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--- In ceqli@yahoogroups.com, John Schilke <jfs.md@...> wrote: > > I have to agree that, the confusion of "Swiss cheese" > notwithstanding, zo seems redundant. I'd stick just with ti. > John Schilke, MD > jfs.md@... > In a way, it is indeed redundant. Let me summarize the situation as I see it: 1. Names are, and should be, a separate category. Thing is, the category is potentially infinite. 2. The basic morpheme shape, nCnV, should not be lightly violated. Hence, I opt for no special shape for names (like Loglan has), but the same shape. 3. Given # 2, names have to be marked as such. Currently, there are two ways: The the-like particle "ti" the suffix -zo 4. Zo doesn't work well for phrase names, like the United Nations. Ti is fine: te behanfa ze haym And in case there's doubt about where the name ends, the ti can be closed with a beti ti behanfa ze haym beti And ti works fine with any single-morph or single-compound name ti japan, ti jan, ti bil 5. The rub, as I see it, comes in these instances: ti franhaym bi ti fran sa haym. France is a french country. ti kebeke bi ti fran sa haym. Wait, that actually does work okay, sort of. I was expecting a confusion between "France" and "a French country." But if "sa" is considered to be required to separatate a name from what it modifies, there's no real problem. 6. Okay, here's the real rub: How do we derive a non-name morpheme from a name? That's where I got zo from in the first place. I agree that my japanzobol, japanzojin, japanzohaym paradigm is not necessary, and can be replaced by ti japanbol, ti japanjin, ti japanhaym, but whereas Japanese (language) and Japan (the country) seem like proper names to me, a Japanese (person) somehow doesn't? Am I right about that? An additional problem is that while the ti collapses ja and pan into a single word without constituents, that is, 'ti japan" does not mean "go-bread", it shouldn't be taken as collapsing japanhaym into a single morpheme, because haym still has its usual non-name meaning. And given that 'ti's scope can't be shown to be limited easily, there's that glitch there. Also, there are a lot more 'things', like mountains, rivers, planets, counties, cities, neighborhoods, regions, galaxies, etc., and things I haven't thought of yet So I went with 'zo', which collapses the compound before it into a name, and which can then act as a single morpheme and combine with what follows into a new morpheme. What would you say to this? Eliminate 'ti' entirely, and replace it with 'zo,' and permit 'bezo' to _open_ a phrase name ? behanfa ze haym zo or bezo behanfa ze haym zo That would permit me to use zo for the reasons above, and also have a way of designating phrase names. I opt for not using ti..beti, partly because it violates my sense of propriety to have a be- element without its counterpart, and also just to keep it one-syllable to keep names short. Also, z doesn't interfere with the final sound of any morphemes as much as b would.