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Pronunciation,
orthography, and syntax
Basic medical terminology 2
© Karel Černý 2008
Content
• Orthography, diacritic
• Pronunciation
• Word classes in BMT
• Relations of word classes in BMT
Orthography
• Classic Latin had different orthography
and pronunciation.
• For example: originally only capital
letters were used, “u” was expressed
using “v” (IANVARIUS instead of
JANUARIUS) etc.
• Classic Latin also used diacritic signs
namely macron (vēna). Today macron
is used only in textbooks and
dictionaries. Do not use it in praxis.
Phoenician alphabet
An early Greek inscription from Egyptian Abu Simbel 7th - 6th century BC.
(Source: Johanna Druckner, The Alphabetic Labyrinth, London 1995, p. 53.)
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Alphabet
Roman alphabet (Latin alphabet) is based on Greek which was
created from Phoenician alphabet.
Following words were used in the beginning: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I,
L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, V.
Non native letters: “Z” is not native Latin consonant. It was used for
Greek loanwords containing zeta ζ. “PH”, “TH” and “CH” were used
for Greek loanwords with Φ (phi), Θ (theta) and Χ (chi). “Y” is another
letter influenced by Greek. It is pronounced as [i] in Latin.
“J” was originally expressed by “I” and in central-European
pronunciation often both could be used: iustitia x justitia.
A distinction between “U” (vowel) and “V” (consonant) was introduced
later to avoid confusion.
There was no “K” in the classic Latin, on the other hand “C” was
always pronounced as [k]. Later “K” was adopted for Greek loanwords
and in medieval Latin the pronunciation of “C” was divided to [k] or
[ts].
Pronunciation
• See textbook p. 26.
• Latin orthography is “phonetic” i. e.
“what you see is what you pronounce”.
• List of the most distinct differences
follows on the next slide:
Example
IPA phonetic
pronunciation
Czech equivalent
English regional
pronunciation
saepe, bonae
[e:]
é
/eɪ/ or /iː/
cista,
caeruleus
[ts]
c
/s/
pulcher
[x]
ch
/k/
vēna
[e:]
é
/ɛ/, /eɪ/ or /iː/
agimus
[g]
g
/dʒ/
h
homo
[h]
h
/h/ or /-/
oe (œ)
foetus
[e:]
é
/iː/
qu
questio
[kv]
kv
/kw/
sc followed by [e,i]
ascites
[sts]
sc
/s/
ti followed by vowel and
fractio
[tsi]
ci
/ʃɪ/ (in Czech ši)
Letter
ae (æ)
c followed by [e,i]
ch
ē
(and other vowels
with macrons)
g followed by [e,i]
not precedented by s,x
Examples
ruptura musculi bicipitis
[ruptu:ra muskuli bitsipitis]
lagoena aquae
[lage:na akve:]
caput hominis
[kaput h(!)ominis]
intestinum caecum
[intestinum ce:kum]
fractura carpi
[fraktura karpi]
philosophia, thesis, menorhea
[filozofia, t(h)esis, menorhea]
vagina, fascia, staphylococus aureus
[vagina (not -dʒ-), fastsia, stafilokokus aureus]
Word classes in Basic
Medical Terminology
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Various languages have various sets of word classes.
English recognises following w.c.: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs,
prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, interjections, articles (a/the).
Medical terminology uses only nouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions
and as a semi-independent category also numerals (they behave like
adjectives).
Relation types
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Noun - noun relation (if a noun becomes an attribute of other
dominant noun) Ex.: fracture of bone - fractura ossis. (Dominant is
bold.)
Noun - adjective relation (an adjective is attribute of the noun).
complicated fracture - fractura complicata.
Preposition - noun relation (i.e. a preposition can not be connected to
the noun in nominative grammatical case, it requires using of
accusative or ablative).
Verb - noun relation in medical prescriptions (requires combination of
imperative and accusative of unit or portion).
Noun - noun relation
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The rule is (roughly): the second noun (i.e. the attribute) must be
given in genitive case. Or you could say: the word after the “of” in
English will be in genitive.
Both grammatical numbers could be used (sg. or pl.).
This relation says nothing about the dominant member of the link. It
could be in nominative, if unaffected by the context, but if there is for
example a preposition, then the leading component of the link will be
either in accusative or ablative depending on the preposition.
Noun
adjective
• The dominant component is always the
noun.
• You must extract following information
from the noun: its grammatical gender,
its grammatical case, and its
grammatical number.
• Then you have to apply it to the
adjective. Sometimes this process
results in the same ending (example:
vena saphena), but usually not (vena
lateralis)
Preposition - noun
relation
• Prepositions in Latin are divided into
three groups.
• Majority of preps. is associated with
accusative.
• Minority requires ablative.
• Three prepositions in medical
terminology (in, sub, super) could be
followed either by acc. or abl.
Verb - noun relation
• This case will be explained during the
summer term.