eshapard:

johmue:
If you just talk about some unspecified object you'd say "Tio estas mia."

Thanks for your response!

I'm having trouble understanding when anyone would ever talk about an uspecified object.

Whenever I use the word 'that', there's always something I'm talking about.

Can you give me an example of when you would use 'that', but not have something in mind?

Well. When I say "Tio estas mia." I might have something in mind but for some reason it's not important or I can't specify it.

When I say "Tiu estas mia." it's that clear what I mean that even the listener could without thinking put in some noun. Like in English "This one is mine."

For example: "Vidu la aŭtojn sur la parkejo. Tiu estas mia." while pointing at one of the cars. Then it's clear to the listener that you actually meant "Tiu aŭto estas mia."

Another example: Imagine that you have all kinds of stuff on the table. Your Mom comes and says:

"Ĉu tio estas via? Se jes bonvolu formeti ĝin."
"Is this yours? If so please clean it up."

So your Mom has actually something in mind (your stuff on the table) but she does not want to specify it.

Now imagine that there are a bunch of books on the table, that your Mom wants to sell. About one book she is not sure and asks you while showing the book to you:

"Ĉu tiu estas via?" and you can tell that she actually means "Ĉu tiu libro estas via?"

eshapard:

johmue:
If you just talk about some unspecified object you'd say "Tio estas mia."

Thanks for your response!

I'm having trouble understanding when anyone would ever talk about an uspecified object.

Whenever I use the word 'that', there's always something I'm talking about.

Can you give me an example of when you would use 'that', but not have something in mind?

I think there's been a misunderstanding about what "unspecified" means. We're probably making these explanations more complicated than they have to be. Let's start from the beginning, again.

1. In combination with a noun, use tiu (never tio), like you'd use an adjective.

--> Tiu libro estas tro multekosta. - That book is too expensive.

2. Use tio by itself.

--> Tio estas mia plej favorata libro. - That is my favourite book.

3. If it's clear from context that you are talking about a particular range of objects, and you wish to pick out one particular specimen from that range, you may use tiu by itself, with the referent strongly implied. This is equivalent to the English that one. For example:

--> Jen la libroj, kiujn mi vendas. - Bone. Kiom kostas tiu [libro]? Here are the books I'm selling. - Great. How much does that one cost?

I think point 3 is the sticky issue here.

@johmue and @Tempodivalse

From what you guys are saying, it sounds like in general, you use tio when you aren't explicitly naming or stating what you are indicating in the sentence (hence no noun).

Tio estas mia. (when there is only one rock on the table and you're pointing to it; no noun used in this sentence.)

But when you are explicitly naming what it is you're talking about in the sentence (by using a noun), you use tiu.

Mi volas tiun libron. (when you are indicating a book and using the noun book to explicitly state what it is tiu refers to)

@johmue, I think this is what you meant by 'cannot stand alone'; you can't say "that book" without book or else it's not clear what exactly you want (assuming the context doesn't make it clear).

Now let's say you point to a particular book on a bookshelf with plenty of different books and you want to say 'I want that one.'

It sounds like you are saying that you can drop the 'libron' and just say, 'Mi volas tiun.' (if you want to) as long as it's clear that your intention is to indicate a particular book out of a variety of books. Perhaps tiu not accompanied by a noun indicates 'that one'. Is that right?

@johmue, I think this is what you meant by an implicit noun; the context makes it clear that we're talking about that 'one' particular book out of many.

P.S. You guys are really helping!

Tempodivalse:

I think there's been a misunderstanding about what "unspecified" means. We're probably making these explanations more complicated than they have to be. Let's start from the beginning, again.

1. In combination with a noun, use tiu (never tio), like you'd use an adjective.

--> Tiu libro estas tro multekosta. - That book is too expensive.

2. Use tio by itself.

--> Tio estas mia plej favorata libro. - That is my favourite book.

3. If it's clear from context that you are talking about a particular range of objects, and you wish to pick out one particular specimen from that range, you may use tiu by itself, with the referent strongly implied. This is equivalent to the English that one. For example:

--> Jen la libroj, kiujn mi vendas. - Bone. Kiom kostas tiu [libro]? Here are the books I'm selling. - Great. How much does that one cost?

