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"What is this?"

In the LE entry for "tomeni" there is this example sentence:
Dasu basa tomeni = What is this?

Since the question word takes the place of the answer in Latejami, and an appropriate answer could be "This is a table" or "This is a book", which are translated as "Dasu bujisa basi" or "Dasu fima basi", analogous to

   Latejami is a language.
   Dasu tejama Latejami. [L4]

wouldn't the Latejami equivalent for "What is this?" be "Dasu tomena basi?"

Question words come first in English, obscuring subject/predicate noun distinctions with copula "to be", but the Latejami subject seems to be the equivalent of "this" (basi), rather than "what" (tomeni).

I haven't figured out what the difference is between "Dasu basa tomeni?" and "Dasu tomena basi?", but the second one seems more proper here.

stevo