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של sudanglo, 2 בדצמבר 2011

הודעות: 71

שפה: English

erinja (הצגת פרופיל) 8 בדצמבר 2011, 02:35:57

It would have been impossible for Zamenhof to write the 'Universal dictionary' found in the Fundamento without assigning some kind of part of speech to each root, even implicitly. Words have parts of speech, and it would be impossible to define the new Esperanto words using words from existing languages without deciding on the part of speech. Most languages aren't like English, where "comb" can be either a noun of a verb.

(Incidentally there's no need to look at Google Books for that stuff; the Academy of Esperanto has the entire Fundamento posted at its website)

People who call Esperanto's roots, "gender in disguise" are being disingenuous. Every language defines a word as being a noun, a verb, a whatever. This is true even for roots that are incomplete words on their own. You need some basis on which to do the word building, and it seems to be a basic human trait to divide words into actions and things (and other categories).

razlem (הצגת פרופיל) 8 בדצמבר 2011, 03:54:41

cFlat7:Assigning all roots to the same class would lead to extra grammatical endings wouldn't it? E.g. if they were all to be classed as verbs:  

La altanta viranto forkuras elegantante. = The tall man runs away elegantly.
Using verbs, yes, there would be more forms, especially if you want to have a wide range of expression. But I prefer to use nouns, as they are more universally understandable (and require less affixes). The only drawback with nouns is that you'll have to rely more on context to get your point across.

For example:
"Mi pieda al parko" for "I walk to the park."

cFlat7:And of course you'd probably need to leave all the natural adverbs and particles as-is (like 'for', 'se', 'ankaŭ', etc).
Right, this wouldn't apply for function words.

sudanglo (הצגת פרופיל) 8 בדצמבר 2011, 11:38:37

I understand the point that you are making Erinja, but I not sure that it necessitates definitions of the roots as roots.

Zamenhof could have listed manĝi rather than manĝ, and matenmanĝo instead of matenmanĝ. In other words (like modern dictionaries) he could have listed lexical items with terminations to give the primary or base-form meaning.

You only have to read through the dense verbiage of the Word-formation section of PAG and the knots that it ties itself up into, to think that there must be a simpler description of the language, and one that accounts simply for all the cases and not just the majority.

If you start from the notion that 'pov' (without a finaĵo) is a verbal root- ie belongs to a particular grammatical class, then it gets quite complicated to explain a word like 'senpova' (powerless).

This doesn't seem to reflect the ease with which a student of Esperanto would immediately understand this word whilst not having seen it before.

A better theory would explain why 'korekta' often means correct rather than correctional, instead of grudgingly listing it as some sort of exception. Though an English MP with a soft spot for his local dominatrix might yet find it useful in its verb-derived sense.

cFlat7 (הצגת פרופיל) 8 בדצמבר 2011, 13:39:47

Sudanglo, you've been complaining about the current theory and wishing for a better one. But is there such a better theory? Have you yet to reveal to us a grand new scheme?

Miland (הצגת פרופיל) 8 בדצמבר 2011, 15:01:32

The 2nd and 3rd of the 16 rules indicate that nouns and adjectives are distinguished from the roots from which they are formed. The 6th rule doesn't do this explicitly for verbs, but in the Universala Vortaro the roots of verbs are expressed similarly to those of nouns, namely with an apostrophe instead of the ending.

It is therefore theoretically possible to assign to roots a meaning apart from the parts of speech that can be formed from them. However, as Erinja points out, this has not happened in practice; the Universala Vortaro assigned to roots meanings that were those of words that were parts of speech in other languages. Evolution could subsequently give to a root a meaning taken from another part of speech based on it. Thus e.g. manĝ' and pov' can take different meanings depending on whether they are regarded as being verbs or nouns. However, while a root may be associated with different meanings, they are usually found in the same context.

Possibly this sameness of context is the reason that Zamenhof defined roots rather than parts of speech; he wanted roots to be usable in a flexible way for forming compound words, and to allow for evolution in roots by taking on meanings associated with other parts of speech, e.g. that of pov' in taking on the additional meaning "capability" as a noun. If the Universala Vortaro had instead defined povi as fundamental, then the formation of words like senpova could have been made more difficult.

UUano (הצגת פרופיל) 8 בדצמבר 2011, 15:41:03

sudanglo:Perhaps it would help you, UUano, to think of.

Music Maestro!

Igor, see that the girl does not escape. Yes, master.
This is exactly the problem I'm having.

The word "master" implies a relation of dominance and subservience, whereas the word "maestro" does not..and rather means that the designee has attained some level of skill or renown that is deserving of such title.

To say that mastr* is used in the latter sense boggles my mind, but I'm willing to accept that the denotation of the word doesn't match my impression of it.

Were I to say "I have mastered every one of the languages of Europe", I would hope to be understood as saying that I have skill in said languages, not that these are bound to obey my every whim. Of course I would never say such a thing...but you catch my drift, I hope! sal.gif

So I will rephrase my earlier question:

What, if any, is the difference between Mi jam majstris tiun ludon and Mi jam mastris tiun ludon?

erinja (הצגת פרופיל) 8 בדצמבר 2011, 16:41:44

Personally, I don't use mastr/ or majstr/ when talking about mastery of skills.

I use reg/, which is to me a clearer choice. It looks like that root has been used at least since the mid 40's to describe mastery of a skill (in the Tekstaro, the first example of it in this sort of context is "perfekta skribistino devas regi ankaŭ stenografion.")

"Lia rego de tiu lingvo estas tre bona"; "Mi malbone regas tiun ludon"; "Li ne bone regas la akuzativon", etc.

Since reg/ is a verb root, reg/o clearly means the fact of ruling, rather than a person who rules (a reganto). Therefore you could easily say "Lia nerego de la akuzativo" and everyone would consider that to be perfectly correct, unlike the doubt and disagreement surrounding a construction like "lia nemastro de la akuzativo"

Miland (הצגת פרופיל) 8 בדצמבר 2011, 22:30:38

UUano:What, if any, is the difference between Mi jam majstris tiun ludon and Mi jam mastris tiun ludon?
I would say that the first one expresses vanity, unlike the second. It may be possible to say that you have "mastered" something without conceit, but calling oneself a "maestro" seems distinctly un-modest.

sudanglo (הצגת פרופיל) 9 בדצמבר 2011, 10:37:47

Mastri is not inappropiate in connection with language learning.

The beginner is limited to what he knows how to say, he is in a subservient place. The spertulo however makes the language serve his purposes.

Regi seems rather flat, less colourful. Maybe that's just me. Certainly you can say 'tiu meĥanismo regas la intenson de la lumo', and wouldn't use mastri in that context, nor in 'dum la antaŭ-Kristnaska nokto regis silento en la domo'.

sudanglo (הצגת פרופיל) 9 בדצמבר 2011, 11:01:13

razlem: If you say "manĝ is not assigned a part of speech", then there can't be any rules regarding its usage with other roots/affixes
You can avoid 'chaos' by listing 'manĝi' as the primary form - the dictionary entry - whilst not rigidly limiting 'manĝ' to a particular grammatical class.

'Manĝo' can then happily mean a meal without any sense of grammatical conflict.

To say that manĝ is a verbal root, meaning more than that manĝi is the primary word, seems to carry with it the baggage of restriction, with the consequence that manĝo should only mean an 'ago de iu manĝanto' just as 'frapo' only means a blow, an act of striking.

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