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Get rid of the accusative

de traubenschorle, 2015-junio-14

Mesaĝoj: 100

Lingvo: English

Altebrilas (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-14 16:45:16

There would be many reasons to get rid of it, but there's even more reasons not to do so, because it would divide esperanto movement. That is why nobody suggests it.

Now, the question is: since everybody agrees about not reforming esperanto without unanimity, has the topic to be taboo or can it be freely debated in the movement?

Armand6 (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-14 17:52:22

Tempodivalse:
Due to the highly regular nature of the accusative it is actually no harder to learn than a preposition
People have problems with accusative mainly because it is used for many completely different things. And a single letter in the word is very easy to overlook, too.

Armand6 (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-14 17:57:12

Altebrilas: not to do so, because it would divide esperanto movement.
Esperanto movement is just not mature enough to tolerate multiple grammar norms. In most natural language internet communities, attempts to criticize other people's grammar or dialect will be got down upon very fast. Esperantists are still prefer discussions about Esperanto over discussions in Esperanto, so it seems we stuck with accusative forever.

akueck (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-14 19:21:56

mbalicki:
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 ...
Those words are not only useable as international words in accordance with Rule 15 but even have been officialized, and therefore no one is allowed to "reject" them.

That "movement" exists already:
Renata bonlingvismo. Really it is a movement for a new constructed language similar to Esperanto (dictionary Renata bonlingvismo - Esperanto). The chief initiator is the secretary of the "Akademio de Esperanto" (AdE) although its statute art. 2 states that AdE defends Esperanto against competing systems of an international language.

Tempodivalse (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-14 19:50:49

Armand6:
Tempodivalse:
Due to the highly regular nature of the accusative it is actually no harder to learn than a preposition
People have problems with accusative mainly because it is used for many completely different things. And a single letter in the word is very easy to overlook, too.
Elhana, many prepositions have multiple uses, but nobody complains much about them - de has at least three uses: possession, direction "from", and agent of an action (amata de cxiuj). The accusative has only two uses which are mandatory (indicating a direct object, and indicating motion after a preposition; other uses of the accusative can be replaced by prepositions or rewording).

"Arguing" about whether Esperanto should have an accusative or not, seems about as silly as "arguing" whether Russian should drop the locative case - it is fruitless, the vast majority of speakers will continue using the language as before, no matter how much is said about it.

Armand6 (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-15 04:23:27

Tempodivalse:Elhana
Huh?
"Arguing" about whether Esperanto should have an accusative or not, seems about as silly as "arguing" whether Russian should drop the locative case
No, it is more like arguing whether people should say "баловАть", "пятиста семи" instead of "пятьсот семи", and "плеч" instead of "плечей".

Matthieu (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-15 07:59:57

Armand6:
Tempodivalse:Elhana
Huh?
Stop pretending, we know it's you.

Vestitor (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-15 09:38:37

Tempodivalse:...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.
That's not the best position to take if the consideration is that Esperanto needs to be easier to learn for everyone; particularly those who have trouble with languages. The latter being precisely the reason a simpler 2nd language is required.

It shouldn't come as a shock to anyone that a majority of the population (of any country) are not even elementary grammarians, even though they can navigate their own language.

Tempodivalse (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-15 14:26:15

That's not the best position to take if the consideration is that Esperanto needs to be easier to learn for everyone; particularly those who have trouble with languages.
Well, that's not an assumption I made (Raumist).

Esperanto is not "as easy as the alphabet" for everyone. And no fully-developed language (excluding things like Toki Pona and primitive creoles) is going to be "easy", simply because of the complexity involved the expression of human thought.

Even Mandarin, whose grammar I regard as exceptionally simple, turns out to be quite difficult, because the "simplicity" results in very many homophones and subsequently ambiguity.
It shouldn't come as a shock to anyone that a majority of the population (of any country) are not even elementary grammarians, even though they can navigate their own language.
Zamenhof, as I understand it, initially intended Esperanto primarily for the more educated people of his time - those who likely received a Classical education, including significant foreign language and grammar training.

squishy_mage (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-15 16:03:36

Yeah, the Accusative is necessary. It's always there. English (and some others) may mark it mainly by word order, but if we were to change how Esperanto marks the accusative to match English, now you have speakers of Russian, speakers of Irish, speakers of Japanese, among others who have to learn that accusative markers don't exist.

When you change an auxiliary language to more closely match one language or another, you necessarily make it harder for others. I can understand the difficulty of the accusative, when I first learned Russian it took a while, and I still occasionally leave the -n off of adjectives a couple months into Esperanto, but I don't think that the solution to my trouble is to ignore a rule that's been in place, it's to sit down and practice it until I've got it right.

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