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LESSON 3

STRUCTURE OF ANATOMICAL TERMS. NOUN AND ITS GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES

In this lesson you will:

•Become familiar with structure of anatomical terms.

•Learn grammatical categories of Latin nouns.

•Learn how to determine the stem, the gender and the declension of nouns.

This lesson is divided into the following sections:

I. Anatomical terminology.

II. Structure of anatomical terms.

III. Grammatical categories of a noun.

IV. Gender

V. Number

VI. Case

VII. Dictionary form of a noun.

VIII. Declension

IX. Stem of nouns

X. Exercises.

XI. Vocabulary

I. ANATOMICAL TERMINOLOGY

Anatomical terminology is a system of terms used in Anatomy. The revision of modern anatomical terminology was initiated in 1887. More than a hundred years later the new Terminologia Anatomica - International Anatomical Terminology was finally accepted by the International Federation of Association of Anatomists (IFAA) in 1997. Anatomical terminology is the foundation of medical terminology and Latin is the international anatomical language. Only

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Latin is the international basis for creating equivalent terms in other languages. English is not the basis for terminology in other languages.

There is only a very little Latin grammar necessary to dissect anatomical terms. One needs only know about nouns and adjectives, and even then only two cases in the singular and plural. The two cases are Nominative (subjective) and Genitive (possessive).

Noun is a name of a thing: digĭtus (finger), costa (rib) etc.

Adjective is a word expressing a quality of a thing: major (large), longus (long), frontālis (frontal).

II. STRUCTURE OF ANATOMICAL TERMS

The anatomical term is a word used to name a definite unit or structure of a human body. Anatomical terms may consist of one, two, three, four and more words (up to 8).

1. One-Word Terms

They consist of one noun in singular or plural:

Costa (rib), costae (ribs)

2. Two-Word Terms

They may consist of:

a.two nouns in singular or plural: corpus vertěbrae (body of vertebra), corpŏra vertebrārum (bodies of vertebrae)

b.a noun with an adjective: vertěbra thoracĭca (thoracic vertebra)

3. Three-Word Terms

They may consist of:

a.three nouns: ligamentum tubercŭli costae (ligament of tubercle of rib)

b.a noun and two adjectives: processus articulāris superĭor (superior articular process)

c.two nouns and an adjective: sulcus nervi spinālis (furrow of the spinal nerve)