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Re: [ceqli] Re: Christmas

In a message dated 8/9/2005 10:44:20 AM Eastern Standard Time, rmay@hidden.email writes:


BTW, if you're a true Lojbaner,



While you are the first to mention the name, and I do keep up with the language, I've regretted choosing that name for a long time.

I'd really appreciate your input into the whole name problem.  
Assuming that Lojban is like Loglan in certain respects,



Lojban is like Loglan in *most* respects.  Only the words were changed to protect the guilty.  (Basically).

I'm wondering about names, mainly.  
I know that JCB decided that one o'clock was a name, for some reason, and I've often
wondered if that makes any sense at all.  One thing I'm pretty sure of is that one o'clock,
Monday, and January are _not_ names in any useful sense.


What useful sense did you have in mind?  One names things that are unique (or nearly so), and one o'clock, Monday, and January all are unique.  There is only one of each in any given larger unit.  (In fact, I'm surprised no one has named the weeks.)  An even weirder name is "1995", for example.  But it too is unique.  Consider how they're used in English:  They do not take the definite article "the" (except under unusual circumstances).  "In January" vs. *"In the January", or "January is a long month" vs. *"The January is a long month".  

Another problem is that Canis Familiarus seems to be a name, but kanin doesn't.  

I agree.  I'm not sure why, though.

Or am I
just trying too hard to systematize something unsystematizable?


Not at all.  You're trying to make sense out of chaos.  Everything is 'systematizable'.  But some collections have more order, more system, than others.  

I recommend (all of but specifically here) Chapter 24.0 on names in Rick Morneau's Lexical Semantics:
http://www.eskimo.com/%7Eram/lexical_semantics.html

His is my favorite language, but he's still working on building the vocabulary right now.  

stevo