sudanglo:Matrix, de post or depost is not an exact equivalent to the French 'depuis', though sometimes it can be translated into French as 'depuis'.

If you search the Tekstaro you will see how depost or de post is normally used in Esperanto.

It is customarily followed (in its temporal sense) with an expression identifying a point in time.

If we get back to the basics, vi pravas.
I make the difference between ekde, de post and de.
However, I often met de post in the meaning of de: in this way, post might be seen as a kind of intensifier.

It is a discussed question in Esperantujo as you can see in ReVo.
But, sensu stricto, it may seem a little abusive indeed.

Hundies19:I don't remember where I read the idea. But it was that because Esperanto is designed to be as flexible as possible, it technically wasn't incorrect to leave out the copula as one would in Arabic or in other languages that simply state the noun and adjective, specifying the tense when needed,

I'll put it this way, I guess - if a language doesn't normally allow "to be" to be dropped (wording a sentence like "He is a student" as "He student" ), then it doesn't normally allow "to be" to be dropped from a composite form, in Esperanto or in other languages. I would never have thought to drop "to be" from a similar Italian construction, for example. It doesn't work.

I have no idea about Arabic grammar, but in Esperanto you could easily be using the adjective as an actual adjective in a similar situation, and it would add confusion if dropping "to be" was a possibility.

For example, I got this phrase from the Tekstaro: "Ĉar la viro parolinta estis la ŝipestro..."

If we allowed "estas" to be dropped, the meaning of this phrase could seem quite confusing at first blush, because it wouldn't end quite the way that you might expect it would end, based on the beginning.

Esperanto is extremely flexible. But you have to learn where the flexibility lies. It isn't so loosey goosey as some websites (or some Esperanto speakers) imply. It has great flexibility with coining words based on existing roots and affixes, great flexibility with word order. Not very great flexibility with leaving words out. In a language where speakers come from all different backgrounds, it can be a mistake to assume someone knows your context and can mentally fill in what you've left out; the safe choice is always to include every word, until you learn the limited situations where things can get left out.

erinja:because it wouldn't end quite the way that you might expect it would end, based on the beginning.

It’s strange how people react when a sentence ends in a completely different way than they potato.

(SCNR, sorry to everyone who clicked on this thread just to read this nonsense )

Forigite

However, I often met de post in the meaning of de

I would imagine that this is because of you have met quite a few French Esperantists.

I have actually seen depost misused even in print by a respected author - pĝ 10 Anni kaj Monmartre by Raymond Schwartz pub. 1930 Depost multaj jaroj ŝi konis fraulinon Engelbein. (Schwartz was a Frenchman.)

But Esperanto tries to be logical and it really doesn't make sense to say ŝi konis from after many years. The intended meaning is of course is that ŝia kono estis multjara. 'Post' isn't an intensifier. It has its own specific meaning.

The use of plain 'de' is fully justified, with many examples, by the second entry in NPIV under 'de' - la punkton de la tempo, kie komenciĝas ago eg. de du jaroj li malsanas.

It can also be justified under definition 7. - la posedata eco eg. homo de granda talento; kono de multaj jaroj.