I understand that you add "j" to make plural, and add "n" to make into the direct object. So here I have some example sentences.

"The boys are friends."

Should I say, "Laj knaboj estas amikojn," or just "La amikoj...?"

What about, "I ate the cakes?" Should that be, "Mi manĝi lajn kokojn," or "Mi manĝi la kokojn?

Thanks for any help.

Foreigner:I understand that you add "j" to make plural, and add "n" to make into the direct object. So here I have some example sentences.

"The boys are friends."

Should I say, "Laj knaboj estas amikojn," or just "La amikoj...?"

What about, "I ate the cakes?" Should that be, "Mi manĝi lajn kokojn," or "Mi manĝi la kokojn?

Thanks for any help.

The article “la” never receives j- or n-endings. It rests always unchanged.

In “La knaboj estas amikoj.” you don't use the n-ending, because “amikoj” in this case isn't regarded as an object, but as an predicative. Just remember that with “esti” an object never can occur.

“Mi manĝis la kukojn (“kokoj” are chickens, not cakes).” is correct, because “la kukojn” is an object of “mi manĝis”.

If A is the subject, and A is B, then B is also the subject.

So when you have a sentence of the form A estas B (literally, A is B in Esperanto), both A and B are the subject, and subjects go -n-free.

La knaboj estas amikoj. Both sides of the verb are about the knaboj, who are the subject(s). There is no object, therefore no one gets an -n.

It is tempting for some beginners (as I did) to come up with a rule of thumb that says something like "In any sentence A verb B, A is the subject, and B is the object, and so B always gets an -n." Because it looks like that happens all the time. And it does happen a lot of the time. Most of the time, even. Just, not ALL of the time.

Even though it looks right if you aren't looking real hard, that rule is wrong. Don't use that rule. Instead, you have to learn the real difference between a subject and an object, because, in the end, that's what decides it.

RiotNrrd:If A is the subject, and A is B, then B is also the subject.

So when you have a sentence of the form A estas B (literally, A is B in Esperanto), both A and B are the subject, and subjects go -n-free.

Now this is an interesting (and quite unconventional) way of looking at it. In "La patro estas tajloro." are there two subjects ("la patro" and "tajloro" ) or is there one subject ("la patro tajloro" ) divided in two?

How does this work with other predicate nouns over the subject? For instance, in "Mi alvenis hejmen sana.", are there two subjects "mi" and "sana", or is it again one subject divided in two?

nornen:

RiotNrrd:If A is the subject, and A is B, then B is also the subject.

So when you have a sentence of the form A estas B (literally, A is B in Esperanto), both A and B are the subject, and subjects go -n-free.

Now this is an interesting (and quite unconventional) way of looking at it. In "La patro estas tajloro." are there two subjects ("la patro" and "tajloro" ) or is there one subject ("la patro tajloro" ) divided in two?

How does this work with other predicate nouns over the subject? For instance, in "Mi alvenis hejmen sana.", are there two subjects "mi" and "sana", or is it again one subject divided in two?

This is a really interesting way of putting it.

When this construction occurs in English, the noun that follows 'is' is called the 'predicate nominative.' 'Predicate' being the term for the verb and everything that follows it, and 'nominative' essentially meaning 'naming.' In other words, it's a noun in the predicate that names the subject. However, this is in a language with no case system, so it's really only a way to classify things.

Essentially, the 'estas' in these sorts of situations means something closer to 'equals' than it does 'exists.' Most variations of 'to be' that I'm familiar with seem to carry both these meanings. In this case, it doesn't matter whether 'patro' and 'tajloro' are one subject or two or anything. What matters is that neither is an object, and thus neither is in the accusative case. As an English speaker, I'm inclined to call the noun that follows 'estas' the predicate nominative, but the technical term doesn't really matter, in my opinion.

As for your second example, the fact that 'sana' is an adjective means that it is definitely not the subject. A subject is a noun. In both English and Esperanto, the adjective is modifying the subject, and its placement in the sentence doesn't affect that. The syntax only serves to provide emphasis. 'Mi alvenis hejmen sana' means the same thing as 'Mi sana alvenis hejmen,' but the former puts more emphasis on 'sana' than the latter.

I hope that explanation made at least a little sense!

sparksbet:

nornen:

RiotNrrd:If A is the subject, and A is B, then B is also the subject.

So when you have a sentence of the form A estas B (literally, A is B in Esperanto), both A and B are the subject, and subjects go -n-free.

Now this is an interesting (and quite unconventional) way of looking at it. In "La patro estas tajloro." are there two subjects ("la patro" and "tajloro" ) or is there one subject ("la patro tajloro" ) divided in two?

