>> 1. *Averostra* is linguistically inaccurate; "Avirostra" is >> correct, as the stem of _aves_ is not _ave-_ but _avi-_. > > Actually, no. _Avis_ belongs to the mixed declension, which means > it belongs to the consonantic declension in the singular and the > _i_ declension in the plural. The stem is _av-_ in the singular > and _avi-_ in the plural. Therefore, the accusative and ablative > singular are _avem_ and _ave_ (rather than _-im_ and _-i_ as in > the _i_ declension), but the genetive plural is _avium_ (rather > than "avum" as it would be in the consonantic declension). It seems from your message that Averostra is orthographically correct, right?.
Right... except that... Latin did have a tendency to reduce the most unstressed vowels to _i_. This is why _manu-_ and _-bus_ gives _manibus_, why Maniraptora isn't wrong*, and why there are _genetivus_ and _genitivus_.
Still, however, it wasn't like English, where _all_ unstressed vowels have a strong tendency to merge. Jaime was talking about English when he wrote this about the similarity of _ave-_ and _avo-_:
I didn't actually say it _was_ "ancestral snout," just sounding "like" it [...].
That was a misunderstanding on my part, because, well, because German doesn't merge unstressed vowels in recent loanwords.
===========* Well, the _-a_ is. Either simply form the plural of _raptor_, which is _raptores_, or create an adjective in the neuter plural to agree with Animalia, which would be _Maniraptoria_.