On Friday, December 28, 2012 05:08:41 la gleki wrote:
> Any worm-like creatures, I believe.
> I remember that children can sometimes name worms "snakes". The issue is
> somewhat related.
> And this is not the problem of Lojban.
> Can we call snakes reptiles? They used to be called reptiles.
> Some new school textbooks have already started to deny that, however.
The problem with "reptile" is that the traditional circumscription is
paraphyletic. If you call snakes and crocodiles, but not birds, reptiles, you
run afoul of the dinosaurs. Birds are a branch of coelurosaurs, which are
dinosaurs, and dinosaurs and crocodiles are both archosaurs, whereas snakes
are not. But as long as "respa" has a consistent definition, there is no
Lojbanic problem, even if it is paraphyletic.
The problem with "curnu" is that it has an ambiguous definition or two
competing definitions. It's okay to have a fuzzy definition (there's no clear
boundary between "blanu" and "crino"), but it's not OK for a brivla to have
two different meanings, "worm" and "invertebrate". Lobsters are invertebrates
but not worms; slowworms are worms but not invertebrates.
Pierre
--
gau do li'i co'e kei do