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Do adjectives recieve -j?

di Foreigner, 28 giugno 2014

Messaggi: 10

Lingua: English

Foreigner (Mostra il profilo) 28 giugno 2014 00:27:45

In Esperanto you add "-j" to make something plural. So here is a sentence.

The good boys are pretty.

Should I say "La bonaj knaboj estas belaj?" Or should that be "La bonaj knaboj estas bela?"
I am pretty sure it's the first, but I just want to make sure.

Eltwish (Mostra il profilo) 28 giugno 2014 01:09:19

Yup, you're right. La bonaj knaboj estas belaj.
Same goes for -n. So mi manĝis la sukajn oranĝojn, and mi tradukis ĝin en la anglan lingvon.

nornen (Mostra il profilo) 28 giugno 2014 01:15:42

Eltwish:Yup, you're right. La bonaj knaboj estas belaj.
Same goes for -n. So mi manĝis la sukajn oranĝojn, and mi tradukis ĝin en la anglan lingvon.
But not always: Mi trovis vian fraton ebria.

Eltwish (Mostra il profilo) 28 giugno 2014 01:27:04

nornen:But not always: Mi trovis vian fraton ebria.
Ah yeah, good point.
To clarify - when the adjective is characterizing / describing the noun (acting "normally" ), it agrees with the noun in number and case. But you can also use a-vortojn to show a resultant state, opinion, etc., in which case it only agrees in number. Note:

Ŝi opinias min malmodesta.

Mi kolorigis la teksaĵon ruĝa. (I colored the fabric red.)
Mi kolorigis la teksaĵon ruĝan. (I colored the red fabric.)

...interesting how that's expressed by word order in English. Similarly "I found your brother drunk" vs "I found your drunk brother".

sudanglo (Mostra il profilo) 28 giugno 2014 11:16:02

If the thing is plural, then in Esperanto the adjective has to be plural. I can't think of any exceptions at the moment.

So ili estis ebriaj,
mi trovis ilin ebriaj,
la lingvoj kiuj estas parolataj en Hindujo,
kvar belaj knabinoj.

The -n marker is multi-functional and it can happen that -n is not used when one word is linked with a word that is n-marked.

Ĉu vi konas mian amikon profesoro Smith
Mi vidis lin kuranta al la stacidomo.

Roberto12 (Mostra il profilo) 28 giugno 2014 12:52:34

As has already been said, predicates in Esperanto go in the nominative case (i.e. they don't take -n), as per the following example:
Eltwish:Mi kolorigis la teksaĵon ruĝa. (I colored the fabric red.)
Mi kolorigis la teksaĵon ruĝan. (I colored the red fabric.)
I think of predicates as words that are essentially linked to the phrase by an invisible idea of "to be", i.e. "I coloured the fabric to be red".

Different from this is apposition, and as far as my understanding goes, the following example is incorrect:
sudanglo:Ĉu vi konas mian amikon profesoro Smith?
Nouns in apposition take the same case as their partner, as they're in the same grammatical role. Kellerman contains the following example:
Ĉu vi ne konas min, vian amikon? do you not know me, your friend?

nornen (Mostra il profilo) 28 giugno 2014 16:26:49

sudanglo:*Ĉu vi konas mian amikon profesoro Smith
Mr Bertilow analyses it the same way as Robert12. He calls an apposition "apudmeto" and it agrees in both number and case with its head phrase.

Hence we can make a difference between an apposition (same case): "Ni vidis S-ron Black, nian prezidanton."
and a predicate noun over the object (always nominative): "Ni elektis S-ron Black nia prezidanto."

sudanglo (Mostra il profilo) 29 giugno 2014 08:15:05

Nornen, before marking my example with an asterisk, you might have read to the end of the PMEG reference - Ne konfuzu apudmetojn kun identigaj priskriboj. Identiga priskribo povas aspekti simile al apudmeto, sed identiga priskribo neniam havu N-finaĵon

Ĉu vi konas la internacian lingvon Esperanto
Ni vizitis la urbon Parizo

Roberto12 (Mostra il profilo) 29 giugno 2014 09:51:32

Well, here we have another hair-splitting subtlety in la lingvo, an extra bit of precision that makes it that little bit harder to use. I see that PMEG makes the point I myself was going to make, namely:
Ankaŭ ne konfuzu apudmetojn kun la frazrolo alvoko, kiu ne havu rolmontrilon: Sidigu vin, sinjoro!

sudanglo (Mostra il profilo) 30 giugno 2014 16:56:45

Roberto, the issue of agreement in case, with linked nouns, can be subtle.

The discussion of this topic in PAG is somewhat convoluted and seems to me, in some places, contradictory. At very least it is heavy going - see 131, 132.

Anyway, la filon de mia amiko Johano is clearly different from la filon de mia amiko Johanon.

Even if mian amikon Johanon doesn't seem so different to mian amikon Johano

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