TECH: QUERY re cmene

[Mr Andrew Rosta <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

This is a question concerning the semantics of cmene.

(1) In my view, in English most words (but in particular common
nouns) have a sense, which is (usually) a category. The sense
is then quantified to get a referent. Names are different: they
have no senses. Rather, they are listed in an onomasticon that
gives direct access to referents. So, referring by using names
does not involve quantification. (I ignore here iffy cases like
names of days of the week & months of the year.)

(2) From earlier discussion on this list I understand that
cmene do have senses, the sense of a cmene being "the category
of entity named ____". Is it the case, then, that cmene are
always used with implicit or explicit quanitification? That
is, should we understand _la lojban cu bangu_ to mean "some
entity named 'Lojban' is a language", as opposed to "every
entity named 'Lojban' is a language"?

If this is the case, I am confused as to why _la_ belongs
to the same selmaho as _le_, _lo_, _loi_ etc. It seems to me
(whose understanding of Lojban is superficial) that the
function of _la_ is to act as a word-class identifier (i.e.
to show that the word is not a gismu, lehavla or lujvo) and
that semantically _la lojban_ is the equivalent of an
unquantified gismu brivla. If I was rightly informed about
the meaning of cmene, then - it seems to me (same caveat)
that the following ought to be possible:

    mi cu la .and.   "I am an-entity-named-And
    le la .and. cu prenu "What is hereby described as
                          an-entity-named-And is a person"
    loi la .and. cu prenu "The mass-of entities-named-And
                           is a person"
Am I right - is that what _loi_ is? - Anyway, the point is
that any descriptor / selmaho LE word should be able to
go here.
When I say that I reckon these things should be possible,
I mean that given the semantics one would expect them to
be.

(3) In both English & Lojban, some referents of names seem
sort of quantifiable - e.g. _Lojban_ (or la fraktur.) or
_homosapiens_. We can say of writing on a piece of paper
_This is Lojban_ or _There is some Lojban on this piece
of paper_, which seems different from _Lojban has 3
word classes_ or the like. I think that in the case of
English what is happening is that in _some Lojban_,
_Lojban_ has been converted into a common noun such that
its sense is the referent of the name _Lojban_ and is
thereby quantifiable.
My impression is that in Lojban one might well say
_mi cu ciska la lojban_ meaning "some Lojban".
So the point here is that this is another way in which
cmene could be quantified, and this way conflicts with
the way outlined under (2).

I would appreciate enlightenment on these points.

----
And.