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Fundamento question

di Bruso, 25 novembre 2011

Messaggi: 43

Lingua: English

Bruso (Mostra il profilo) 25 novembre 2011 01:36:07

Exercise 7 in Zamenhof's Fundamento de Esperanto:

I don't get the sentence "Resti kun leono estas
danĝere". Why isn't it "danĝera"? This is the exercise where he introduces the adverbial form, but why should this be an adverb? "To remain with a lion is dangerous." I don't see any translation where it should be "dangerously" instead. Am I missing something?

erinja (Mostra il profilo) 25 novembre 2011 01:51:56

A lion is dangerous:
Leono estas danĝera. Adjectives (-a) describe nouns

To stay is dangerous:
Resti estas danĝere. Adverbs (-e) describe verbs.

In "Resti kun leono estas danĝere", it's an -e because it's staying with a lion that is dangerous. The whole point of the sentence is not that lions are dangerous (in that case, why mention "resti"?). The point is that staying with a lion is dangerous, so we use -e.

-a describes a noun.
-e describes a verb or a phrase.

razlem (Mostra il profilo) 25 novembre 2011 03:36:16

Shouldn't it be restante?

Mustelvulpo (Mostra il profilo) 25 novembre 2011 04:28:10

razlem:Shouldn't it be restante?
No. In English you could equally say either "Resting with a lion is dangerous" or "To rest with a lion is dangerous" but most other languages, including Esperanto, prefer the infinitive form.

drinkulo (Mostra il profilo) 25 novembre 2011 08:18:49

Mustelvulpo:
razlem:Shouldn't it be restante?
No. In English you could equally say either "Resting with a lion is dangerous" or "To rest with a lion is dangerous" but most other languages, including Esperanto, prefer the infinitive form.
You can use restante, this way:
Restante kun leono, mi estas en danĝero
or
Mi estas en danĝero restante kun leono

Also using the adjective danĝera:
Restado kun leono estas danĝera

Chainy (Mostra il profilo) 25 novembre 2011 09:14:58

Mustelvulpo:"Resting with a lion is dangerous" or "To rest with a lion is dangerous"
resti = to stay, to remain.

ripozi = to rest.

sudanglo (Mostra il profilo) 25 novembre 2011 10:32:35

Razlem, one uses the adverbial participle form to establish temporal relations.

Fin-trinkinte mian kafon mi ekstaris kaj forlasis la matenmanĝan tablon. Finished my coffee, then got up.

Trinkante mian kafon, mi legis la matenan ĵurnalon. Reading the paper and drinking the coffee go on at the same time.

The infinitive just names the action without specifying any temporal relation.

erinja (Mostra il profilo) 25 novembre 2011 11:50:07

Translate "restante" as "while staying" to get the full impact of why it's incorrect to use it in the way you suggested, Razlem.

razlem (Mostra il profilo) 25 novembre 2011 16:24:45

Ah, ok. Thanks all rideto.gif

Bruso (Mostra il profilo) 28 novembre 2011 01:09:42

OK, I found that I'm not the first to wonder about this sentence.

(See under "adverbial overload")

Esperanto Idiosyncracies

one usage which disturbs me is the use of adverbs to describe subjects which are not explicitly stated, or are infinitives or subphrases. The former is just plain illogical; a not-explicitly stated subject is still a subject and demands an adjective. As for the latter, an infinitive example from the Plena Manlibro de Esperanta Gramatiko is "Resti kun leono estas danĝere.". To me such subjects seem more like nouny things, wanting adjectives, not adverbs.

Yep, "to remain with a lion" is definitely a noun phrase.

The use of the adverb in Esperanto in phrases such as 'danci estas facile' (literally 'to dance is easily') is idiomatic and illogical but is probably due to the influence of Slav languages. It ignores the substantival character of the infinitive

Does anyone know enough about Slavic languages to know if this is true? I know Zamenhof's father was a native Russian-speaker (or Belarusian, which wasn't always considered a separate language in those days).

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