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Conditional Help

by Foreigner, July 9, 2014

Messages: 58

Language: English

nornen (User's profile) July 22, 2014, 1:57:35 AM

sudanglo:Many European languages - including the international language at the time of the appearance of Esperanto (French) and the international language of today (English) - have the means of expressing in the verb that something didn't but under some condition would have occurred, so it is to be expected that Esperanto which evolved in a European environment should also have a means of expressing this in the verb.
How does this realte to conditional participles? None of these languages has a conditional participle. Your statement is a bit of a non-sequitur.

Actually I don't know even one language with conditional participles.

sudanglo (User's profile) July 22, 2014, 10:08:47 AM

Nornen, my comment, which you quote, was not a justification of estis -unta, which so far has largely not been used in Esperanto, but as a sop to those who find something illogical or inconsistent in the frequent usage of estus -inta in Esperanto as a past conditional.

parawizard (User's profile) August 2, 2014, 5:01:49 AM

Having read this thread over a couple times I don't ever come to a conclusion about much at all.

Kirilo81:
Misusing X-inta to express past only, as like speakers of (western) European languages, is a complete break of the lingustic system of Esperanto, a high cost that comes with little use.
I do not understand where you are getting the misuse part from. How does esperanto use inta that isn't past?

Kirilo81:if estu X-i(n)ta were to have a past reading, this should come from -us, which in this framework however should be anything but not past.
I think you meant "should be any time not just the past" or "anything not just the past." "but not past" makes it sound that it could be anything but the past.

So what other things could estus x-inta mean? If not the past. Does usage support different meanings?

nornen:
Bottom line:
Sometimes "would have" can be translated as "estus x'inta".
Sometimes "would have" must not be translated as "estus x'inta".
Putting "would have" and "estus x'inta" into direct relation is wrong and misleading especially for beginners.
As sergejm pointed out that these two cases are not equal.

Would have can also be the past form of Will have. English speakers shouldn't be making this error so you would have to come up with something else to plead your case of misleading relation.

nornen:
Kiam mi forigis la hokon, la fiŝo pikus min, sed mi surhavis ganton.

Kiam mi finfine sukcesis forigi la hokon, la fiŝo estus pikinta min cent fojojn, sed mi surhavis ganton.
Would you really say it this way? Sounds awfully awkward to me but maybe I am just not grasping the language enough yet. I would have thought that you would write:

Kiam mi forigis la hokon la fiŝo pikus min, se mi ne surhavis ganton.
Kiam mi finfine sukcesis forigi la hokon, la fiŝo estus pinkinta min cent fojojn, se mi ne surhavis ganton.

To keep the same ending "Sed mi survhavis ganton" I would have thought it would need to be more like:

Kiam mi finfine sukcesis forigi la hokon, la fiŝo estus povinta pinki min cent fojojn, sed mi survhavis ganton.

sudanglo (User's profile) August 2, 2014, 10:20:30 AM

-inta means prior to.

So in the compound verb form in the indicative, where the reference point is signalled by the tense of esti (estas/is/os/) it is explicit as to whether -inta refers to before now, before then, or before some future point.

When it comes to estus -inta, for those who see estus as completely timeless, the question is (theoretically) open as to whether the -inta is before now, before then, or before some other time. Even so, this view does not prevent estus -inta referring to something that did not happen at a time in the past.

Usage supports the idea that -us carries with it an implication as to time.

Commonly -us is used for now, or in general, or in the future, (Ĉu vi ŝatus kafon; Se tio estus vera, .. ; Mi aĉetus novan aŭton, se ..) with estus -inta referring to the past.

So the difference is that, that one camp thinks that estus -inta is time-wise vague, whilst the other camp views estus -inta as by default referring to the past. But by additional specification can refer to a time prior to a past time - eg se mi tiam jam estus -inta.

By the way, fishes don't so much piki, as mordi.

nornen (User's profile) August 2, 2014, 11:47:58 AM

sudanglo:By the way, fishes don't so much piki, as mordi.
Maybe, North-Atlantic fish are different from East-Pacific fish. Maybe, this simply depends on the species of the fish. But -thanks to personal experience and blood- I can positively assert that in my neighbourhood fish sting.

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Hence I repeat my warning to the unsuspecting reader: Wearing a glove doesn't protect against fish stings. Those were mere grammatical examples.

parawizard (User's profile) August 2, 2014, 8:02:39 PM

sudanglo:
So the difference is that, that one camp thinks that estus -inta is time-wise vague, whilst the other camp views estus -inta as by default referring to the past. But by additional specification can refer to a time prior to a past time - eg se mi tiam jam estus -inta.
I appreciate the summary. Is there usage showing cases of non past estus -inta?

Also is the -unta and -uta used a lot here on these boards? I have tried to read through any other topics I could find. Which way is it headed? It would be important to know to at least understand what others are saying.

sudanglo:By the way, fishes don't so much piki, as mordi.
Catfish literally have long barbs/stingers sticking out below their mouths. Sting would be appropriate in the case of Catfish, other barbed fish and jellyfish.

sudanglo (User's profile) August 3, 2014, 11:21:57 AM

Is there usage showing cases of non past (future) estus -inta?
Good question.

My immediate guess would be that for speculative/suppositional references to something being completed at some time in the future

1. that the simple form -us would prevail.
2. that some kunteksto or konteksto would otherwise be required to force the future reference of -inta.
3. that many speculative/hypothetical assertions about the future would be handled with the indicative as one can rarely say for certain that something will not happen or won't be true.

In any case, it may not be that easy to always clearly distinguish a future suppositional reference from a general timeless proposition (if 2 + 2 made 5 then ...).

sudanglo (User's profile) August 4, 2014, 10:42:46 AM

This does not directly address your point about the use of estus -inta with a future reference, but one way of introducing a future idea with the conditional (either future with reference to a time in the past or future reference linked to now) is to use estus -onta. There are examples in the Tekstaro.

So one might say Se mi estus ironta al la kongreso en 2015 (if I were going to go to the Congress).

Essentially, the example that you are looking for of estus -inta, where the completion is with reference to a future time, is an -us version of a sentence like Se ni mem devos fari la laboron, ni ne estos korektintaj la libron antaŭ la findato por publikigo...

I have no hesitation with estus -ita. So something like Se ni mem entreprenus la laboron, la libro ne estus korektita antaŭ .... I would expect to see examples in the Tekstaro like this.

I feel less comfortable about rendering it with estus -inta, but I suppose that must be possible.

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