From: Shanna Hollich
Subject: Re: What is vocology?
To: vocalist
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

--- Elizabeth Finkler wrote:
> And maybe the Latin scholars on the list can explain
> why it isn't
> "voxology"?

I may not be a Latin scholar, but with 2 years of
study under the eminent Mrs. Campbell, I can answer
your question, :).

It can be difficult to grasp without a rudimentary
knowledge of Latin, but I will try.

Latin nouns are declined, meaning they are able to be
put in all their forms and uses, etc. The Latin
language has 5 noun cases, Nominative (used primarily
when the noun is the subject of the sentence),
Genitive (used to show possession), Dative (for
indirect objects), Accusative (direct objects), and
Ablative (used in various prepositional phrases).
There are other uses for each case other than the ones
I have in parentheses, but those are the primary ones.

The Latin word for voice is actually given as vox,
vocis. Vox is the nominative singular form of the
word, and vocis is the genitive singular form. When
putting the noun into all of its cases, singular and
plural, one starts with the letters voc and then adds
the appropriate endings. (Voc is the base of that
word. It's found by dropping the genitive singular
ending.) Basically, when a Latin word gets
transferred into English (or another language), the
base of the word will remain the same, and then
suffixes, prefixes, etc. will be added.

I hope that wasn't too confusing. If you'd like me to
clarify anything, feel free to ask.


=====
Shanna Hollich - Shadow123-at-poe.org
Yahoo! Messenger: Shadow123
AOL IM: RHFoJo
ICQ UIN: 26674614
NO !D N B- T C~ O++ CV
__________________________________________________
http://im.yahoo.com