razlem:

Fenris_kcf:

Razlem:But Esperanto is still not an easy language. It may be easier to learn than English or French, but some qualities of the language are quite complex, like the '-n'ding.

So placing the suffix "-n" on an accusative object is "quite complex" - aha...

What are the exact rules governing its usage, and why are those rules the way they are? Why 'n'? Why at the end of the word rather than the beginning or middle? Questions only Zamenhof could answer, methinks.

After studying the basic structures of a fair amount of different languages, it becomes pretty clear how complex these different systems can be. With natural languages, the explanation to the above questions are answered simply with 'evolution', with theories provided by the studies of historical linguistics that show growing complexity (or a reversion to simplicity) within a language family. But Esperanto did not grow in the same way- these factors, the 'n'ding, were decided by one person in an instant. They are reflections of the languages known by their creator. In this case, Zamenhof borrowed a grammatical element with thousands of years of development behind it without explaining why (or if he has, I would very much like to read the explanation).

Zamenhoff's thoughts on the -n'ding.
"Several of the reforms adopted by Ido were themselves proposed at various times by Zamenhof, especially in 1894 when he proposed eliminating the accented letters and the accusative case (referring to it as "superfluous ballast"[3] )".

Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ido

lgg:people no longer write.

I rather think that the liveliness of this Forum disproves that.

sudanglo:

lgg:people no longer write.

I rather think that the liveliness of this Forum disproves that.

Unless you use some fancy mobile device you usually type on this forum. Unless you going to accentuate the lack of 'write' / '*scribe' difference as yet another English disadvantage

sudanglo:'Alies' is quite common and useful. I think I have heard in conversation Kies mantelo estas ĉi tiu? Mies. Perhaps also 'onies'. Anybody else heard that?

I regard all of these forms as being "evitindaj" (worth avoiding). Alies is an attractive word but PMEG has an excellent description of why it's a bad idea to use those forms, on this page.

If one truly wanted to use a word like "alies", a grammatically correct option would be "aliies" instead of *alies, which would give the same meaning without breaking into the closed system of the correlative table.

Bemused:Zamenhoff's thoughts on the -n'ding.
"Several of the reforms adopted by Ido were themselves proposed at various times by Zamenhof, especially in 1894 when he proposed eliminating the accented letters and the accusative case (referring to it as "superfluous ballast"[3] )".

From what I've read, it's generally accepted that Zamenhof's 1894 language was purposely designed to be bad, so that it would have no chance of acceptance in the community. I never knew what to think about that idea, until last summer when I saw some of the documents pertaining to the 1894 project, in a book containing reprints of old Esperanto magazines. One of the magazines contained the text of the proposal, with the proposed changes, so that the Esperantists of the time could have a look at it before voting on accepting or rejecting.

It was awful. It made the vocabulary significantly more complicated, it did away with the correlatives, it did away with the circumflexes, there were a whole host of changes that made the language more difficult and less clear, rather than more clear. It wasn't hard to believe that Zamenhof released those reforms as a package that was rigged to lose. I do not sincerely believe that Zamenhof thought that it was an improvement to do away with correlatives and make Esperanto's grammar significantly more Romance-based.

Razlem:In this case, Zamenhof borrowed a grammatical element with thousands of years of development behind it without explaining why

I feel quite sure that in the past, I've recommended to you the book "Lingvo kaj Vivo". Unfortunately you have to learn to read Esperanto to read it. Zamenhof is no longer around to explain his reasoning but documents he wrote during Esperanto's development have been preserved, and you can watch the language changing, through various drafts. "Lingvo kaj Vivo" has a section on Esperanto's development, and it discusses what Zamenhof's reasoning may have been as he went through various drafts. Perhaps it was the Indo-European influence that made him make -n a suffix rather than a preposition or an infix or a prefix, but he most certainly did not start out writing the language witha n unquestioned supposition that he would include an accusative marker. I can say this with relative certainty because the earliest drafts of Esperanto did not include an accusative marker; I seem to recall that word order was more rigid.

After working with his language and writing some translations, poetry, and sample texts, he changed the language to include the accusative.

Disclaimer - when I talk about changes to Esperanto in the text above, I'm referring to the time when the language was still a project in development, not a living language.

