I think I have to disagree somewhat, Erinja.

However, your main point, that personword-a kato, may be viewed as expressing something different to kato de person word, is, I think, sound.

la Reĝina palaco, might mean something slightly different to la palaco de la Reĝino. In both cases this is likely to be rendered as the Queen's palace in English.

But I wouldn't interpret la najbarina kato as being a cat of the same type as the neighbour has, or the cat the neighbour gave me, but as the neighbour's cat.

Kial la hundo bojas? Ĉar la najbarina kato lin incitas denove.

The effect that the adjective ending (-a) has depends on what precedes. If the stem is a personal pronoun, the meaning is often ownership simply because the only plausible way that the thing can be characterised as having the quality of mia, via, ŝia etc is just that.

sudanglo:But I wouldn't interpret la najbarina kato as being a cat of the same type as the neighbour has, or the cat the neighbour gave me, but as the neighbour's cat.

Kial la hundo bojas? Ĉar la najbarina kato lin incitas denove.

The effect that the adjective ending (-a) has depends on what precedes. If the stem is a personal pronoun, the meaning is often ownership simply because the only plausible way that the thing can be characterised as having the quality of mia, via, ŝia etc is just that.

I see what you mean, but your interpretation may not be universal. When I see a word like "najbarina" or "koramikina," I interpret it as more of "La kato kio estas kiel najbarino/koramikino" or even "La kato kio estas mia najbarino/koramikino"! Unless there's a situation which truly calls for some unique aspect of these words as adjectives, it'd be best not to use forms that lend themselves so well to misunderstanding.

Mi vidas katajn okulojn en mallumo.
I see eyes of some cat in the darkness.
The cat's eyes are the eyes of the cat.
Najbara kato is a cat, who lives in the neighborhood.
Najbarina kato is a cat, who has some relation to some female neighbor, I think you can use it instead of female-neighbor's cat, but you can't add mia (my) etc. to it.
As you see, -a may mean diffent things in different cases.

sergejm:Mi vidas katajn okulojn en mallumo.
I see eyes of some cat in the darkness.
The cat's eyes are the eyes of the cat.
Najbara kato is a cat, who lives in the neighborhood.
Najbarina kato is a cat, who has some relation to some female neighbor, I think you can use it instead of female-neighbor's cat, but you can't add mia (my) etc. to it.
As you see, -a may mean diffent things in different cases.

But that's NOT what "kata" means. You may interpret it that way, but "kataj okuloj" are not necessarily eyes belonging to a cat. "Kataj okuloj" simply means "cat eyes" or "cat-like eyes." And, like erinja said, since the idea of posession is almost always expressed through "de," a reader is going to assume you mean anything else, because otherwise you'd use "de kato." There is absolutely no reason to use adjectival forms to indicate possession. All it accomplishes is confusing your reader.

ScBerC:I know this would be improper esperanto, but if one were to use it, would you be understood?

Apart from the objections already raised, remember that nouns and their modifiers have to agree in Esperanto, and a general use of -es would constitute a genitive case that would require a corresponding ending for adjectives. Johanes libro might seem clear enough to some people (unless the person’s name was nominatively Johanes), but mi legis grandan Johanes libron would be ambiguous. (John’s big book? Big John’s book?)

korona:If it's understood whose girlfriend we're referring to, could you say "La koramikina kato" to refer to the cat?

-a has a number of meanings, one of which can seem like “belonging to” but is more reliably rendered “pertaining to”, and very often something else altogether, like “fit for”, “having the status of”, “being”, “full of”, “made of”, and so on. For example, a reĝa palaco can be translated either “king’s palace” or “royal palace”, but a reĝa duo is a royal couple, not “king’s couple”.

La koramikina kato might be understood where the identity of the girlfriend and the cat are established, but it could just as easily be interpreted as, say, “the cat who is another cat’s girlfriend”

De as a possessive may have its own ambiguities, since it also means “from” and “by” (the latter of which some people get around with fare de or just far), but in general you’ll find that it works as advertised; -es, tempting as it is for an English-speaker, isn’t up to the task, and -a can mean far too many other things to be a reliable possessive.

Thank you for the rapid response guys! I am sorry that I had made some mistakes, I was (and am) at school thus people were distracting me, I know that "kato de mia koramikino" is kat of my girlfriend, and that 'kies' is whose, and 'cxiel' is eveyone's/ everybody's.

morfran:Apart from the objections already raised, remember that nouns and their modifiers have to agree in Esperanto, and a general use of -es would constitute a genitive case that would require a corresponding ending for adjectives. Johanes libro might seem clear enough to some people (unless the person’s name was nominatively Johanes), but mi legis grandan Johanes libron would be ambiguous. (John’s big book? Big John’s book?)

the -es ending seems like it is an abnormal adverb where it can modify nouns as well, such as tiel kato "that's cat", so in the sentence John's big book, it would make sense for Johanes to go before the adjective, as it would be modifying the noun phrase..

