I've got no idea about the terminology, but ReVo makes an interesting comment about the usage of 'ĉesi':

La verbo estas netransitiva, se la subjekto estas la afero, kiu finiĝas. Se la subjekto estas la persono, kiu haltigas ion, tiam eblus konsideri la verbon transitiva, sed ĝia objekto povas esti nur infinitivo. Oni ja diras „ĉesu labori“, sed ne „ĉesu la laboron“. La ŝajna malkoheraĵo solviĝas, se oni konsideras, ke la verbo „ĉesi“ ĉiam interpretiĝas per „interrompiĝi“ kaj ke la komplementa infinitivo estas adjekto kun la senco „koncerne...“: „interrompiĝu koncerne la laboron“.

I think Hyperboreus might enjoy reading the PMEG comparison with 'daŭrigi': Malsimetrio inter daŭrigi kaj ĉesi

PMEG says that the meaning of the use of "ĉesi" + I-verbo and the use of "ĉesigi" + I-verbo is practically the same, not exactly. So how about thinking it out like this:

1. With "ĉesigi fumi" you are explicitly showing some object which is being made to stop. You are stopping the smoking action.

2. With "ĉesi fumi" you are only saying that you are stopping, ceasing to do whatever you're doing. You have also stated that the action you were doing and talking about was smoking, it can therefore be inferred that the action you're now stopping is smoking.

With this intuition, in the second scenario "fumi" feels very much like an optional argument to me. It just happens that the semantics comes up the same.

You can say "mi ĝojas vidi lin". This says that you are happy, and that the action you are doing is seeing him, it feels pretty much the same deal as "ĉesi fumi" as explained in 2.

The use of the I-verbo is just a replacement for the prepositional structure, which more explicitly marks the relation between the stopping and the action, like PMEG says:

Mi ĝojas vidi vin = Mi ĝojas pri vidado de vi
Mi ĉesi fumi = Mi ĉesi pri fumado

The fact that it is a direct replacement for a sugar-on-the-top complement, says that it itself must be one too.

Forigite

Oh dear, my head hurts

I am with you there, Chainy.

The problem with all these linguistic classification arguments - apart from them being written in arcane English, kio dolorigas la kapon - is that they never seem to be of any practical consequence.

Maybe we could see “Li ĉesis fumi” as simply “Li fumĉesis”?

Hyperboreus:...

Inspired by the comparison with "daŭrigi", and the discussion of the meaning of "ĉesi", I have the following thoughts:

Perhaps I am digging myself a linguistic hole, from which I cannot pull myself, because I get computers to do my linguistic analysis , but something seems weird in your explanation concerning "pri fumado" etc. I wonder if we have a problem with fitting descriptions of English phenomena to Esperanto phenomena.

As an aside: if we're using PMEG terms, "pri fumado" and "fumi" with "ĉesi" are by definition komplementoj. Because a komplemento is "ĉiu frazparto krom ĉefverbo, subjekto, objekto kaj perverba priskribo". And "ĉesi" is not permitted an object, therefore "fumi" must be a komplemento. Unless you are suggesting that the "ĉesi fumi" usage is in fact an error.

That aside, I've made an attempt to clear the distinction between adjunct and complement in my head (it seems a little tricky, given that definitions seem to vary...), and here's an attempt to maintain the complement/adjunct description in our Esperanto example:

If either "ĉesi fumi" or "ĉesi pri fumado" are translated as "to stop smoking", then it feels very complement-like indeed, and rightly so, because this is actually "ĉesigi fumi"!

But that's only what "ĉesi fumi" effectively means in practice. Its actual meaning (which is effectively the same, but structurally different) is some phrasing in which the sentiment is complete without "fumi" or "pri fumado". And I think that our difficulty in understanding this, is due to the fact that that phrasing is not very easy to render in English. My attempt (in light of PMEG's definition of ĉesi):

"to start to no longer act, concerning smoking"

Isn't it theoretically possible to say:

"mi ĉesas kun Eldanar pri fumado" which is roughly:
"I'm starting to no longer action with Eldanar concerning smoking".

If so, doesn't that say that "pri fumado" is an adjunct, given that complements must appear before adjuncts (and "kun Eldanar" is an adjunct) in relation to what they modify. Or have I misunderstood?

Forigite

Forigite

Forigite

The day of the Triffids!

I believe that there is a tree in the Amazon jungle that can go forth by moving its roots, but only very slowly - it has yet to acquire the power of speech