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You would have been better off returning by car

de sudanglo, 17 juillet 2015

Messages : 9

Langue: English

sudanglo (Voir le profil) 17 juillet 2015 10:51:41

En eldono de 1932, mi trovis:

Mi sugestis, ke li estus farinta pli saĝe, reirinte hejmen veturile. Li konsentis, sed aldonis, ke li marŝis, kredante ...

Alternatives might be 'estus farinta .. estus reirinta' or 'estus farinta .. reirunte', or 'estus farinta .. reirante'.

Any thoughts?

Miland (Voir le profil) 17 juillet 2015 11:36:40

The use of saĝe suggests to my mind that the context is one of safety, perhaps travelling in the dark, is that right?

If so, we might say e.g. mi sugestis ke estus pli sekuri reveni hejmen per aŭto(buso). Li respondis ke li decidis marŝi ĉar li kredis..

tommjames (Voir le profil) 17 juillet 2015 14:39:32

That 1932 phrase makes my head hurt. I'd much prefer a simpler phrase along the lines of what Miland suggested than overuse of participles. 'Reirunte' I would definitely avoid as -UNT is highly nonstandard and potentially confusing.

DuckFiasco (Voir le profil) 17 juillet 2015 22:00:43

Very confusing. I think esti- + participle is almost never truly necessary, but that's my personal opinion.

The original also shows some confusion about the tenses in clauses, which in Eo are always from the viewpoint of the main verb. So "li konsentis..." now we are in the past, and I assume the meaning is "he adds that he is walking because he believes..." so present tense in the subclause.

So I'd do something similar:

Mi sugestis, ke li estus pli sagxa reirante hejmen per veturilo. Li konsentis, sed aldonis, ke li marsxas, kredante...

Tempodivalse (Voir le profil) 18 juillet 2015 01:10:00

sudanglo:En eldono de 1932, mi trovis:

Mi sugestis, ke li estus farinta pli saĝe, reirinte hejmen veturile. Li konsentis, sed aldonis, ke li marŝis, kredante ...

Any thoughts?
Why not just say Mi sugestis, ke li farus pli saĝe, reirinte hejmen veturile? (though I would prefer to use agi)

The conditional is by default tenseless, and the past adverbial participle implies a past conditional. You might express it this way in Slavic languages. Clean and unlikely to be misunderstood, especially with surrounding context.

I am increasingly of the opinion that the (active) compound tenses are mostly unnecessary. I have yet to see a case where substituting it with a simple S-verb would result in a total loss of meaning/intelligibility.

sudanglo (Voir le profil) 18 juillet 2015 10:39:36

I am increasingly of the opinion that the (active) compound tenses are mostly unnecessary. I have yet to see a case where substituting it with a simple S-verb would result in a total loss of meaning/intelligibility.
Well you can test that point of view with the Tekstaro using the following search expression:

\best\VF \w+\AP\AF (this will find active compound uses).

You will need to do several searches with the highest hit figure as there are so many instances.

sudanglo (Voir le profil) 18 juillet 2015 11:13:57

tommjames:That 1932 phrase makes my head hurt. I'd much prefer a simpler phrase along the lines of what Miland suggested than overuse of participles. 'Reirunte' I would definitely avoid as -UNT is highly nonstandard and potentially confusing.
My reaction was quit different Tom. I thought the sentence elegant and economical.

But I did wonder whether this might be a good example of where reirunta might be used. However it seemed to me this might lose the implication that he didn't return by car.

Mi sugestis, ke li farus pli saĝe, reironte hejmen veturile. (direct speech: vi farus pli saĝe se vi reirus hejmen veturile)

is clearly a recommendation before the event.

Again, this might be a good example where reirunte might apply

Tempodivalse (Voir le profil) 18 juillet 2015 12:35:07

Well you can test that point of view with the Tekstaro using the following search expression:

bestVF w+APAF (this will find active compound uses).

You will need to do several searches with the highest hit figure as there are so many instances.
Thanks for the code, I will need to try this out - I never quite figured out the syntax, even after reading the help files ...

For the record, I don't mean one should never use the compounds (my esteemed translation of Prince Serebrjanij uses it a fair amount, to good effect) - just that they are (almost?) never irreplaceable, and thus best used only when it is important to stress a particular nuance.

And if confusion is likely to result from the compound form, then in my view it is best to simplify, even at the expense of a small loss of nuance.

It is for this reason why I am not happy with -UNT-: it is exceedingly rare, and required me, at least, to stop and think about what was meant - and if I didn't have the other paraphrases to compare with, I still might not have understood it.

If you are still not happy with a plain conditional, why don't we try

Mi sugestis, ke li estus farinta (farintus) pli saĝe, reirinte hejmen veturile.

-intus seems to be gaining traction nowadays, though I question whether it is really that helpful in these situations.

Tempodivalse (Voir le profil) 18 juillet 2015 12:41:57

Also, why do you find reironte more appropriate? I'm not sure this indicates the proper sequence of events. The action in the participle happens relative to the main verb.

So - would you have acted wisely having already completed the action (-inte), or being about to complete the action (-onte)?

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