By analogy with the oxoanions of sulfur, H2TeO3 would be named?
1 Answer
Tellurous acid. The salts would be called tellurite.
When an element has two oxidation states (valencies) the lower one has an -ous ending and the higher one an -ic ending.
The salts of these acids are called -ite and -ate respectively.
Sulfuric acid
Sulfate
This used to be common also with metal ions:
Iron(II) used to be called ferrous
Iron(III) used to be called ferric
There is a problem when there are more than two possibilities. In this case the prefixes hypo (=under), (hy)per (=above) could be used, like with the oxo-chlorin anions:
The official names for these are now:
monoxo-, dioxo-, trioxo- and tetroxo- chlorate.