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de komenstanto, 2012-februaro-26

Mesaĝoj: 83

Lingvo: English

Evildela (Montri la profilon) 2012-marto-01 08:49:09

darkweasel:Strictly kobaji doesn’t mean "to be a guinea-pig", but "to act like a guinea-pig", however in this case it barely makes any difference.
The fact that three different people interpreted that word differently says alot about it ambiguity. It's like saying in English "I guinea-piged in hospital" It sounds like yeah, sure it could mean something, but what exactly? Just because it's grammatically correct, doesn't mean we should use it, as it is too ambiguous. Atleast with words like bluas, there's really not that many things it could mean. Also my understanding is things like "la oceano bluas" mean "The ocean is blue" but according to that rule it would mean "the ocean acts blue"

Perhaps we should all start using kobaji as a verb. Like:

Ne mangxu vian mangxajxon tiel rapide! Vi ne kobaju! Actually that's kind of mojose

darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2012-marto-01 11:35:09

as far as i remember from pmeg, a verbal ending on an adjectival root means "to be x", while on a root meaning a person or animal it means "to act like/as x".

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2012-marto-01 12:29:46

It's all probably a bit looser in practice than any grammatical analysis might suggest.

If Harry Potter waves his wand and turns someone into a pig. I can say Harry porkigis lin - igis lin porko, ne porka.

And if Harry got the spell wrong the transformed person might protest Fuŝulo! Mi volis ĉevali! (esti ĉevalo).

On the other hand Mi porkis je ĉokolado antaŭ la televido would be I pigged out on chocolate in front of the TV (porke manĝis).

Seems to me that La profesoro petis ke mi kobaju en siaj eksperimentoj means estiĝi kobajo, ne kobaja.

There's a children's game in which one person is the wolf and the rest are the sheep. Might not one of the children ask Al kiu la vico lupi - whose turn to be the wolf?

Hyperboreus (Montri la profilon) 2012-marto-01 16:42:51

Forigite

komenstanto (Montri la profilon) 2012-marto-01 18:49:05

Well, even the Reta Vortaro lists two meanings for Kobajo, and one of them is not an animal but a test subject. Since this is also the dual meaning in French, one can assume that I am not specifically referring to acting like an animal, except in the sense of being a test-subject. Since I used it as an intransitive verb, "en la malsanulejo" could be removed, leaving only: "Mi kobajas", the verb "to be a test-subject, to act in that function".

http://www.reta-vortaro.de/cgi-bin/sercxu.pl?ref=eotoolbar&kadroj=1&sercxata=kobajo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is6KDW5Zhd0&featu...

Evildela (Montri la profilon) 2012-marto-01 22:46:25

komenstanto:Well, even the Reta Vortaro lists two meanings for Kobajo, and one of them is not an animal but a test subject. Since this is also the dual meaning in French, one can assume that I am not specifically referring to acting like an animal, except in the sense of being a test-subject. Since I used it as an intransitive verb, "en la malsanulejo" could be removed, leaving only: "Mi kobajas", the verb "to be a test-subject, to act in that function".
Well that is interesting, but it seems to only be used as a noun and as a figure of speech. Kind of how in English we say, "That guy ended up as a lab rat" or "They treat me like a lab rat" I guess your right, technically it's grammatically correct, but even so, there's still a difference between what's grammatically correct and what's understandable. I would express that idea as "mi estis traktita kvazaux kobajo" Sure it's a lot longer but, bam everyone would understand it.

In Esperanto Google we get 99 results for hundas, but over half those aren’t Esperanto words, and the other's seem to be poetic.

So yes, perhaps it is correct, but it's too ambiguous to be used in everyday speech.

komenstanto (Montri la profilon) 2012-marto-02 03:55:22

But I could use these kinds of words in a poem and people would have to think about them harder. I find this issue important, because if we do this with noun-to-verbs, then it breaks down the English sentence structure. I might say

"mi volontulas kiel kobajo por medicino."

I volunteered like a Guinea Pig for medicine. Is that right? can I write:

"mi volontulas kobaje por medicino."

Kobajo as a adverb?

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2012-marto-02 12:09:37

komenstanto:I find this issue important
I don't know about important, but the free combination of roots with parts of speech markers is fundamental to the way Esperanto works.

However not every word in every part of speech form will actually make sense, or be sufficiently clear in its meaning.

Tondri - to thunder, tondra - thundery, tondro - thunder, trondre - thunderously are all immediately comprehensible.

But whilst tuneli ( to tunnel) derived from tunelo (a tunnel) is fine, seĝi from seĝo (a chair) might produce some head-scratching as to the meaning.

komenstanto (Montri la profilon) 2012-marto-02 17:44:31

And you would probably use loki instead right? My own mind would seize the meaning of seĝi before loki. I would think you were "locating" people at a table, like finding them, not placing them. But that seems to be a common Esperantism, and I am interested in common ways of saying things, like "unu la alian" seems very colloquial to me. Loki has a colloquial feeling as well.

komenstanto (Montri la profilon) 2012-marto-02 17:47:39

TatuLe:

I think it was meant as "I am a guinea-pig (a test subject) in a hospital.", and the question was whether it's okay to turn "estas kobajo" into "kobajas", which I would say is grammatically correct.
That is what I think as well. I think the heart of this issue is actually colloquialisms, and they are being sticklers, because kobajas is not colloquial Esperanto.

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