CHAPTER P-3: Characteristic (Functional) and Substituent Groups

This chapter discusses the endings, prefixes, and/or suffixes attached to a parent hydride name that specify particular characteristics of a molecular structure. Unsaturation in acyclic and alicyclic parent hydrides and hydro derivatives of parent hydrides having the maximum number of noncumulative double bonds are essentially nomenclaturally equivalent and are treated together in this chapter. The suffixes and corresponding prefixes attached to a parent hydride representing characteristic (functional) groups are introduced. Although strictly speaking, ions and radicals do not fall within the concept of functionality ionic centers and radical centers are treated as characteristic groups, i.e., by suffixes and prefixes, and are introduced in this chapter. This chapter also deals with functional parent compounds, i.e., compounds with retained names implying the presence of a characteristic group and having hydrogen atoms on its skeletal atoms or having a characteristic group that forms a functional modification.