] The literature of ethnobiological classifications was reviewed in 2006.[15] Folk classification is defined by the way in which members of a language community name and categorize plants and animals whereas ethnotaxonomy refers to the hierarchical structure, organic content, and cultural function of biological classification that ethnobiologists find in every society around the world.[15]
: 14 

Ethnographic studies of the naming and classification of animals and plants in non-Western societies have revealed some general principles that suggest pre-scientific man's conceptual and linguistic method of organising the biological world in a hierarchical way.[16][17][18][19] Such studies indicate that the urge to classify is a basic human instinct.[20][21]

  • in all languages natural groups of organisms are distinguished (present-day taxa)
  • these groups are arranged into more inclusive groups or ethnobiological categories
  • in all languages there are about five or six ethnobiological categories of graded inclusiveness
  • these groups (ethnobiological categories) are arranged hierarchically, generally into mutually exclusive ranks
  • the ranks at which particular organisms are named and classified is often similar in different cultures

The levels, moving from the most to least inclusive, are:

  1. "unique beginner" — e.g. plant or animal. A single all-inclusive name rarely used in folk taxonomies but loosely equivalent to an original living thing, a "common ancestor"
  2. "life form" — e.g. tree, bird, grass and fish. These are usually primary lexemes (basic linguistic units) loosely equivalent to a phylum or major biological division.
  3. "generic name" — e.g. oak, pine, robin, catfish. This is the most numerous and basic building block of all folk taxonomies, the most frequently referred to, the most important psychologically, and among the first learned by children. These names can usually be associated directly with a second level group. Like life-form names these are primary lexemes.
  4. "specific name" — e.g. white fir, post oak. More or less equivalent to species. A secondary lexeme and generally less frequent than generic names.
  5. "varietal name" — e.g. baby lima bean, butter lima bean.

In almost all cultures objects are named using one or two words equivalent to 'kind' (genus) and 'particular kind' (species).[12] When made up of two words (a binomial) the name usually consists of a noun (like salt, dog or star) and an adjectival second word that helps describe the first, and therefore makes the name, as a whole, more "specific", for example, lap dog, sea salt, or film star. The meaning of the noun used for a common name may have been lost or forgotten (whelk, elm, lion, shark, pig) but when the common name is extended to two or more words much more is conveyed about the organism's use, appearance or other special properties (sting ray, poison apple, giant stinking hogweed, hammerhead shark). These noun-adjective binomials are just like our own names with a family or surname like Simpson and another adjectival Christian or forename name that specifies which Simpson, say Homer Simpson. It seems reasonable to assume that the form of scientific names we call binomial nomenclature is derived from this simple and practical way of constructing common names—but with the use of Latin as a universal language.

In keeping with the utilitarian view other authors maintain that ethnotaxonomies resemble more a "complex web of resemblances" than a neat hierarchy.[22] Likewise, a recent study has suggested that some folk taxonomies display more than six ethnobiological categories.[23] Others go further and even doubt the reality of such categories,[24] especially those above the generic name level.[25]

Names and nouns

Main articles: Name and Noun

A name is a label for any noun: names can identify a class or

places, products—as in brand names—and even to ideas or concepts
. It is names as nouns that are the building blocks of nomenclature.

The word name is possibly derived from the

lexical categories and their function within the context of language,[28]
rather that as "labels" for objects and properties.

Personal names

Main articles: Anthroponymy and Personal name

Human

hypocoristic
names) are informal names used mostly between friends.

Common names and proper names

Main articles:
Proper name

The distinction between

abstract nouns, like "love" and "hate" refer to abstract objects. In English, many abstract nouns are formed by adding noun-forming suffixes ('-ness', '-ity', '-tion') to adjectives or verbs e.g. "happiness", "serenity", "concentration." Pronouns like "he", "it", "which", and "those" stand in place of nouns in noun phrases
.

The capitalization of nouns varies with language and even the particular context: journals often have their own house styles for common names.

-onym nouns

Main article: -onym

Distinctions may be made between particular kinds of names simply by using the suffix -onym, from the Greek ónoma (ὄνομα, 'name'). So we have, for example, hydronyms name bodies of water, synonyms are names with the same meaning, and so on. The entire field could be described as chrematonymy—the names of things.

Toponyms

Main article: Toponymy

Toponyms are

oronymy, the study of proper names of mountains and hills, etc.[30][31][32]

Toponymy has popular appeal because of its socio-cultural and historical interest and significance for cartography. However, work on the etymology of toponyms has found that many place names are descriptive, honorific or commemorative but frequently they have no meaning, or the meaning is obscure or lost. Also, the many categories of names are frequently interrelated. For example, many place-names are derived from personal names (Victoria), many names of planets and stars are derived from the names of mythological characters (Venus, Neptune), and many personal names are derived from place-names, names of nations and the like (Wood, Bridge).[33][34]

Scientific nomenclature

Nomenclature, classification, identification

Main articles: Taxonomy (biology) and Identification (biology)

In a strictly scientific sense, nomenclature is regarded as a part of taxonomy (though distinct from it). Moreover, the precision demanded by science in the accurate naming of objects in the natural world has resulted in a variety of

codes of nomenclature (worldwide-accepted sets of rules on biological classification
).

Taxonomy can be defined as the study of classification including its principles, procedures and rules,

taxa
, based on a particular classification scheme, in accordance with agreed international rules and conventions.

