GregorHagedorn - Tue Dec 21 2004 - Version 1.18 Parent topic: LinneanCore I believe two kind of nomenclatural relations among homotypic names exist: 1 Those detected at a later time (e.g. two names are based accidentially on the same type specimen or higher taxa on the same type name). This information is usually expressed as nomenclatural status or assessment (see LinneanCoreNomenclaturalStatus) 2 Those explicit in the creation of a name.
For the latter, I propose to record the information commonly expressed in "tax. nov., stat. nov., comb. nov., nom. nov." (where tax. nov. may be "gen. nov.", "sp. nov.", etc.) as an enumeration. In addition, this should also cover the cases of autonyms, sanctioning and validation. No conventional abbreviations exist for these cases. Sanctioning and autonyms are never published but implicitly created, validation technically creates a new species although part of the definition refers to older invalid publication attempts. Proposed enumeration:
tax = Creation of a name at any rank, intended to represent a taxon that is new to science and based on an newly designated type. -- Note: The new name may turn out to be homotypic with another name, but in all cases this would be accidential rather than intentional.
comb = A new combination of a name into a different parent taxon that causes a name change. -- Note: Examples are combining a species epitheton with a different genus or an infraspecific epitheton with a different species. Placing a genus in a different family, or a species in a different infrageneric taxon is not considered a nomenclatural act. The latter case may change some forms of the name (those citing the infrageneric hierarchy) but it does not change the canonical taxon name.
nom = The name is a nomen novum (= replacement name, = avowed substitute). -- Note: Following current practice in biology (botany at least, also zoology?) this type includes the creation of a replacement name both to repair an accidential later homonym, and to prevent the creation of a later homonym as a result of combination into a different genus.
Point for discussion: most "nom" relations are homotypic, but the botanical code allows heterotypic replacement names. Should this be distinguished as separate codes? How is it in zoology?
stat = change in rank of a taxon name, like a subspecies elevated to species rank, or a series to section.
combstat = a new combination with a different name and change in rank of a taxon in a single nomenclatural action -- For example, a subspecies in genus "Aus" is combined with genus "Bus" and the rank elevated to species at the same time.
validation = the name is a validation of invalidly published names (sometimes expressed by "ex" in the author citation string). -- Note: If a name is validated only by typification, "ex" is not applicable (Wolf-Henning Kusber). Also, it is possible that a publication attempts a validation, but fails to fullfill the requirements of the code for validation. Similarly to the publication of new taxa, the creation type would still be "validation", but the nomenclatural status after under current opinion may still be "invalid".
auto = the name is an autonym, implicitly created through the creation of another taxon name -- For example, if for "Poa alpina L." a new subspecies "Poa alpina ssp. stefanovii Fiserova" is described, the autonym "Poa alpina L. ssp. alpina" is implicitly created as well. It is not published anywhere, and has no author on the subspecies (and neither author nor publication of Fiserova are given). Note however, that the publication date is that of the "publication in which they were established, whether or not they appear in print in that publication" (ICBN 32.6), i.e. the author and the date of an autonym citation do not match!).
sanct = (Applicable only to Fungi:) The name is based on a prestarting-point name and sanctioned by the ICBN because is has been used in specific publications by Fries or Persoon.
Questionable further types:
ad interim = nom. provis.: Special case of using intentionally a Nomen invalidum. Probably identical to the following codes(?):
nom. ined., comb. ined. = an explicit indication that a name in the place of its publication is not meant to be the publication of a name. For example, if a new name is already known (through herbarium usage or personal communcations) but the formal publication not yet issued, another publication may be faster and require a reference to the new species already in a checklist or key. In this case, the secondary publication that intends to reference the unpublished name, might add "nom. ined. author" after the name, to clarify that the intention is not to publish, but reference a name.
Creation types may later turn out to be illegitimate (botany), or invalid (botany) = unavailable (zoology). In botany autonyms become invalid when it is detected that the name that implicitly created the autonym is invalid; there validity depends on this other name (currently no relation type for this present yet??).
