the TRIMERAL SYSTEM in BIOLOGICAL TAXONOMY - universala ...

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3 - A Wholesome Threesome
The time-honoured custom of signalling the genus
name as a noun (by its capital letter) and the
species name as an adjective (with lower case
letter) may be considered the core around which the whole
of taxonomy is constructed. There is no intention of doing
away with this vested building block — in spite of the fact
that “genus” is an extremely vague and highly subjective
concept 10 19
— but instead adding a third element in between
the two already used, namely a taxon symbol. The
elements of this new trimeral sequence of “Genus-Taxon-
Species” will be referred to respectively as: dependent -
relator - governor.
Thus Acer campestre gets to be Atsero S kampara,
and Lithobius forficatus becomes Litobio S tondila.
At first glance, this may look like a mere cosmetic operation,
but under the following rules the reader will see that the new
relator becomes a powerful tool for easy naming and
recognition of taxons on higher and lower levels.
Instead of the customary Latin suffixes for
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indicating the taxon level (-formes, -ales, -acea, -
idae, -inae...) now a convenient relator is placed
in front of the name — whether written/spoken in full, or in
the abbreviated form mentioned under Rule 17. It carries
no full stop.
10 We trust the CBC-procedure of Rule 2 will bring better agreement and
more stability about generic names, through its automated “majority
vote”.