Identification determines whether a particular organism matches a taxon that has already been classified and named – so classification must precede identification.[40] This procedure is sometimes referred to as determination.[35]: 5 

Biology

Main article:
Biological nomenclature

Although

biological nomenclature
. The first botanical code was produced in 1905, the zoological code in 1889 and cultivated plant code in 1953. Agreement on the nomenclature and symbols for genes emerged in 1979.

Astronomy

Main article: Astronomical naming conventions

Over the last few hundred years, the number of identified astronomical objects has risen from hundreds to over a billion, and more are discovered every year. Astronomers need universal systematic designations to unambiguously identify all of these objects using astronomical naming conventions, while assigning names to the most interesting objects and, where relevant, naming important or interesting features of those objects.

Chemistry

Main article:
IUPAC nomenclature

The IUPAC nomenclature is a system of naming chemical compounds and for describing the science of chemistry in general. It is maintained by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.

Similar

macromolecular chemistry.[52] These books are supplemented by shorter recommendations for specific circumstances which are published from time to time in the journal Pure and Applied Chemistry. These systems can be accessed through the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
(IUPAC).

Other sciences

See also

References

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  3. ^ "Nomenclature – definitions from Dictionary.com". Retrieved 2007-10-06.
  4. ^ Nomenclature
  5. ^ Scheetz, George H. 1988. Names' Names: A Descriptive and Prescriptive Onymicon. ("What's In a Name?" Chapbook Series 2.) Sioux City: Schütz Verlag.
  6. ^ Matras, Yaron. 2010. Romani in Britain: The Afterlife of a Language: The Afterlife of a Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 5.
  7. ^ Andresen, Julie Tetel, and Phillip M. Carter. Languages in the world: how history culture and politics shape language. pp. 7-8.
  8. ^ Benesty, Jacob, M. Mohan Sondhi, and Yiteng Huang. 2008. Separate Language Versus Dialect; and Springer handbook of speech processing. Springer Science+Business Media, p. 798-.
  9. ^ Names." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved: 2009-09-23.
  10. ^ Bach, Kent. 1981. "What's in a name?" Australasian Journal of Philosophy 59:371–86.
  11. ^ "Reference." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
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    Science New Series
     174(4015):1210–13. p. 1210.
  13. ISBN 0-913516-02-3
    .
  14. ^ Balee, William 1993. Journal of Ethnobiology 13(1):144–47.
  15. ^ a b Newmaster, Stephen G., et al. 2006. "Mechanisms of Ethnobiological Classifications." Ethnobotany 18:4–26.
  16. ^ Berlin, Brent, Dennis E. Breedlove, and Peter H. Raven. 1973. "General principles of classification and nomenclature in folk biology." American Anthropologist 75:214–42.
  17. ISBN 978-0-226-17334-4
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  18. ISBN 0-691-02034-5
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  19. ISBN 978-0-691-09469-4
    .
  20. ^ Hopwood, Tindell A. 1959. "The Development of Pre-Linnaean Taxonomy." Proceedings of the Linnaean Society (London) 170:230–34.
  21. ISBN 978-0-393-06197-0
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  22. ^ Morris, B. 1984. "The Pragmatics of Folk Classification." Journal of Ethnobiology 4(1):45–60.
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  26. ^ "Online Etymology Dictionary". Retrieved 2008-09-20.
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  28. ^ Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: what is a noun? Retrieved 2009-09-23.
  29. ^ Keats-Rohan 2007, p. 164-165.
  30. ^ Room 1996.
  31. ISBN 978-0-7864-0172-7
  32. ^ Ekwall, Eilert. 1960. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Includes the origin of place-names.)
  33. Van Nostrand
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  34. ^ Powell, Margaret S., and Stephen C. Powell. 1990. "Bibliography of Place-Name Literature, United States and Canada, 1980–1988." Names 38(1/2):49–141.
  35. ^
    Oliver & Boyd
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  36. ISBN 978-0-19-923324-3
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  38. ISBN 978-0-231-06825-3
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  39. ^ Lawrence, George H. M. 1951. Taxonomy of Vascular Plants. New York: Macmillan. p. 3.
  40. ISBN 0-231-06784-4
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  41. ISBN 978-0-12-227165-6
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  42. ISBN 0429821352
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  43. ^ Rozenberg, Gillian 2004. Red Cell Nomenclature. Westmead, Sydney: RCPA Haematology QAP. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
  44. ^ IUPAC. 1979. Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry, Sections A, B, C, D, E, F, and H. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
  45. Blackwell Scientific Publications
    .
  46. ISBN 0-85404-487-6
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  47. ^ available here.
  48. Blackwell Scientific Publications
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  49. ^ IUPAC 1997. Compendium of Chemical Terminology, IUPAC Recommendations. 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.
  50. ^ IUPAC 1992. Biochemical Nomenclature and Related Documents. London: Portland Press.
  51. ^ IUPAC 1998. Compendium of Analytical Nomenclature, Definitive Rules 1997. 3rd edn. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.
  52. ^ IUPAC 1991. Compendium of Macromolecular Nomenclature. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.
  53. Physica A
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Sources

Further reading

  • Scheetz, George H. (1988). Names' Names: A Descriptive and Prescriptive Onymicon. ("What's In a Name?" Chapbook Series; 2.) Sioux City, Ia.: Schütz Verlag.

External links

Look up nomenclature, Nomenclatura, or Nomenclator in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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