The sanct code is probably the only exception (I am uncertain about whether auto may be invalid). However, if either proof exist that the name has been erroneously accepted in a usage context, or if the editors of the nomenclatural database believe this to be likely, it should be recorded in a nomenclatural database. This way both the usage history can be tracked, and the fact that the name has been recognized as illegitimate can be communicated. The nomenclatural status is recorded separately LinneanCoreNomenclaturalStatus).
Minor problem: in fungi, due to the existence of anamorphs, it is recommended to use "anamorph spec. nov." as a special form of "sp. nov." (compare ICBN, Recommendation 59A). -- I am not sure whether in the context of this enumeration, a separate category is needed or not. It may be sufficient to delegate this information to a verbatim or free-form text element.
For all creation types, except for the first, a basionym or replaced synonym relation with another nomenclatural object exists, through which the type specimen is defined (compare LCProtonymDiscussion). Only objects with creation type "tax" have their own nomenclatural type specimen or type name.
Wolf-Henning notes: This is not true, if tax is invalidly published, it has formally no type, the type is linked only to the validating name.
Gregor: From a data management standpoint I see no reason to delete the originally given type information from a name object that is later detected to be invalid. I think what you mean is that the type information has no meaning, e.g. when searching for the earliest homotypic name. But I think rather than demanding that invalid names do not inform about their intended type, you can say that you search for the earliest valid homotypic name.
(Gregor, continued:) I assume these types name-types/creations types are exclusive, so a single relation pointer is enough. In LC 0.1.5 Rich called this pointer "Protonym" (it has a ref attribute pointing to the id of another record).
-- Main.GregorHagedorn - 02 Nov 2004
JMS: Creation type is type of events, not type of name. So I don't think that it fits scope of LC; perhaps can be covered by TCS. Keep It Simple and Stupid (KISS). -- 03 Nov 2004
Gregor: I believe the categories expresses a number of properties about the nomenclatural object, so it is not just an event type. Perhaps creation type is a misnomer? Perhaps let us try to separate the issue of calling this "creation type" from the issue of assigning names to categories - and by doing so being able to interpret what role base-name link (Protonym in LC 0.1.5) has. The latter could be called something like "BasedOn". My major problem is that the information about the creation-type and the actual BasedOn reference reflect on each other, but are independent. I may know the name is based on another name, but may not yet know which type it is (although I could probably figure it out then). More problematic, in our own data we usually know something is a combination or nomen novum, but often do NOT have the relationship. To my understanding this is not possible to express in TCS. -- 3. Nov./16. Dec. 2004
Gregor: What am I after? The categorization should explain which role the nomenclatural base-name relationship - if present - would have. I think this means it should NOT be a property of the relation itself, because I may be able to say what the role would be, without being able to create the relationship (because the other LC-record that would need to be referred to does not exist, or current knowledge is insufficient to choose from multiple ambiguous ones.
What I propose here is largely based on current practices in nomenclature. I am thinking about capturing the "nom. nov." etc. information that accompanies the publication of a scientific name. At least in botany this is required: you must by some means - although not necessarily through fixed abbreviations - express your desire to create a name to do so effectively. Can someone clarify the zoology position?
I then propose to extend this also to autonyms and validation. Note also that Jerry's LinneanCore tries to capture IsAutonym and IsNovum and Combination information in separate elements - I propose to combine the exclusive statements using an enumeration.
(This information would be combined with the pointer information in some other field indicating a related name. Jerry Cooper proposed in an old exchange in 2002 the name "BasedOn" for this, which I second here.)
Information that is implicit in such a "kind-of-name-category" (if not "creation-type"...):
Is this a combination where the protonym authors need to be in ()? Note that in botany the presence of combination authors already informs you about this, but this is not the case in zoology!
In which record can related information about the type specimen be found? This does not mean that type information must or should be available only be going to the base name, but if information is missing at the current name, and it is a combination we know that the type information is there. For replacement names or validations, it may be in the base name or not.
Which assumptions can be made about the relations of the ranks of the two related records?
What is the relation of the publication place and the author? For example, I would assume "auto" implies that the publication place and publication authors are not the authors on the name. Perhaps this needs discussion, but the authors of the name must remain those of the name the autonym is based upon and I would consider it logical that the publication data of the record would record the publication that created the autonym by creating another taxon that triggered the autonym process.
Questions:
Are the creation or whatever "types" listed above really exclusive, i. e. can any name be assigned to one and only one category?
