[CPN] Revision of proposed changes in Art. 21

[James Doyle]

>  > 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".
>
>As I said, this is a good argument. However, as far as the rank-based
>codes are concerned, adjectival species names/epithets don't have a
>default form that could be used without having to make a decision. If we
>want such a default form to exist, _we_ have to put that into the
>PhyloCode. Well, if so, then how? As I explained at the beginning of
>this discussion, we could go with the version in the original
>publication, or we could go with currently prevailing usage. The
>original can be very hard to find, and is often different from the
>prevailing usage of the last 100 or 200 years, so we'd probably go with
>current usage. But if so, we run into trouble where different forms are
>in current widespread use, and sometimes have been for decades. So I
>suggested we give up, don't define a default form, and follow the
>rank-based codes in not treating the endings as part of the names.
>
>Thus:
>
>1) Yes;
>2) no, make all agreement optional.

But the statement in the draft implies that agreement IS optional! 
It says "may be changed," not "must be changed"!

Jim
-- 
James A. Doyle
Department of Evolution and Ecology
University of California
Davis, CA 95616, USA
Telephone:  1-530-752-7591; fax:  1-530-752-1449