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Confused about grammar objects

de kd0bpv, 2014-januaro-08

Mesaĝoj: 6

Lingvo: English

kd0bpv (Montri la profilon) 2014-januaro-08 02:19:57

I'm feeling a bit confused about why objects are sometimes not suffixed with -n. For example: "Multaj homoj venis al la domo" doesn't mark "la domo" as the object of the sentence. My best guess is that it has something to do with direct vs indirect objects. But it seems to me that "la domo" would be a direct object in that sentence, so shouldn't it be "la domon"? If "la domo" is an indirect object, then what makes it so, and what is the direct object in that sentence, then? What am I missing that makes the difference?

I'm sure the answer is here or here, but I can't read Esperanto well enough yet to make sense of it, and this issue—among other things—is holding me back.

Thanks,
Mark

RiotNrrd (Montri la profilon) 2014-januaro-08 02:30:24

The accusative is ordinarily dropped following a preposition. In the phrase "al la domo", "al" is a preposition, so "domo" doesn't get an -n.

The only time you will see the accusative following a preposition is to indicate movement. However, since "al" (to) is a preposition that already indicates movement, there is no need for the accusative following "al", ever.

That is not true of the other prepositions, though, and so if movement is indicated, you will see an -n following prepositions other than "al". But, generally, without that sense of movement, nouns following prepositions do not have -n's on the end.

For example:

en la domo = in the house
en la domon = into the house
Mi kuris en la domo = I ran in the house (which I was already inside)
Mi kuris en la domon = I ran into the house (from the outside)

kd0bpv (Montri la profilon) 2014-januaro-08 02:52:50

Thanks for the reply!

So, if I'm understand you and this page correctly, that sentence could have been left as "multaj homoj venis la domo", meaning "many people came to the house", right? Then if I said instead "multaj homoj venis la domon", it would mean "many people came into the house", right?

RiotNrrd (Montri la profilon) 2014-januaro-08 02:58:48

No. Your sentence needs the preposition, which is clear from the use of "to" in the English translation. It is also needed in the Esperanto.

Your first sentence means "many people came the house", which is not meaningful.

Your second sentence, however, means "many people came to the house", as you can always replace "al" with -n. For "into", however, you would need both "en" (in) and -n (which is equivalent to "al", which means "to" ).

kd0bpv (Montri la profilon) 2014-januaro-08 03:04:56

Ah! I get it now! Thank you very much!

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2014-januaro-08 11:04:58

But it seems to me that "la domo" would be a direct object in that sentence
One test to see if something is a direct object (perhaps not infallible) is to try a passive transformation.

In this case you couldn't say the house was come by many people.

Veni in Esperanto doesn't take direct objects. Viziti however does. So you can say multaj homoj vizitis la domon.

It isn't a big deal - usually your intuition about which verbs can take direct objects in Esperanto and which don't, will serve you right. But in Esperanto you have to know that.

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