Native Esperanto as a Test Case (...) (Esperanto) Language Learning Forum

Native Esperanto as a Test Case (...)
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Language Learning Forum : Esperanto

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Colin R.
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Australia
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Speaks: English*, Esperanto

Message 33 of 43

23 November 2011 at 10:28am | IP Logged

Iversen wrote:

The most common compound tenses would have been a compound past tense and maybe a
plusquamperfectum if Zamenhof hadn't disallowed them (NOT *mi havas/havis farita). The combinations with
the auxiliary verb esti plus a a passive participle have a passive meaning, and it is apparently too complicated
for the speakers to use combinations with esti and the active participle to reestablish an active meaning

I don't see why distinguishing between an active and passage participle (as happens in Russian, Polish and
Esperanto) is more complicated than distinguishing between active and passive by means of different auxiliary
verbs (as happens in English, French and German).

Quote:

except as a parallel to the English continuous verbal forms. So the simple past tense has to bear the
whole burden of references to past actions and states. But this is OK - one of the signs that you are getting
accostumed to Esperanto is that you stop lamenting about the lack of diversity in the past tense forms. .

If you do want diversity in past tense forms, diverse forms are there for you to use. For instance the word
"dirintus", which I found in an essay by Jorge Camacho. It is a shorter equivalent of "estus dirinta" -- "would have
said".

Edited by Colin R. on 23 November 2011 at 10:30am
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Colin R.
Diglot
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Australia
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Speaks: English*, Esperanto

Message 34 of 43

23 November 2011 at 10:39am | IP Logged

Iversen wrote:

I actually did differentiate between the two - even to the extent that I didn't write about
the 'past' participle and the 'present' participle as you mostly do in the Romance and Germanic languages, but
about the 'passive' and the 'active' participle. The reason is of course that both participles have forms for the
past, the present and the future.

If you are in the philosophical mood you can actually wonder why the compound perfect and pluperfect have
become to popular in the Romance and Germanic language because they must be the result of a quantum jump
in the interpretation of an already fairly complicated construction. It is clear that "I am coming" means "I am in-
the-state-of-walking", and Esperanto extends this to the past and future (mi estis veninta/estas venanta/estos
venonta .. and occasionally other combinations to the chagrin of purists).

The "purists" you speak of are assuming a rule that doesn't actually exist.

Quote:

Well, Zamenhof built a system based on 'esti' plus one of the two participles, but deliberately excluded
the use of 'havi' as an auxiliary verb. Esti + active participle (-nta) could without further ado assume the usual
role, which in English has become a mainstay of the verbal system (the 'continuous' tenses), and 'esti' + passive
participle (-ta) could equally easily become a passive construction. But there was no perfect or pluperfect in the
system to compete with the simple past tense on -is.

Perfect:

Mi estas veninta. (I have come.)

Pluperfect:

Mi estis veninta. (I had come.)

Past continuous:

Mi estis venanta. (I was coming.)
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Fasulye
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Message 35 of 43

23 November 2011 at 11:28am | IP Logged

Iversen wrote:

Well, Zamenhof built a system based on 'esti' plus one of the two participles, but deliberately excluded the use of 'havi' as an auxiliary verb.

And native esperantists and advanced esperantists won't have any problem with that. It is just one of those quirks that can make beginners stumble.

Yes indeed, Zamenhof's verbal system is based on "esti" (= to be) and not on "havi" (to have) as an auxiliary verb. The compound tenses are often avoided. I personally just take the language Esperanto as it is without questioning its grammar structures.

Fasulye
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Iversen
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Message 36 of 43

23 November 2011 at 11:32am | IP Logged

Colin R. wrote:

I don't see why distinguishing between an active and passage participle (as happens in Russian, Polish and Esperanto) is more complicated than distinguishing between active and passive by means of different auxiliary verbs (as happens in English, French and German).

Actually I cut a section about Slavic past tenses out of my post because I realized that I then would have to go into details about the historical background for the morphology of the modern forms - or I would have to check my Bulgarian grammar (as Bulgarian has kept the historical auxiliary verb which the other languages dropped).

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Fasulye
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Message 37 of 43

23 November 2011 at 11:39am | IP Logged

Colin R. wrote:

Perfect:

Mi estas veninta. (I have come.)

Pluperfect:

Mi estis veninta. (I had come.)

Past continuous:

Mi estis venanta. (I was coming.)

These Esperanto forms are grammatically correct but they are not used while speaking Esperanto or corresponding in Esperanto. I also rarely see them in written Esperanto texts published for example in an Esperanto magazine. In every Esperanto course you learn how to build such verb forms but in the practise of the language you will probably not use them.

Fasulye

Edited by Fasulye on 23 November 2011 at 11:44am
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Volte
Tetraglot
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Switzerland
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Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
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Message 38 of 43

23 November 2011 at 7:18pm | IP Logged

Fasulye wrote:

Colin R. wrote:

Perfect:

Mi estas veninta. (I have come.)

Pluperfect:

Mi estis veninta. (I had come.)

Past continuous:

Mi estis venanta. (I was coming.)

I use them in correspondence, and occasionally even in speech. They're not frequent, but they're not confined to literature.

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Colin R.
Diglot
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Australia
Joined 4752 days ago
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Speaks: English*, Esperanto

Message 39 of 43

23 November 2011 at 10:01pm | IP Logged

It says something important about Esperanto as a language that it is feasible to discuss the frequency of
compound tenses in Esperanto conversations, correspondence and literature.

As Arekkusu wrote earlier in this thread...

Quote:

when I studied Linguistics, it was generally accepted that a language was not a natural
language until it had L1 speakers, but now it seems that a critical mass of L2 speakers would have the same
effect.

The word "natural" may be debated... In any case, Esperanto is a living language in the sense that it has an
active community of users, and therefore a continuing history of usage.

The appearance of native speakers has not made Esperanto into something qualitatively different than it was
without native speakers.

Rather, there are native speakers because Esperanto became a living language earlier, thanks to that
"critical mass of L2 speakers".

Edited by Colin R. on 23 November 2011 at 10:04pm
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Deerhound
Triglot
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England
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Message 40 of 43

19 June 2012 at 8:12pm | IP Logged

This is fascinating but shows a problem with Esperanto: it was constructed to be a standard, universal language. Languages naturally change, but to serve its purpose Esperanto must be 'anchored'. It MUST be prescriptive, or it will change and diverge and this defeats the object.

A bit like how someone living in England might speak in a regional dialect in everyday life but is expected to write in standard British English for, say, academic work, there must be a standard Esperanto - the Esperanto - to which people must refer and from which people must not deviate if it is to be used as intended.

For example, kaligrafio exists to mean 'calligraphy' where there should be only belskribo - a compound word formed in such a way as the language was intended to have words formed for it. That is part of the point of Esperanto: many words can be formed from the relatively few roots and understood by anyone.

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