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- "Quid tibi est nomen?"
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Would "quid nomen tibi est?" be possible? Why exactly is not the verb at the end?
Yes, it's possible because what the important thing it's you use a question intonation. You also could say "Quid est nomen tibi?" and this is the most common way to say it.
718
Thank you, I was wondering because "quid est nomen tibi" is what I learned in school ages ago!
The verb is not at the end because this is a question, not a statement. In all questions, the verb appears much earlier in the sentence.
Also, while SOV (subject object verb) is the most common syntax in Latin, "esse/to be" is a copula, not an active verb. As such, it takes a complement rather than an object. SVC (subject verb complement) is quite common as it helps disambiguate subject from complement.
Just a note: You too use the SOV to compare copula/regular verb order. (reference to your other comment). And you use SVC, when you told me it was not a complement, there's no complement here.
You were true, but when we compare, the SOV is the best way to explain...
"Why exactly is not the verb at the end?"
-SOV is most common, but it's not mandatory
-Here, it's a question. The verbs in question are closer from the beginning of the sentence, usually. (for instance Quid est...)
-When the verb is "to be", (a copula), it is found more usually in the middle of the sentence (or sometimes at the beginning).
You should read this entry regarding the use of "quod nomen" against "quid nomen". https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/viewtopic.php?t=62864
Why is the dative case of the personal pronoun used here? Is this a fixed expression?
More or less. Another way to see it is "What name do you have?" since esse + a dative pronoun can mean a person has something. Tibi est frater means You have a brother.
the dative here is used as a dative of possession :)
latin does this sometimes*: you could see a sentence like "the book is for/to you" (liber tibi est) instead of "the book is yours" (liber tuus est). a sentence like that with a dative of possession essentially means "you have the book"
*I'm not exactly sure how common the dative of possession actually is in latin :/ or if it's more common than just using a genitive. but I've seen it quite often :)
- 232
Quid est nomen tibi? Speakers of Irish will be familiar with this construction. "Cad is ainm duit?" is word for word "What is name to-you?" (the last word, duit, is a prepositional pronoun formed from do (to) and tú (you) to make duit (to-you*.
"Quid est nomen tibi?" is something I remember learning from Wheelock's Latin ages ago.
As it's a common sentence, it's almost an expression, so what would the most common to say it. Let's imagine Latin is not a dead language, how should we say "What's your name" to a Roman girl to sound natural?
"What is X to you?" is asking the personal connotations and values you associate with something. Although it can also literally mean "How do you personally define X?" and shades of meaning in between. It depends on what X is.
For example, imagine a child's drawing. Now imagine you're showing it to someone and you ask "What is this to you?" Possible responses include:
"It is nothing to me." (Meaning they have never seen it before and for all they care you can throw it away.)
"I did that when I was five years old."
"My daughter made that when she was four." (If the person gently takes the paper from you and looks at it with a soft smile, this thing has sentimental value to them. They are probably going to keep it somewhere safe.)
It can also literally mean "Tell me your definition of X." For example, "What is love to you?" might be answered with "Love is accepting a person as they are and valuing their happiness."
So "What is a name to you?" is something like "What value do you put on a name? How much do names matter to you? How do you use names in everyday life?" It's somewhat practical, somewhat philosophical.
Would "Quid es tibi" correct, if the noun "namen" is implied (said in the previous sentence for instance)?
I don't hear an aspiration in the q in quid, but I hear an aspiration in the t in tibi!
In general, aspiration doesn't really matter in Latin, unless you're talking about the combinations ph, th, or ch.
What do you mean by "doesn't matter"? If it's not a big matter to discuss or if it was just random in old times for Latin speakers to whether produce aspiration or not?
What I think he means is that while an educated speaker (i.e. one familiar with Greek) would most likely have consciously aspirated the t in a word like thema, Latin itself did not systematically have word pairs with different meanings distinguishable only by the presence or absence of aspiration -- in other words, the t / t(h) difference was not phonemic (as, say, the unvoiced t / voiced d distinction would be in English: tip versus dip).
That the tibi in the exercise is pronounced with an aspirated t has to do, I think, with the fact that the sentence is read out by a speaker whose first language is English, one in which aspiration of initial t is part of the regular sound system. Had the speaker been, say, French, Spanish, or Russian the initial t would almost certainly not have had this quality.
I don't think "t" was aspirated (unlike English), I think you mean the "h".
If you're using the familiar "tu" (tibi) form, wouldn't you already know their name?
- 2061
'Tu' is not familiar in Latin, merely singular; by the time T/V distinctions had developed, the people using them were no longer speaking Latin.
- 196
Wait, so 'tu' is not familiar, it's just singular? So what's 'vos'? I thought that was unfamiliar/formal, or is that more of a plural 'you'?
There is no familiar vs formal in Latin, just singular and plural. "Tu" is the singlar "you" and "vos" is the plural "you" and that's all there is to it.
There's no familiar "tu" in Latin.
And in languages where you use a familiar "tu", French, Spanish, etc, you can use it and ignore their name.
I didn't seem to have that option, but I'll look for it next time. This is in the desktop web client.
tibi is the dative, not the genitive, so it can move around a little bit and still be natural. Literally, "What to you is the name?" or "What is the name to you?" and other variations that Latin allows for but English does not.
Yes, "nomen". Unfolding the question form into statement form:
What is your name? ==> Your name is what?
Quid tibi est nomen? ==> Nomen tibi est quid?
Just be aware that "tibi" is the dative "to you" and not the possessive or genitive "your".
- 909
Simon to my understanding "your name" would be the subject but you have tibi in this sentence. so nomen would be the subject but tibi would be Dative... in English it perhaps would be translated to what is the name for you but I am not an expert I may be wrong.
This wordorder and translation sound strange to me. Why not "Quid nomen tuum est?" ?
Probably because that's not how the Romans would say it, even if the way they say it sounds strange to us. In fact, a lot of sources give slightly different word order ("Quid est nomen tibi?", "Quid tibi nomen est") but are more or less the same phrase. It means "What name do you have?" if that makes it any easier.
- 909
nicbeth. quid nomen tuum est fits more into my feeling how I wanted to translate or understand it... but it has been a long time ago when I learnt some Latin.so I really do not know which one would be more correct.
Yes. Literally "What to you is the name?" It's the dative of possession rather than the genitive.
- 67
Quid tibi nomen est? This is what we used to ask to our comrades in the first Latin class But it was sixty years ago!!
- 2061
'Quid' is the subject, not 'tu', so it is third-person. 'Quid est nomen' is the bare sentence, to which you can parachute in 'tibi' pretty much anywhere.
Questions move words around. The subject is "tibi nomen", not "quid".
- 2061
Please would you explain your reasoning. Both 'quid' and 'nomen' can be both nominative and accusative, but here they are connected with the copula 'est', so they are both nominative. So why choose 'nomen' over 'quid'?
The subject is not "tu", it's "tibi nomen". Your name is what? What is your name? Not "Your name are what? What are your name?"
- 718
If we translate this word for word, "quid est nomen tibi" becomes "what is the name of you?" Here we can see that "of you," tibi, is just clarifying "the name." So we are directly asking about the name and not the person, hence est instead of es. Hope that helps!
- 718
You're right, and I realised I had the order of cases switched around in my head right after I hit post but then I couldn't find my own post to edit it! But yes, fortunately swapping that "of" for a "to" doesn't completely mess up the example!
- 976
I came looking for the comment that said: "What is your favourite colour?" and other movie references, but this is a very serious comment section with a lot of useful information, so I actually ended up learning something.
