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The Definite article

von Hound_of_God, 29. April 2014

Beiträge: 15

Sprache: English

Hound_of_God (Profil anzeigen) 29. April 2014 00:04:54

I've seen multiple complaints now on the Internet that the definite article "la" is "pointless" or that it's existence is "insanity", but they don't explain why.

Can anyone shed light on this reasoning?

Attempt:
En la interreto, mi legis multajn plendojn ke la vorto "la" estas "senuza" kaj gxia ekzisto estas freneza, sed ili ne diras ilia raciojn.

Cxu iu klarigas tiu pensadon?

ASCarroll (Profil anzeigen) 29. April 2014 00:40:08

"People for whom use of the article offers difficulties [e.g. speakers of Russian, Chinese, etc.]may at first elect not to use it at all."

From the first "grammar" rule of La Sankta Fundamento. ridulo.gif

Roberto12 (Profil anzeigen) 29. April 2014 09:35:12

Interesting fact: when Zamenhof, whose first language (Polish) doesn't have definite articles, designed his auxlang, he gave it a definite article, but when Schleyer, whose first language (German) does have definite articles, designed Volapuk, he left articles out. The grass was evidently greener on the other side of the fence for both gentlemen.

Articles aren't necessary; they make languages more precise at the cost of added complexity, and it's probably harder for a non-article person to use an articled language than vice versa. The best way to understand the superfluity of articles is to study sample texts where they don't feature, such as those of Latin, Russian, or Volapuk, or alternatively you could take a paragraph of English and delete the articles and read it anew. I find it refreshing and liberating to use an article-free language, and the same goes for the related concept of grammatical numberlessness.

Surely using "Senlaa Esperanto" amidst ordinary Esperanto would be a bad idea?

Roberto12 (Profil anzeigen) 29. April 2014 09:44:43

Further to the above, you sometimes need to introduce other determiners to make up for the absence of articles. Consider the following paragraph:

A man walked into a supermarket and picked up a bottle of Dr Pepper. Then the/a man put a/the bottle in his rucksack.

The articles specify which objects are doing what, and I believe that the simple deletion of the articles implies definiteness in the second sentence (i.e. the same man as before puts the same bottle as before in his bag). To convey the fact that either the man or the bottle is new in the second sentence, you use a word like "different" or "another" or "second".

Edit 1: when you're finished with a bottle, you should chuck it in the bin. But hang on, wouldn't it be more grammatically accurate to say, in a bin?

Edit 2: you should actually put it in with the recycling rather than the general waste okulumo.gif

Kirilo81 (Profil anzeigen) 29. April 2014 09:45:51

Roberto12:Surely using "Senlaa Esperanto" amidst ordinary Esperanto would be a bad idea?
Yes.

Esperanto in detail imitates the system of Hebrew, which has an indeclinable definite article (ha), but no indefinite one - something you don't find in European languages.

Reading a lot of Polish texts sometimes I feel the lack of an article in order to make clear whether you're speaking about something general or a single case.
So I find the article useful, but the usage should have been put into more comprehensible rules.

sudanglo (Profil anzeigen) 29. April 2014 10:28:41

when you're finished with a bottle, you should chuck it in the bin. But hang on, wouldn't it be more grammatically accurate to say, in a bin?
only if that is what you mean

nornen (Profil anzeigen) 29. April 2014 17:27:48

Even among natural languages which have a definite article, its use may vary:

Compare:
EN: Life's too short. (...to securely remove USB devices.)
ES: La vida es muy corta.
DE: Das Leben ist zu kurz.

Compare:
EN: I like dogs.
ES: Me gustan los perros.
DE: Ich mag Hunde.

Compare:
EN: I play (?the) guitar.
ES: Toco la guitarra. (coll: "Toco guitarra" but this is frowned upon)
DE: Ich spiele Gitarre.

This makes it difficult for me to decide where to use "la" in Esperanto and where not. Should I follow the pattern of English? Or maybe Spanish? Or maybe German?

1Guy1 (Profil anzeigen) 29. April 2014 18:00:19

In English idiom there is a world of difference between 'buying a farm' and 'buying the farm" ridego.gif

Rugxdoma (Profil anzeigen) 29. April 2014 19:13:54

ASCarroll:"People for whom use of the article offers difficulties [e.g. speakers of Russian, Chinese, etc.]may at first elect not to use it at all."

From the first "grammar" rule of La Sankta Fundamento. ridulo.gif
I think it will normally not be difficult to understand such an article-free Esperanto, because those people, who are allowed to use it, will certainly find some other useful remedies to make the meaning clear. For the Chinese I don't even think the article of Esperanto can be so difficult, because in Chinese a lot of "yige" and "zhege" is used, which rigorously could be said to mean "unu" and "cxi tiu" respectively. Cxi tiu is a fairly good substitute for "la".
The same is true for Swahili - determinatives (like this, that, these, those, but there are 26 of them) are used where Esperanto often uses "la".

Leandro_rj (Profil anzeigen) 29. April 2014 20:29:53

In those cases, In my opinion in Esperanto you would to follow the pattern in English.

nornen:Even among natural languages which have a definite article, its use may vary:

Compare:
EN: Life's too short. (...to securely remove USB devices.)(la) vivo estas tre mallonga. (en tiu kazo mi pensas ke la angla kaj hispana stiloj taŭgas.
ES: La vida es muy corta.
DE: Das Leben ist zu kurz.

Compare:
EN: I like dogs. Mi ŝatas hundojn
ES: Me gustan los perros.
DE: Ich mag Hunde.

Compare:
EN: I play (?the) guitar. [bu]]Mi ludas guitaron[/u][/b]
ES: Toco la guitarra. (coll: "Toco guitarra" but this is frowned upon)
DE: Ich spiele Gitarre.

This makes it difficult for me to decide where to use "la" in Esperanto and where not. Should I follow the pattern of English? Or maybe Spanish? Or maybe German?

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