Re: TECH: QUERY re cmene

[jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU]

Mr Andrew Rosta <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK> writes about the semantics of
names (cmene) and of "la", and asks for clarification.

It will be helpful to take for an example a predicate name.  Let's
choose "tirxu" = tiger.  Normally this is an ordinary predicate. But in
"name context" it is a predicate meaning (as And. says) "x1 is a thing
which is named (whatever)" contrasted to "x1 is a (whatever)" or to
"x1 is named x2" (that is, "se cmene").

How do you recognize "name context"?  I  notice the <BAI> "me'e".  I
would say that this is the "name tense", e.g.

        ko'a me'e tirxu
        [He] is Tiger

This is similar to "he is called Tiger" except the latter is better
rendered as "ko'a se cmene la tirxu".

Then I would interpret "la" as an abbreviation for "le me'e", e.g.

        la tirxu == le me'e tirxu

As And. points out, it should be possible to use any determiner with
the name tense in place of "le", except you don't have the one-word
abbreviation of "la".

                -- jimc