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Dum kiam

de oicim, 2012-aprilo-16

Mesaĝoj: 7

Lingvo: English

oicim (Montri la profilon) 2012-aprilo-16 00:40:18

Is there ever an instance to say "dum kiam" (during when)? Or is that erroneous? For some reason it always comes to mind as a word combination.

Evildela (Montri la profilon) 2012-aprilo-16 01:05:58

oicim:Is there ever an instance to say "dum kiam" (during when)? Or is that erroneous? For some reason it always comes to mind as a word combination.
Never fear, it is perfectly valid Esperanto

oicim (Montri la profilon) 2012-aprilo-16 01:09:03

When is it inappropriate to use this combination, and how would you classify it?

TatuLe (Montri la profilon) 2012-aprilo-16 02:10:25

Actually, the "kiam" in "dum kiam" is not necessary. Dum itself can be either a preposition or a subordinating conjunction:

Vi ŝajne faris nenion dum mi multe laboris.
Dum la gardisto forestis, iu ŝtelis la trezoron.

Nenio okazis dum la tuta kunveno.
Dum nokto ĉiuj dormas.
... for example.

Evildela (Montri la profilon) 2012-aprilo-16 02:17:17

Not necessary, but also not wrong, it depends if you want to emphasise the "when" aspect.

acdibble (Montri la profilon) 2012-aprilo-16 02:40:36

oicim:Is there ever an instance to say "dum kiam" (during when)? Or is that erroneous? For some reason it always comes to mind as a word combination.
It would be the English language's equivalent to "during which".

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2012-aprilo-16 09:59:18

Kiam mi foje parolis angle, dum la kongreso, oni kriis al mi 'Ne krokodilu!'.

Dum la Mez-epoko, kiam la plejmulto kredis je Dio, estis konsilinde ne konfesi sian ateismon.

You can have dum and kiam in the same sentence. But a good example of when dum kiam would be justified compared to plain dum did not spring to mind.

EDIT: Possibly in some sentences where the contrastive sense of dum would also be a possibility, you could use dum kiam to make it clear that the temporal meaning was intended.

An example would be:

Ni poluris niajn botojn kaj kantis kantojn, dum la malamika armeo pretigis sin por batalo.

This is ambiguous. It could mean that that's what we did at the same time as the opposing forces got themselves ready, OR, it could mean we fooled around whilst (in contrast) the enemy were being sensible soldiers.

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