[lojban-beginners] Re: I'm... My name's...

[Nathaniel Krause <nathanielkrause@yahoo.com>]

m.kornig@sondal.net wrote:
>  Hi,
>
> Is there a difference in meaning between
> the two sentences {mi'e tim.} and {tim.
> cmene mi}? Are they both correct? Both
> used?
>
> Say you are with your friend and want
> to give her name as well. I guess this
> would be something like {djein. .e tim.
> cmene mi}? Can you do this with {mi'e},
> too, maybe straight forward {mi'e djein.
> .e tim.}?
>
> "What's your name?" would be {ma cmene
> do}. Again the question: can you ask
> about someone's name using {mi'e}, too?
>
> Martin
Interesting questions. {tim. cmene mi} is not grammatically correct because there is no article preceding {.tim.}, but {zo .tim. cmene mi} is the same assertion as {mi'e .tim.}. In terms of emphasis, one might suppose that {zo .tim. cmene mi} is closer to "Tim is my name", rather than "I'm
 Tim".

The word {mi'e} implies the subject {mi}, so it cannot be used to give the names of other people. I'm not completely sure whether {mi'e .djein. .e .tim.} is correct, but I suspect not, since the equivalent {mi se cmene zo .djein. .e .tim.} (I guess the equivalent could be {mi se cmene lu .djein. .e .tim. li'u}, which is not grammatically wrong but doesn't mean what you want).

{ma cmene do} is indeed how you would say "What is your name?", but, along the same lines of what I said previously, {mi'e} cannot be used to talk about someone else's name. You could say {mi'e ma}, though, which would mean "What's my name?"

mu'o mi'e .sen.

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