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English(svo) word order

de oliviakw, 28 de agosto de 2014

Aportes: 22

Idioma: English

oliviakw (Mostrar perfil) 28 de agosto de 2014 03:08:37

Since I have started to learn Esperanto, I noticed that the word order can be changed quite freely. Now I've gotten into the habit of putting all my sentences in subject-object-verb order and it is beginning to make much more sense to me than English's
s-v-o sentence structure.Does anyone else feel this way?
I'm new to posting forum messages,so thank you to everyone that answeredridulo.gif

erinja (Mostrar perfil) 28 de agosto de 2014 03:36:44

Esperanto has free word order but it is rare to persistently use an order other than svo. Esperanto's standard order is actually similar to English. You can do what you want but you should be aware that most Esperanto speakers deviate from svo only to change the emphasis or to add clarity in an ambiguous situation.

nornen (Mostrar perfil) 28 de agosto de 2014 04:03:21

oliviakw:Since I have started to learn Esperanto, I noticed that the word order can be changed quite freely. Now I've gotten into the habit of putting all my sentences in subject-object-verb order and it is beginning to make much more sense to me than English's
s-v-o sentence structure.Does anyone else feel this way?
This works fine until you say "Zamenhof multe da homoj konis".

Alkanadi (Mostrar perfil) 28 de agosto de 2014 06:34:32

oliviakw:Does anyone else feel this way?
I prefer the SVO order but maybe it is because I am a native English speaker. It just seems natural to me. It seems to have a logical flow.

Nile (Mostrar perfil) 28 de agosto de 2014 08:30:09

nornen:This works fine until you say "Zamenhof multe da homoj konis".
Why would you not say "Zamenhof multaj homoj konis"?

sudanglo (Mostrar perfil) 28 de agosto de 2014 13:23:59

I suppose Nornen is trying to point out that there can be sentences in which neither subject nor object of the verb would be marked. In such cases one conveys the meaning using SVO.

Nile, in your example Zamenhof multaj homoj konis, the 'multaj homoj' could accept an 'n' marker, so the interpretation must be Multaj homoj konis Zamenhof, rather than Zamenhof konis multajn homojn.

In a case, where the object can't be marked, it probably would be better, to write it in SVO rather than SOV.

My guess would be that the most common usage of SOV is where the object is a personal pronoun (perhaps also the subject as well)

nornen (Mostrar perfil) 28 de agosto de 2014 16:23:56

I think we have to make a difference here between theory and pragmatics.

In theory almost any word order is possible, as long as you don't tear phrases apart (like e.g. English preposition stranding like in "What are you talking about?" ).

As erinja pointed out, from a pragmatic point of view, the base word order is SVO, except:

- Pronoun fronting: Interrogative and relative pronouns are generally (always?) fronted whenever this is possible.
- Topicalization: "Hieraux mi vidis du hundojn." vs "Du hundojn mi vidis hieraux.", which topicalizes and hence emphasizes that it was two dogs you say and not three cats.

So, basically, when an uncommon word order is used, you should ask yourself "What was the author's intention?"
When you use an uncommon word order, expect the listener or reader to ask himself "Why did he do that? What is he emphasizing?"

nornen (Mostrar perfil) 28 de agosto de 2014 16:32:10

sudanglo:My guess would be that the most common usage of SOV is where the object is a personal pronoun (perhaps also the subject as well)
I can also imagine that SOV is employed to emphasize the verb of the clause (the final position is almost as strong as the initial).

Take for example:

- Kial vi okulumas tiun ĉi virinon?
= Mi ŝin ne okulumas, sed rigardas.

Not sure, though.

bartlett22183 (Mostrar perfil) 28 de agosto de 2014 17:10:34

Vĕra Barandovská-Frank has written two works in Esperanto that I have read, one on Latino sine Flexione (with a parallel German version) and one on Latinidaj planned languages. As I recall (I don't actually own a copy; I read it in a library), the first book especially used many OSV sentences, not just with relative pronouns at the beginning of clauses. It took me a while to get used to the style, because it differs from that of English, my native tongue, but the -n marker on the object always made the meaning clear.

Fenris_kcf (Mostrar perfil) 28 de agosto de 2014 17:24:08

IMO the most logic word order is VSO*, since the necessarity for the items descents from the first to the last: Every sentence has a verb and sentences that have an direct object must have a subject as well.

[V] „Pluvas.”
[VS] „Kuras li.“
[VSO] „Vidas ni vin.“
[VSO*] „Skribas ŝi literon al mi.“

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