[lojban-beginners] precise definition of cmene

[melissa@fastanimals.com]

_Lojban_For_Beginners_ informs me thusly:

> cmene are typically understood to label one particular thing. Just as in
> English, if I say Mary, I mean one particular person called Mary at a
> time, no matter how many people there are in the world called Mary; so
> in Lojban, meris. can only refer to one person. This means that cmene
> normally do not stand for classes of things (like person, dog or
> computer) or for relationships between things (like loves, gives or is
> inside).

I also learned that la is an article for names and le is an article for
other stuff.

Then I encountered this example sentence:

> la tuitis. cipni la serinus.serinus.kanarias.  
> Tweety is a bird of species Serinus serinus canaria.

"la serinus.serinus.kanarias."?  It takes the "la" article, and is formed
like a name.  But in what way does this not stand for a class of things?

There is a passing reference to "mass names" which don't stand for a
particular thing.  Is this an example of that?

I am not seeing a crucial difference between Latin names like
serinus.serinus.kanarias and common names like dog/gerku.  What's up with
this?

The original goal was for me to assert that our dog is a mutt.  My husband 
said it was as simple as

la dinas. gerku la mutt

I objected on the grounds that mutt couldn't be a cmene and wasn't in the 
correct form for a gismu.  Upon exploration, we discovered what to us 
appears a point of confusion.

-- 
Melissa H.
Dogmom to Deena the wonder dog
Mother to Nicholas, born 11/24/2002