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Quick question - "should have x"

de Rejsi, 20 de novembre de 2013

Missatges: 11

Llengua: English

Rejsi (Mostra el perfil) 20 de novembre de 2013 15.20.41

Sorry, I'm making a lot of topics today.

I was browsing the forums in an attempt to figure out "should have x." I came across the strange form "devintus" to mean this, and most people seemed in agreement. However, I was wondering if I could propose something like "mi jam devus fari tion" instead of "mi devintus fari tion." In Teach Yourself Esperanto, the author seems to imply that forms like "mi jam faris tion" are similar to "I have (already) done that." So I was wondering if it could work in this fashion.

Multan dankon!

erinja (Mostra el perfil) 20 de novembre de 2013 16.57.54

-us is technically without tense, there is nothing wrong with saying "Mi devus iri" to mean "I should have gone".

Practically I have found that even though there is a difference between "I should have gone" and "I had to go", I sometimes find that "mi devis X" would be an adequate expression for cases when we'd say "I should have X" in English. There is some support for this in Esperanto literature.

For example, from the tekstaro:

“Mi povas ĉion prezenti al mi. Sed kial vi iris ĝuste tien ĉi?” diris Snitchey.

“Kial mi ne devis? Kiel mi povis scii, kiu tie ĉi estas mastro?..."

I would render this dialogue in (not very elegant) English as:
"I can introduce everything to myself. But why did you go to this specific place?" said Snitchey.
"Why shouldn't I have? How could I know, who is master here?"

This interpretation makes more sense to me than "Why didn't I have to?", which might be a more literal reading of "Kial mi ne devis?"

Fenris_kcf (Mostra el perfil) 21 de novembre de 2013 9.38.24

I would use the active past participle in combination with the volative, for example:

"I should have done this" ~ "Mi estu farinta tion. / Mi farintu tion."

"devintus fari" means something different: "would have been musting to do" (i know that it's wrong to use gerunds for modal verbs in English, but i think you know what i mean). So if i tell a story and in this story somebody prevented that i had to do something, i would say "mi devintus fari tion, sed mia kunulo trovis alian eblon."

tommjames (Mostra el perfil) 21 de novembre de 2013 10.27.08

fenris:"devintus fari" means something different:
"Would have had to" is perhaps the more logical reading of "devintus" (or "estus devinta" ), but in practice it usually doesn't mean that because of how in Esperanto the conditional "devus" has appropriated the sense of "should". "Mi devintus fari tion" does indeed mean "I should have done that". That's how most speakers will read it anyway.

As to the OP's question about the use of "jam", I think that usage is ok and there are some hits for it in Tekstaro with the search string \b(devus jam|jam devus) \w+i\b. Though I think it's potentially unclear when the objective verb is "esti". For example, from Mortual Ŝipo I would read the phrase "Per la ofta ripetado ĝi devus jam esti scienca vero" as "by now it should be scientific truth" rather than "it should have been scientific truth".

sudanglo (Mostra el perfil) 21 de novembre de 2013 12.35.32

In Teach Yourself Esperanto, the author seems to imply that forms like "mi jam faras tion" are similar to "I have (already) done that." So I was wondering if it could work in this fashion.
Really? I would interpret mi jam faras as I am already doing, and mi jam faris as I have already done.

So, ni jam devus esti tie - we should already be there

Ni jam devus esti alvenintaj, or ni devus esti jam alvenintaj - we should have already arrived.

Mi devus esti farinta places the emphasis on the current perception of obligation in relation to some past act.

Mi estus devinta fari puts the perception of obligation in the past.

Rejsi (Mostra el perfil) 21 de novembre de 2013 21.12.15

sudanglo - Gah! Thanks! I realized I made a huge mistake! No wonder it didn't make as much sense. I meant to write that the book says that says that "mi jam faris tion" is more like "I have (already) done it" rather than "I did it." Essentially, it changes from a simple past tense to the past perfect.

Looking at it directly, I would translate "mi jam devus fari tion" as "I already should 'do' it." If you already 'do' something, you 'did' it, so the sentence would then possibly become "I already should have done it."

But then I see the point that some of you are making in that "mi jam devus esti tie" seems more like "I should already be there." In no way is past tense implied.

So it seems my situation only works on certain occasions. I guess I'll shy away from that then...unless I'm sure that my intentions are clear. I'm just really not a fan of "devintus," but it seems like the clearest option (which is what Esperanto was intended for).

----

I have to say, though...I'm a fan of some of Fenris_kcf's suggestions. What do you guys think about them?

erinja (Mostra el perfil) 21 de novembre de 2013 23.10.48

Fenris_kcf's suggestions are expressions that I do not hear used in actual Esperanto; I would use "devintus" before I would use those, because you do hear "devintus", and it is used with the exact meaning of "should have been"

I know it doesn't sound this way but "devus" truly doesn't have a tense, so "Mi jam devus esti tie" does indeed mean both "I should already be there" and "I should have been there already".

There's also my previous suggestion with "devis". It works and it has a basis in Esperanto literature. I am increasingly using it when I may have said "devintus" in the past.

Rejsi (Mostra el perfil) 22 de novembre de 2013 8.42.17

erinja:There's also my previous suggestion with "devis". It works and it has a basis in Esperanto literature. I am increasingly using it when I may have said "devintus" in the past.
Oh yes, I was going to ask about this...

From what I've seen (but obviously I'm not nearly as experienced), "devi" seems to mostly (you've showed some counterexamples) only mean "must" unless we're using the -US form. And "devus" then seems to mean "should."

I've also seen a similar thing in Spanish.

"Debo hacerlo" = "mi devas fari ĝin" = "I must do it"
"Yo debería hacerlo" = "mi devus fari ĝin" = "I should do it"

So where does one draw a line between "should" and "must?" Is it just not an important distinction in Esperanto?

erinja (Mostra el perfil) 22 de novembre de 2013 11.11.34

Must is just a strong "should" (or "should" is a mild must).

I am becoming less and less worried about this distinction, personally, simply because in the traditional literature I don't see as strong a distinction as we are used to seeing in English.

sudanglo (Mostra el perfil) 22 de novembre de 2013 13.03.07

The thing about 'devi' in Esperanto is that covers a whole range of types of obligation - logical necessity, situational necessity, moral obligation, duty, insistence.

It would be translated into English with different forms.

In Erinja's example of Kial mi ne devis, it would be unnatural to translate this as 'Why didn't I have to?' - Snitchey is obviously not thinking about that sort of obligation.

However in other contexts 'have to' would be right - Kial vi devis trafi la pli fruan trajnon?. [I know you caught the earlier train (or thought you had to) and I wonder why.]

Here, translation as 'why should you have caught the earlier train' is most likely wrong for the situation.

If you didn't catch the earlier train and now regret it, you might well say Mi devintus preni la pli fruan trajnon.

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