Mesaĝoj: 31
Lingvo: English
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2011-decembro-15 21:12:25
But the Esperantist in question could also have come up with perpleksigilo or perpleksigaĵo or cerbumilo/aĵo or mistifikaĵo, and possibly some other combinations I haven't thought of.
You raise a very interesting question as to how frequently, in conversation in Esperanto, one would encounter compound words not listed in one of the larger dictionaries.
I have no idea.
All I can say is that as one progresses in Esperanto one gets a feel for the combinatorial possibilities in the language and creates compounds almost as naturally as one might create sentences.
Our largest dictionary would certainly not list all the compound words which would be immediately intelligible in context.
You might not find the word aŭtejo in a dictionary.
But if I said 'Mi konstruigis novan aŭtejon flanke de la domo', an Esperantist would immediately understand you had a new garage (or car port) built at the side of the house.
Miland (Montri la profilon) 2011-decembro-15 22:57:09
Vestitor:..how much 'free-form' compounding takes place as opposed to using recognised compounds?Here is a relevant quote from an article by the late great Claude Piron:
"..many new compounds are made on the spur of the moment, for instance: ili buŝplenas pri homrajtoj, which I heard in the mouth of a Dutch participant to a meeting in Zagreb, Croatia, 'their mouth is full of speech about human rights', 'they constantly pay lip service to human rights' (buŝ, pronounced as Bush, 'mouth', plen- 'full', pri 'about', hom-rajtoj, 'human rights'; the pronunciation of rajt- 'right' is close to that of its English translation)."
erinja (Montri la profilon) 2011-decembro-15 23:40:48
I agree with sudanglo that it's difficult to say how often I use these constructed words. They are just so common, you use them without even thinking about them, without differentiating between them and non-constructed words. You might as well ask an English speaker "How often do you use the past tense?"
When you're experienced, they come out automatically. You don't form them consciously 90% of the time, unless you're translating a text and trying to come up with the best way to say something.
We use "on the fly" constructed words in many cases where English wouldn't have a single word to describe something. For example, you might ask someone, "Ĉu vi jam pri/zorgis la sek/ig/it/aĵ/ojn?" - Did you already take care of the things that were dried? (could be dishes, clothing, food - anything that you might have dried, and might need taking care of).
Or "purigiloj" (pur/ig/il/oj) - cleaning supplies.
darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2011-decembro-16 06:17:14
erinja:"buŝ" isn't pronounced like "bush"; it's pronounced like "boosh". The u in "bush" isn't present in Esperanto.Somehow the only difference I can hear in these words (even after checking their pronunciation in an online dictionary) is the length of the vowels. What am I, a poor non-native speaker of English, missing?
Miland (Montri la profilon) 2011-decembro-16 10:27:21
darkweasel: the only difference I can hear in these words .. is the length of the vowels. What am I, a poor non-native speaker of English, missing?Claude Piron may have been thinking about the way that he pronounced "bush".
But it may well be that to Piron, differences in the length of the vowel didn't matter, as he considered them akin to different styles of speaking the language. An indication of this occurs in his video (from 4:56). Observe how he mimics the English ĝin with a shorter vowel.
From that point of view, pronouncing buŝ' as "bush" might be done by a minority, but it need not be incorrect.
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2011-decembro-16 10:43:31
There's a phonemic contrast in pair, 'would' and 'wooed'.
Neither of these sounds is quite the 'u' of the best accent in Esperanto, but the u-sound in 'wooed' is somewhat closer.
Miland (Montri la profilon) 2011-decembro-16 12:55:03
sudanglo:In my English .. the 'u' in 'bush' is closer to the centre of the mouth..Good point, though Piron's different "i"s in Esperanto would be used with different areas of the mouth as well.
darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2011-decembro-16 13:11:27
sudanglo:the 'u' in 'bush' is closer to the centre of the mouth (in the forwards/backwards direction)Hm, ok - however in my opinion both are perfectly fine Esperanto "u"s.
BTW, what’s up with the forum database today (and yesterday)? It keeps telling me that there are problems, it took me numerous attempts to send this message...
erinja (Montri la profilon) 2011-decembro-16 14:50:10
darkweasel:If someone were to pronounce all Esperanto u's like in "bush" (or book, put, etc), that person would have an obvious accent. I'm inclined to call it a "foreign" accent, though that term doesn't make a lot of sense in Esperanto's case. But foreign in the sense that it differs very clearly from Esperanto's standard "international" accent, the accent with which you can't tell what country someone comes from. Someone who consistently used the u like in "bush" would possibly even be difficult to understand.sudanglo:the 'u' in 'bush' is closer to the centre of the mouth (in the forwards/backwards direction)Hm, ok - however in my opinion both are perfectly fine Esperanto "u"s.
I can imagine how the word "kuru" would sound with two of those u's. It wouldn't be easy to recognize out of context.
"Bush" has the IPA vowel ʊ
Esperanto usually uses the IPA vowel u
Wikipedia says that the ʊ sound is used in the German word "Schutz".
Wikipedia says that the u sound is used in the German word "Fuß"
darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2011-decembro-16 15:40:36
erinja:Hm ok, I understand. Until now I wasn’t even aware that these are different in any other way than vowel length (which doesn’t matter in Esperanto).
Wikipedia says that the ʊ sound is used in the German word "Schutz".
Wikipedia says that the u sound is used in the German word "Fuß"