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Get rid of the accusative

글쓴이: traubenschorle, 2015년 6월 14일

글: 100

언어: English

Tempodivalse (프로필 보기) 2015년 6월 15일 오후 9:54:31

So the question, why Esperanto is the way it is, is a very valid one.
Well, the only way to explain "why" a language is the way it is, involves technical and arcane etymological and historio-linguistic analyses - e.g., this Russian declension uses this ending because it is derived from the Old Slavonic dual number; the nominative and accusative cases in the neuter always use the same endings because of the way inanimate nouns worked in Proto-Indo-European, etc.

This doesn't help the learner, unless maybe he is a specialist in etymology and dead languages related to the studied language.

In Esperanto's case, I think virtually everything in Esperanto is included to fulfill some function. There is surprisingly little "dead weight" - i.e., features that do not usefully increase expressive power.

However, why Zamenhof decided that or the other function was necessary to include in the first place, really can't be answered other than by saying: "Well, he thought it ought to be included, and included in this particular way."

boooman (프로필 보기) 2015년 8월 12일 오전 5:33:44

The -n gives Esperanto some freedom in terms of expression. I don't think Esperanto is meant for strict communication. Humans are multi-faceted and if a proper language is to be constructed it should be able to adequately express both the human and individual experience. If we were bound to word order,sen akuzativo, esperanto may change drastically in ways we never expected. Much like killing a really important fly in the past or something. It gives us additional tools to be clever with when creating metaphors or poetry. Learning Esperanto is still learning a language. If you are able to work out these challenges your mind will reward you, and you will be able to apply these tools to another language you may want to learn. It's euphonic to word things like "Sxian koron li sxiris." I enjoy this website very much and am amazed at what humans are capable of, being that it is in so many different languages.

Armand6 (프로필 보기) 2015년 8월 12일 오전 6:15:25

boooman:The -n gives Esperanto some freedom in terms of expression.
That is a bad argument to promote it, as the freedom of expression directly lead to the freedom of confusion. If it gives advantages to the sender, it puts extra strain on receiver, and vice versa. The accusative exist in Esperanto by design, and we should not reason for or advocate its existence at all.

Alkanadi (프로필 보기) 2015년 8월 12일 오전 7:29:01

Armand6:The accusative exist in Esperanto by design, and we should not reason for or advocate its existence at all.
Don't worry. After you study Esperanto for a little while, you will get used to it. It isn't that difficult. It is a very useful tool, as you will learn in time.

boooman (프로필 보기) 2015년 8월 12일 오후 7:41:44

Armand6:
boooman:The -n gives Esperanto some freedom in terms of expression.
That is a bad argument to promote it, as the freedom of expression directly lead to the freedom of confusion. If it gives advantages to the sender, it puts extra strain on receiver, and vice versa. The accusative exist in Esperanto by design, and we should not reason for or advocate its existence at all.
I agree, in a chance conversation with a fellow esperantist who doesn't speak your native language you should use a simple way of speaking to make certain the desired meaning is conveyed. Language is an extension of the soul. The -n is there simply because it was put there but it does a lot for the language and your mind: Park your car in different spots, eat new foods, walk a different trail, play around with word order and the accusative because it's good to keep your brain on its toes and break routines ridulo.gif Learning Esperanto can teach you much more than Esperanto.

Armand6 (프로필 보기) 2015년 8월 13일 오전 3:42:59

When we still had the Esperanto club, I had an opportunity to see people trying to study Esperanto. Interestingly, their greatest problem was not the accusative case or the article, but tenses. People used to overlook them completely, and translated their sentences in any tense they'd got in their head first. People should try to be unambiguous in their sentence composition, and not rely too much on grammatical endings.

diplox (프로필 보기) 2015년 8월 14일 오후 1:09:43

I don't see the benefit of getting rid of the accusative. It's not terribly complex to understand and not everyone in the world speaks a primary language that follows the Subject-Verb-Object pattern so this allows them to use the language with their preferred ordering rather than having to conform to the language...

deltasalmon (프로필 보기) 2015년 8월 14일 오후 1:11:44

The only problem I see with the accusative is that some people don't want to learn it. The language is already super easy to learn, I don't see any reason why anyone should have to make it easier.

mbalicki (프로필 보기) 2015년 8월 14일 오후 1:50:39

deltasalmon:The only problem I see with the accusative is that some people don't want to learn it. The language is already super easy to learn, I don't see any reason why anyone should have to make it easier.
Leaving the accusative aside, I do think there should be a movement of making Esperanto easier. Words like teologio, geologio should, in my opinion, be rejected in favour of easier to understand discienco, terscienco &c. In general someone should do something with words ending with -logo and -logio.

Words with Greek provenance should preserve the letter χ using ĥ, as it's more international, since many languages pronounce these words differently than words with κ, or at least the provenance is maintained in different spelling. There should also be more vocal condemnation of the unofficial pseudo-suffix -i-, which all it does, is making recognition of the category of a country name almost impossible.

So, generally speaking, I see many reasons or rather opportunities to make Esperanto easier.

Tempodivalse (프로필 보기) 2015년 8월 14일 오후 3:12:18

deltasalmon:The only problem I see with the accusative is that some people don't want to learn it. The language is already super easy to learn, I don't see any reason why anyone should have to make it easier.
Due to the highly regular nature of the accusative (1 declension for everything, with only some minor caveats, like no accusative for nominal adverbs or pronomial unu), it is actually no harder to learn than a preposition - just think of it as being a postposition which morphs into the final vowel of the word.

Most people who complain about the accusative, in my experience, are monolingual anglophones (occasionally Romance-language speakers), and usually those who have a less-than-firm grasp of grammatical concepts like direct object. And if you don't have that kind of entry-level knowlege, you're not going to find Esperanto easy anyway - or any other language.

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