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Fenris_kcf:"IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, THEN CREATE YOUR OWN CAR!"

Of course it's absurd to tell someone to redesign their car. You've used this car analogy before, and I'm tempted to see you as a troll on this reform topic, but at any rate, the car analogy doesn't really hold up. You can do whatever you want to your car that you've bought. You can build a brand new car or modify and existing one. But even if you modify your car, you don't go around harrassing people who are happy with their cars the way they are, bugging them about changing their car.

If your car's steering wheel pulls to the right, and most people who have this car are happy with it, then go buy a different brand.

If you don't like Esperanto, pick another language and learn it. Or go to a general language forum and bellyache there about how rigid Esperanto is. Or design your own language based on Esperanto (but don't come here talking about it, because this is a site for learning Esperanto, not for promoting reform projects).

Do whatever you want in your own home. Slice and dice Esperanto however you please to make your own Esperantido. But don't be upset when people dismiss your ideas out of hand with out even listening, because Esperanto speakers have had it up to here with reform projects.

People LOVE grammatical cases!
Sure - because it's much easier and much more natural to use the case endings than those silly and awkward prepositions, that chop the sentences into much more pieces than necessary. And, by the way, they are simply ugly and completely illogical in use. You do agree with me, don't you? No?? But... but why?!?!

Well, when I started to learn English, it was approximately how I felt and thought about the missing cases and present prepositions: Estonian nearly does not have prepositions and has at least 14 cases (some say 15 or even more). It was not an easy task at all for me to get used to the English prepositions, especially because no clear and logical rules exist which preposition in English corresponds to which case ending in Estonian. And strict word order rules also were pretty hard to understand (I still make word order mistakes in English and use wrong prepositions)...

Speaking Estonian (which has cases and lacks prepositions), English (which lacks cases and has prepositions) and Russian (which has both), I have come to a conclusion, that prepositions are not more difficult (or easier) to use than case endings - they are just different ways to express the same things. Is 'na libro' really easier to understand than 'libron'? Or vice versa? Definitely not... If one understands, what the heck this 'direct object'-thing is, the Accusative case and it's ending '-n' in Esperanto surely will not be a problem at all. Ĉu ne?

erinja: "Lingvo kaj Vivo"

Is it available for free online? A Google-search renders only expensive hard copies.

EDIT: Just found an English translation of exactly what we're looking for:
http://donh.best.vwh.net/Languages/akuzativo2.html

razlem:What are the exact rules governing its usage, and why are those rules the way they are? Why 'n'? Why at the end of the word rather than the beginning or middle?

Because it's an ending of accusative in German... Which doesn't make it less out-of-place in analitic case structure of Esperanto.

robinast:
Speaking Estonian (which has cases and lacks prepositions), English (which lacks cases and has prepositions) and Russian (which has both), I have come to a conclusion, that prepositions are not more difficult (or easier) to use than case endings - they are just different ways to express the same things. Is 'na libro' really easier to understand than 'libron'? Or vice versa? Definitely not...

Finally a wise voice! This could be a nice end for this useless discussion.

erinja:Of course it's absurd to tell someone to redesign their car. You've used this car analogy before, and I'm tempted to see you as a troll on this reform topic, but at any rate, the car analogy doesn't really hold up. You can do whatever you want to your car that you've bought. You can build a brand new car or modify and existing one. But even if you modify your car, you don't go around harrassing people who are happy with their cars the way they are, bugging them about changing their car.

You remember that I wrote the following?

Fenris_kcf:(OK, not a really good comparison, since nothing is "bought", but I hope you get my point on this)

Well, looks like you didn't get my point...

erinja:If you don't like Esperanto, pick another language and learn it. Or go to a general language forum and bellyache there about how rigid Esperanto is.

What in the world makes you think I don't like Esperanto? Please stop that bite-reflex

erinja:Or design your own language based on Esperanto (but don't come here talking about it, because this is a site for learning Esperanto, not for promoting reform projects).

Wait... The lernu-forums have no place for discussions about Esperanto?

I was trying to communicate, that changes in a language are normal and occur all the time. Now I have to face ridiculous accuses that I dislike Esperanto... Looks like some people paint their world only with black and white.