[CPN] FW: Revision of proposed changes in Art. 21

[de Queiroz, Kevin]

Of course we could have an arbitrary rule that the species name must agree with the last clade name ("address") in a series, or the first, or N - 1, but there really isn't any point to doing this given that the combinations are no longer being treated as binomina (wherein the species name is an adjectival modifier of the genus name and therefore must agree with it in gender, number, and case)--they are just species names with clade "addresses".

Kevin
________________________________________
From: David Marjanovic [david.marjanovic at gmx.at]
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 5:00 PM
To: de Queiroz, Kevin
Subject: Re: [CPN] Revision of proposed changes in Art. 21

> Remember also that these  combinations of species uninomina with with
 > clade names are not formal "new combinations" as in the rank-based
 > codes.  Using one does not constitute a nomenclatural act. They are
 > simply, as some people have called them, "clade addresses"--that is,
 > ways of indicating clades to which the species in question belongs.
 > In this context, it makes no sense to change the spelling of the
 > species uninomen to agree (in gender and/or number) with its "clade
 > address", because the uninomen is not an adjective or a possessive
 > modifying the clade name.  Instead, as indicated in Art. 21, it is
 > being treated "as a name in its own right."

This is a good point. Just make it explicit.

> In addition, one can list as  many of these "clade addresses" as one
 > wishes, and it will often be impossible for the uninomen to agree
 > with all of them.

This, on the other hand, is not an argument. Under the rank-based codes,
genera and subgenera have different genders; in such cases, at least in
zoology, species names agree with genus names. Example: *Rana
(Pelophylax) ridibunda* for lumpers, *Pelophylax ridibundus* for
splitters. Of course, under the PhyloCode there is no "more important
rank", but we could theoretically require agreement with the last name
in the clade address (or whatever).