How does this work with other predicate nouns over the subject? For instance, in "Mi alvenis hejmen sana.", are there two subjects "mi" and "sana", or is it again one subject divided in two?

This is a really interesting way of putting it.

[...]

I hope that explanation made at least a little sense!

It surely makes a lot of sense. There seems to have been a misunderstanding, though. It wasn't me who postulated multiple subjects, but RiotNrrrd; I was merely inquiring about his opinion.

Also in my book (being a transformationalist, and hence maybe the last of my kind) there is one and only one subject, and in "He is stupid." the phrase "stupid" is a predicate noun over the subject (or a predicate nominative as you put it) and in "I called him stupid." the phrase "stupid" is a predicate noun over the object (or a predicate accusative/objective).

According to me, in order to decide which phrases are marked for accusative, one has to determine whether they are direct objects (-n), temporal accusatives (-n), the complement of a directional PP (-n), or other phrases like predicate nouns (no -n).

nornen:Now this is an interesting (and quite unconventional) way of looking at it. In "La patro estas tajloro." are there two subjects ("la patro" and "tajloro" ) or is there one subject ("la patro tajloro" ) divided in two?

How does this work with other predicate nouns over the subject? For instance, in "Mi alvenis hejmen sana.", are there two subjects "mi" and "sana", or is it again one subject divided in two?

What I gave was a quick and dirty explanation for why neither nouns nor adjectives on either side of estas ever get an -n, expressed in regular English rather than with academic jargon. Terms like "predicate noun" tend to be opaque to people who don't delight in grammar porn, which is actually many of us.

To my way of thinking, patro and tajloro are equated in your example. Whether there are different specialized grammatical descriptors for each role the different words play in the sentence is irrelevant at the level I am describing. I'm not writing a grammar book; I don't have to be that precise in my terminology. The patro isn't doing something TO the tajloro; the patro IS the tajloro. Pragmatically, both words describe the patro. Thus, there is no object. Thus, neither word gets an -n. Thinking of it that way works 100% of the time, and is easy to remember, which is all most beginners want.

It's certainly possible to give a full exposition on estas and subjects and predicates and the accusative and all the different ways they fit together, and really nail it down in precise grammatical terms, but I don't see the point in doing so in the context of the original questions the OP was asking. I think he needed a simpler, easily understandable answer, and that's what I tried to provide.

RiotNrrd: [...]

OK, then we just have to different ways of approaching the same subject and I suppose both are equally viable. When I was teaching languages (Spanish to Germans, German to Spanish and Mayan to anybody) I generally preferred to explain the things in detail and not to spoon-feed them with simplified rules, which would need to be revoked in later lessons. In this concrete example, I preferred to explain what a direct object is and what not. Sure, this is a bigger lump to swallow, but once you got it down you won't need any more rules-of-thumb. Especially, as English grammar is almost identical to Esperanto grammar in this situation.

But as I said, everybody has its own methodology, without any intention to estimate one higher than the other.

I prefer not to speak over peoples heads if I can at all avoid it. If that involves recasting rules for easy practical application, then so be it. The majority of Esperanto students are not interested in technical deconstructions. They just want to learn how to say things. For those who ARE interested in the nuts and bolts, they can certainly plow down the rabbit hole as deeply as they like. But to paraphrase the famous TED Talk* about Springboard To Languages, I prefer to start people on the recorder rather than the bassoon. The bassoon will always be there if they are so inclined, but I'm not going to assume they are so inclined from the get-go; doing so just scares "recorder-appropriate" people away.

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* If you haven't seen it, the analogy basically equates Esperanto with a recorder, a simple musical instrument that is easy to play, and national languages with a bassoon, an instrument that takes a great deal of skill and practice just to coax any sound out of at all, and only gets harder from there. I've moved the analogy down a level.

RiotNrrd:I prefer not to speak over peoples heads if I can at all avoid it. If that involves recasting rules for easy practical application, then so be it. The majority of Esperanto students are not interested in technical deconstructions. They just want to learn how to say things. For those who ARE interested in the nuts and bolts, they can certainly plow down the rabbit hole as deeply as they like. But to paraphrase the famous TED Talk about Springboard To Languages, I prefer to start people on the recorder rather than the bassoon. The bassoon will always be there if they are so inclined, but I'm not going to assume they are so inclined from the get-go; doing so just scares people away.

I'll take "talk over someone's head" as "To communicate something beyond the level of comprehension of the target." (I had to look that one up, please remember that English isn't my language).

How can anybody's level of comprehension be raised, if nobody ever communicated beyond the current level of comprehension of the listener. Explaining and defining new concepts, etc.

If nobody had ever talked over my head, I guess I would have learned quite a lot of things less.