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What is the purpose of "mem" in the following sentence?

Arktischgeist-tól, 2015. január 5.

Hozzászólások: 6

Nyelv: English

Arktischgeist (Profil megtekintése) 2015. január 5. 16:56:56

I saw this sentence on Kurso de Esperanto:

"Ĉiu homo amas sin mem." Translated as "Every person loves herself (or himself.)

Why is mem used? Is "sin" not enough? Is it incorrect to say only "Ĉiu homo amas sin?"

nornen (Profil megtekintése) 2015. január 5. 17:01:44

Arktischgeist:I saw this sentence on Kurso de Esperanto:

"Ĉiu homo amas sin mem." Translated as "Every person loves herself (or himself.)

Why is mem used? Is "sin" not enough? Is it incorrect to say only "Ĉiu homo amas sin?"
Why is mem used? For emphasis.
Is "sin" not enough? Syntactically it is enough, but apparently it was not enough for expressing the author's emphasis.
Is it incorrect to say only "Ĉiu homo amas sin? No, it is not incorrect.

sudanglo (Profil megtekintése) 2015. január 6. 12:17:21

Whilst sin focuses on the recipient of an action, mem directs attention to agent.

Mem-amo - self-love; sin-ofero - self-sacrifice.

Question: does ili lavis sin mean ili lavis unu la alian or ĉiu lavis sin mem?

vikungen (Profil megtekintése) 2015. január 6. 14:17:35

sudanglo:

Question: does ili lavis sin mean ili lavis unu la alian or ĉiu lavis sin mem?
I would guess it would most often be used as washing themselves, but it could probably mean both things. In Norwegian we would say:

De vasker seg
Ili lavas sin

Totally similar, and at least here it would leave who is washing who ambiguous, but in most cases it would mean the latter. If I were to mean the former I would say, like you said: ili lavas unu la alian.

nornen (Profil megtekintése) 2015. január 6. 17:52:43

sudanglo:Whilst sin focuses on the recipient of an action, mem directs attention to agent.

Mem-amo - self-love; sin-ofero - self-sacrifice.

Question: does ili lavis sin mean ili lavis unu la alian or ĉiu lavis sin mem?
What has your post to do with the question?

"mem directs attention to agent"?
La knabo staris respektege, kvazaŭ li staris antaŭ la reĝo mem.
The mem refers to la reĝo and not to some agent (which you be li=la knabo if any).

Mem doesn't have anything to do with redirecting the reader's atterntion anywhere. It simple means "this one and no-one/nothing else". Cf latin ipse, German selbst, Spanish mismo, French même.

sudanglo (Profil megtekintése) 2015. január 7. 10:57:29

Nornen, the poster asked Why is mem used? Is "sin" not enough?. My answer was in that context.

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