With -es ending use it as you would on a correlative, where ties is fine to use, noun-es should be reasonably fine to use too! I see this ending as being very incomplete, I believe it is wierd that Zammenhof made it for the correlatives but ignored else where. (perhaps he tried devising a system where it could be used, but faild to do so, but because of the accusative he couldn't?).. Also with the case endings becoming confusing either go back to the de form or, we could devise an ending -ens or esn, although that would look hideous and sound awful "Johanesn" or "Johanens".

Also, over the weekend I was reading being colloquial in Esperanto, and the author did claim that esperanto speakers do joke about using the ending -es as a case marker. I still do not understand why. It just makes sense to have seperate words.. The form B of A emphasizes the item or activity (B), or stresses the relation ship between A and B, while A's B stresses A's ownership of B, and also this leaves room for people to be amigous with the use of the article or not The cat's food, The food of the Cat..

I'm glad to see you're so enthusiastic and thoughtful about Esperanto's structure, but I'd like to briefly remind you that Esperanto is a living language.

That might seem obvious but I'm saying it for a reason. It is spoken by a small community but it's not a project in testing phases; it is a normal language spoken at home by actual people in their everyday lives.

As a beginner I thought, "This language is so much fun, and it is constantly evolving so these great improvements I've heard about might be added to the language". But that's not quite how it is. It evolves naturally like other languages. Esperanto speakers are pretty friendly and willing to discuss the various elements of Esperanto grammar, and why things might be done a certain way, and this and that. But Esperanto is a living language. Someone created it, but now it evolves naturally, and the time passed more than 100 years ago for making changes to its basic structure.

French has a system of possession is done very much like Esperanto's. Someone might say, hey, that's silly, "le livre de John" is a totally different idea than "John's book", so I need think up a great way to say "John's book" (John'de livre?) in French and disseminate it through the French-speaking community!

...I think you would probably find it absurd if someone said that. Number one, what makes an American student of French think that she can change a whole language that is spoken by millions and millions of people worldwide? And these people obviously can understand each other just fine without my innovation. What makes me, a student, think I know better than fluent speakers of the language?

I'd like you to apply that same logic to Esperanto. Yes, people are happy to discuss with you reasons for things, or if you came up with a new form, how Esperanto speakers would be likely to understand that. But people discuss these things on a strictly theoretical basis, because they love language. There is no chance of changing Esperanto's system of pssession. It's a living language. People discipline their kids in this language, argue and make up with loved ones, tell jokes, tell lies, share inspiring stories, spread malicious rumors. At this point, it's too late to tell this community "I have a better idea for how to do possession".

I sympathize. As a native speaker of English, you say "It doesn't make sense at all, it is not necessary to do it that way". But it doesn't actually matter; like with any language, things are said in a certain way and that's the way it is, you kind of have to take it (learn it and make your peace with it, agree or disagree) or leave it (decide that this is a big enough issue to you that you don't want to learn this language). I mean that in the nicest possible way, I'm not trying to push you away from the language, but that is actually how it is, people will discuss this stuff wtih you in a friendly way but from a linguistic point of view, it's set, it's been set for 100 years, and changing it isn't really a possibility.

Najbara kato is a cat, who lives in the neighborhood.
Najbarina kato is a cat, who has some relation to some female neighbor, I think you can use it instead of female-neighbor's cat ....As you see, -a may mean different things in different cases.

Exactly, Sergej.

Reĝa admits of more meanings, since reĝa can mean royal, regal (kingly). However the 61 hits for reĝa palaco in the Tekstaro seem to me, on a cursory reading, to mean the palace of the King (belonging to the King).

sudanglo:61 hits for reĝa palaco in the Tekstaro seem to me, on a cursory reading, to mean the palace of the King (belonging to the King).

Of course reĝa palaco is "palace of the King", but "royal palace" has almost the same meaning, because there are not many kings. However, lupa ido is "wolf pup", i.e. pup of ANY wolf, while *lupoa ido would be "wolf's pup", pup of THE wolf. This example is adapted from mother language textbook in Slovakia, where these grammar structures are clearly distinguished, but often mixed in plain speech.

erinja:from a linguistic point of view, it's set, it's been set for 100 years, and changing it isn't really a possibility.

I consulted this proposal with Bertilo during SES Nitra and he insisted on "lupa ido". But I believe it is comprehensible, denies nothing from existing Esperanto and has chance to be used. Thinking about "*lupes ido" I rejected it. Mi and mia is the same principle as lupo and lupoa. The euphony is another issue, but I don't see problem there.

Not really the same at all as mi and mia, because "mi" lacks a grammatical ending (it is itself a root), and "mia" is a root plus an ending. There's really no precedent in Esperanto for taking on two grammatical endings for two different parts of speech. That is, we say "ludi" or "ludo" but not "ludio" (what would the meaning be, like "ludado"?)

It's an easier language, it's a logical language, it's a language originally devised by a person, but it's a living language. What you suggest is not a minor change, it's a fundamental change to the way that endings work in Esperanto.

If it is considered insane to suggest adding a new grammatical form to French or Italian because those languages don't have a possessive suffix, shouldn't it be considered equally insane to be making a similar change to another living language (Esperanto)? Isn't it inherently showing less respect to Esperanto than to these other languages, by making such a suggestion?

Esperanto speakers undermine their own case by treating Esperanto as less deserving of respect than other languages.