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Use of unu

de Bruso, 2014-februaro-10

Mesaĝoj: 7

Lingvo: English

Bruso (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-10 23:31:11

In the IJK course, I ran across the following sentence:

Mi estas ŝia 'lingvohelpanto' kaj nun ŝi volas paroli pri unu ekzerco.

It almost sounds like unu is being used as an indefinite article here, but Esperanto has no indefinite article.

How is this to be understood? "About one exercise" sounds slightly strange. "About a certain exercise"? "About a particular exercise"? Something like that?

robbkvasnak (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-11 02:47:16

Being that "unu" is indeed only used in Esperanto as a numerative, I would understand the meaning of the sentence to be that she only wants to talk about one single exercise. Since "unu" is not an indefinitive article in Esperanto the word "nura" is almost redundant (in Esperanto as opposed to English).

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-11 12:08:14

I would understand it as, one particular exercise.

A bit like saying, oh, just a minute, there's one thing I want to talk to you about. Or, there's one thing I didn't understand.

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-11 12:16:58

Mi estas ŝia 'lingvohelpanto' kaj nun ŝi volas paroli pri unu ekzerco.
Could be she wants to talk about one of the exercises (the rest being OK).
"About a certain exercise"
There is a use of 'unu' in Esperanto in this sense.

Unu vidvino havis du filinojn. There was a widow who had two daughters.

You can also say Iu vidvino havis du filinojn.

I think Plena Analiza Gramatiko suggests this as a preferred alternative, but personally I find the Zamenhofian usage (with unu) charming.

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-12 09:48:27

Having mentioned what I thought PAG had to say on this topic, I decided to look it up.

In my edition (the 5th corrected) from 1985, PAG makes a distinction between two sorts of indefiniteness - a unilateral indefiniteness (known to the speaker but not to the listener) and a bilateral or full indefiniteness.

If I say a fool and his money are easily parted. It is not appropriate to ask who that fool is.

However on saying that I know a man who can help you, you may appropriately enquire as to his identity.

PAG suggests that when Zamenhof used 'unu' not in the number sense, it was in cases of unilateral indefiniteness.

Now whether the PAG definition of the two types of indefiniteness holds water, I certainly think that there are degree of indefiniteness, and I see no good reason not to occasionally follow the Zamenhofian usage of 'unu'.

Maybe someone can come up with a good example where 'unu' is better, or carries the intended meaning more clearly than 'iu'.

I personally would prefer Unu tagon, kiam mi ... to Iun tagon, kiam mi ...

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-12 10:06:39

As always, it is helpful to look at the Tekstaro.

mi timas, ke iun tagon mia Partio ordonos al mi eksiĝi el SAT
Neniam mi antaŭvidis, ke iun tagon mi mem eniros tiel simple kontrakton

In the examples, above, we are clearly talking about 'full' indefiniteness, you don't know the day and the other party doesn't'. Though the day is being characterized by an event and to that extent is defined.

Unu tagon venis ankaŭ du trompantoj, kiuj diris, ke
Unu tagon li iris en la arbaron; li iris sola, ĉar

But in these examples (taken from Fabeloj de Andersen) the reference is clearly to a particular day.

tommjames (Montri la profilon) 2014-februaro-12 14:49:00

"Unu" is not by any means limited to a numeral. For uses of "unu" besides the number "one" see here at PMEG: http://bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/nombroj/vorteto...

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