Or are categories missing?
Or can a name belong to multiple categories?
What about he validation (= ex-author) question above?
2. Name for this categorization: Does anybody has an name for a better categorization concept? * Is it NameType? Wolf-Henning Kusber notes that the use of "type" was confusing to him, since he thought of nomenclatural types. Should Mode or Kind-of be used? * I read from James's comments that the event-natural that seems to be implicit in "creation" causes confusion. We use the name "creation type" in the DiversityTaxonomy model but I welcome any better name! * Sally Hinchcliffe informs me that in IPNI the information about "comb. nov.", "nom. nov." is part of "record type" (only available in recent records, and IPNI treats stat. nov. as a special case of comb. nov.). * Paul Kirk writes (from email): "So, is not the term you are looking for a 'nomenclatural event' (NomenEvent)? The BasedOn (with or without the 'Is') would appear to mean that something has gone before and in a nomenclatural context for a sp.nov. this is not the case (hence the 'nov'). I can see the need for an 'BasedOn' in Index Fungorum. I have resisted changing the database structure for fear of making the web site fail so where I need extra links in a record I have added these to existing text strings with an appropriate separator..." -- 17. Dec. 2004 * Kanchi Gandhi writes (from email): "How about: "published as" or "status" (e.g., sp.nov., var.nov., comb. nov., stat. nov., nom. nov.). The term "status" may also include valid/invalid and legitimate/illegitimate." -- 20. Dec. 2004 * Gregor: my current shortlist: NameCategory? PublicationType?PublicationStatus? 3. I am worried about the possibility that in botany a nomen novum replaced synonym may be heterotypic (compare LCNomenNovumDiscussion, Jerry's comment #3 at the bottom). I do remember this case vaguely (I am not a nomenclature expert and have not yet encountered this). However, it seems to be the only case where the type-concept changes among all the nomenclatural changes above. 4. Validation in botany is discussed in http://www.bgbm.org/iapt/nomenclature/code/SaintLouis/0049Ch4Sec2a045.htm: "When the various conditions for valid publication are not simultaneously fulfilled, the date is that on which the last is fulfilled. However, the name must always be explicitly accepted in the place of its validation. A name published on or after 1 January 1973 for which the various conditions for valid publication are not simultaneously fulfilled is not validly published unless a full and direct reference (Art. 33.3) is given to the places where these requirements were previously fulfilled." -- How about Zoology?
Gregor Hagedorn -- 3/17. Nov. 2004 -- On Dec. 10 2004 Wolf-Henning Kusber, BGBM Berlin revised the proposal in the form of a Word document and improved it significantly. I used his annotations to update the page - many thanks! -- On Dec. 21, Franz Schuhwerk (München, Germany) reviewed the list, many thanks! -- Gregor Hagedorn, 21. Dec. 2004
Regarding the relation between type and name, Wolf-Henning discusses (by email in German, here my summary) that we need to be careful about distinguishing information asserted in the publication (e.g. about a designated type specimen) and information that becomes part of the nomenclatural type system. Only the types of botany.valid names are relevant for nomenclature. 1. Genus1 species1 Author1 1958, status: "nom. inval. (no latin Diagnosis)" 2. Genus1 species1 Author2 1960 (validating previous name by adding diagnosis and referring to earlier publication; status: bot.valid = zoo.available Name)
Wolf-Henning writes: Formally Name 1 is not a "scientific name" and the type designated has no meaning under ICBN. Name 2 may contain the same information and designates the type only be direct reference to the publication of Name 1 (German: "intendierter Typus"). The specimens in both database records may be identical, but formally the specimen is only the type of Name 2. One important conclusion is that because of the ambigouos status of Name 1 (source of type information as publication, but not scientific name with a type itself), the type information should probably be available directly in Name 2 (i.e. duplicated), rather than being available only through the reference to Name 1. Local database design can differ from data exchange, but the intended behavior in data exchange should be defined. -- During validation, other cases may occur: the original invalid Name 1 may miss the type, or have several types without identifying the holotype. In all these cases, the information in Name 2 is the only relevant type information. Also Wolf-Henning writes: "historical name often have no type, but are still valid. Not every name has a known type."