I had no clue what the "kobaji" sentence meant. I knew that kobajo meant guinea pig, and in English if someone said they were a guinea pig for something, I would know what they meant. But saying "kobaji" in Esperanto is foreign to me, and it took me ages to work out the actual intended meaning of the sample sentence - even after quite a few messages in this forum discussing it.

So in fact there is a limit to the amount of nouns that can become verbs.

That means in fact that there is a list of nouns that have entered into colloquial usage. I have heard bluas as one. Since this is only word-of-mouth from other Esperantists, and the rules say differently, I must assume there is at least a book of colloquial Esperanto.

Ah, I found it:

http://www.amazon.com/Being-Colloquial-Esperanto...

komenstanto:Ah, I found it

I have that book, and it's just about every day conversation topics in Esperanto and how to approach them most naturally.

But kobaji... just doesn't make instant recognizable sense. Does it's equivalent exist in other languages?

Every Esperantist I know would just say "agas kvazaŭ ..."

There's only so far one should stretch words... after all it's about understanding one another. Which is why Esperanto tends in everyday conversation stick to the basic tense system.

komenstanto:So in fact there is a limit to the amount of nouns that can become verbs.

That means in fact that there is a list of nouns that have entered into colloquial usage. I have heard bluas as one.

The limit is one of intelligibility. Or to put it another way, is there something in the real world that the verb in question could label.

In general, it has little to do with a colloquial/informal use of the language versus a formal one.

So tabli (from tablo) and seĝi (from seĝo) are not used, whereas fumi (from fumo) and tuneli from (tunelo) are used.

Incidentally, bluas is an example of an adjective becoming a verb, not a noun becoming a verb.

K, on the question of the difference between loki and lokigi, you can study this yourself by searching the corpus at Tekstaro.com.

My impression is that in many contexts the two forms can be used inter-changeably. Correct me if you think that is wrong.

However, perhaps when then is no question of agentive intervention 'loki' rather than lokigi would be the preferred form.

Some thing normally immovable is more likely to be lokita (ŝia apartemento estas lokita en la kastelo).

komenstanto:So in fact there is a limit to the amount of nouns that can become verbs.

The limit isn't in the fact of nouns becoming verbs. The limit is found in what makes sense, because we use logic to determine the meaning of a word that has changed form from what we're used to seeing.

The -um- suffix may help as well.

If someone said "kobajumi", I might possibly understand that better than "kobaji".

Doing something somehow related to guinea pigs, versus "guinea pigging".

sudanglo:

The limit is one of intelligibility. Or to put it another way, is there something in the real world that the verb in question could label.

In general, it has little to do with a colloquial/informal use of the language versus a formal one.

So tabli (from tablo) and seĝi (from seĝo) are not used, whereas fumi (from fumo) and tuneli from (tunelo) are used.

Incidentally, bluas is an example of an adjective becoming a verb, not a noun becoming a verb.

K, on the question of the difference between loki and lokigi, you can study this yourself by searching the corpus at Tekstaro.com.

My impression is that in many contexts the two forms can be used inter-changeably. Correct me if you think that is wrong.

However, perhaps when then is no question of agentive intervention 'loki' rather lokigi would be the preferred form.

Some thing normally immovable is more likely to be lokita (ŝia apartemento estas lokita en la kastelo).

I doubt I would say "bluas". In any case, you are the one who supplied it. Bluas reminds me of the German "ich bin blau", "I am drunk".

What you say makes sense: if there is something in the real world like chair, then it doesn't become a verb. Though why smoke and tunnel can become verbs by that same rule, I am not sure, except that there is a general equivalence with other languages. In English we also say smoke and tunnel as verbs.

erinja:

komenstanto:So in fact there is a limit to the amount of nouns that can become verbs.

The limit isn't in the fact of nouns becoming verbs. The limit is found in what makes sense, because we use logic to determine the meaning of a word that has changed form from what we're used to seeing.

The -um- suffix may help as well.

If someone said "kobajumi", I might possibly understand that better than "kobaji".

Doing something somehow related to guinea pigs, versus "guinea pigging".

I wouldnt have used it that way, but the fact that I noticed it is used in France and the USA commonly to refer to volunteering to be a lab-rat for medicine made me think, maybe this animal is a near universal term for scientific studies, so that almost anyone could comprehend it. I am surprised you as an American didnt understand the meaning, especially with the hint in the same sentence, "malsanulejo". I put that to your not thinking about it enough. Maybe in the Philippines they wouldn't comprehend it, but when they looked it up in an Esperanto dictionary, they could see that it has two meanings. I was only simplifying its appearance and shortening the sentence, after someone told me I could make a noun into a verb! It's not my fault if you are giving out conflicting information.

"Mi fumas" = "I act like smoke".

"Mi kobajas" = "I act like a guinea-pig."

Insert image of a man smoking a guinea-pig like a cigarette. The nose of the pig has smoking coming out.

komenstanto:Ah, I found it...

If you'd like to read the book without waiting for it to arrive from Amazon, David Jordan (the author) has posted the text of the book to his website, freely available to all.

As you will see, it isn't quite what you think it is. But it IS a really good book, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who has progressed past the "rank beginner" stage.

komenstanto:I am surprised you as an American didnt understand the meaning, especially with the hint in the same sentence, "malsanulejo". I put that to your not thinking about it enough....It's not my fault if you are giving out conflicting information.

Wow. I'm not giving out any conflicting information. Esperanto is a language, not a code; it isn't putting a word into a machine and churning out a precise meaning on the other side. The human brain just doesn't work that way.

I speak English natively but as far as Esperanto is concerned, I think in Esperanto. I am not translating Esperanto into English in my mind before figuring out what something means; I understand it directly in Esperanto.

Therefore if someone were to translate a very common English expression into Esperanto, I am not likely to understand it easily.

In some cases I might catch it, in other cases I might have to be given a hint, "Translate literally from English". I don't look up the word "kobajo" in a dictionary when I see it, a picture of a cute furry household pet comes to mind, but I'm not thinking about any kind of animal testing.

Particularly not with a mention of a hospital. Maybe a mention of a laboratory would have jogged my memory about testing, but I think of hospitals as being places that are for healing the sick, not for doing scientific experiments.