I think point 3 is the sticky issue here.

Thanks! I think that's the clearest explanation yet. I think I've run a across a lot of explanations that seemed clear to the author, but were ambiguous and sent me down the wrong path.

Your three points above seem really clear and (I think) easy to grasp. I hope they will help others not to struggle the way I did.

I think I'm going to edit some of my earlier posts because I don't want people coming to this thread and getting confused by things I said as I worked through this problem with you guys.

I am a little baffled as to why this topic as generated so much discussion. I can't quite see what is the source of difficulty.

All the ti-words in the correlative table have a pointy function like the th-words in English (that, there, those). That aspect is therefore familiar to English speakers.

Tio - pronoun - refers, in a non-selective way, to a concrete or abstract thing (aĵo, afero, ideo) - as far as I am aware, never to an individual person.

Tiu - pronoun - refers to a person or concrete thing in a selective/contrastive way (implies not some other person or thing); Tiu - adjective - identifies selectively.

(Remember those stand-alone roots in Esperanto, that can be words without a grammatical ending, can play several grammatical roles - tiu can be an adjective or a pronoun).

Crude rule: tio = that thing; tiu = that individual person or object.

Tiu as a pronoun can be expressed in English as 'that one' for objects, but does not have a word like 'thatbody' for people, but it does have 'somebody' and 'nobody'. So the idea of 'thatbody' is not too difficult to grasp.

Tempo, 'favorata libro' would be favoured book, not favorite book

sudanglo:Tio - pronoun - refers, in a non-selective way, to a concrete or abstract thing (aĵo, afero, ideo) - as far as I am aware, never to an individual person.

Tio estas mia patro.

sudanglo:Tempo, 'favorata libro' would be favoured book, not favorite book

I fail to see the difference... "my most favoured book" is very similar to "my favourite book", except for collocational reasons the former is rare in English.

Consider Tekstaro cases:

La plej favorata vorto de Platono en ĉi tiu libro estas la greka termino... - La Respubliko
Atingi montosuprojn ... estis dum kelkaj jaroj mia plej favorata hobio. -Artikoloj el Monato

I take these to mean favourite, not something else.

sudanglo:I am a little baffled as to why this topic as generated so much discussion. I can't quite see what is the source of difficulty.

Hopefully your introduction to those words was so clear and enlightening that it's hard to imagine not understanding the difference.

For me, my introduction to these words was through a description that I find vague, ambiguous, and misleading. The author tried to explain all of the -o words in two sentences and never touched on tio specifically.

Once you understand the difference between the two words, even vague, ambiguous descriptions make sense to you; you can see how they can be interpreted in a way that makes them right and you ignore interpretations that don't fit your understanding because that's what our minds do; they seek to make sense, not confusion. But when you've been misled and confused from the start, you're more likely to interpret ambiguous statements in other ways.

Also, people who have had things carefully explained to them in the past, or have gained understanding through much experience often have a hard time predicting what will be difficult and what will be easy (or obvious) to a beginner (occasionally baffling those trying to explain a concept). That phenomenon is part of the Dunning-Kruger effect (worth a google) and/or the Curse of Expertise bias.

johmue:

sudanglo:Tio - pronoun - refers, in a non-selective way, to a concrete or abstract thing (aĵo, afero, ideo) - as far as I am aware, never to an individual person.

Tio estas mia patro.

Hey, where did you find that sentence? I've also read that tio was never to be used with a person... sounded a bit arbitrary.

Tempodivalse:

sudanglo:Tempo, 'favorata libro' would be favoured book, not favorite book

I fail to see the difference... "my most favoured book" is very similar to "my favourite book", except for collocational reasons the former is rare in English.

Consider Tekstaro cases:

La plej favorata vorto de Platono en ĉi tiu libro estas la greka termino... - La Respubliko
Atingi montosuprojn ... estis dum kelkaj jaroj mia plej favorata hobio. -Artikoloj el Monato

I take these to mean favourite, not something else.

Favorite means 'most favored' to me too.