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Kiom & Kioma

by AmericanBull, July 21, 2015

Messages: 6

Language: English

AmericanBull (User's profile) July 21, 2015, 7:02:10 PM

I can see the difference in what kind of questions kiom and kioma are asking, but I can't recall a time when anyone has ever asked me "what kind of time is it?". Is there a more practical way of understanding the kioma question, or is it more of an exercise in the theory in the combination of affixes and still being able to extract sensible meaning?

tommjames (User's profile) July 21, 2015, 7:14:52 PM

"Kioma" enquires about position or rank in a series, so the answer would contain an ordinal number like "10th", "twenty first" etc. That's why when you enquire about the time with "kioma horo estas?" the response is something like "la oka" (the 8th hour of the day).

"Kioma" doesn't enquire about kind or type, as far as I know. You could translate it to English as "how manyeth".

orthohawk (User's profile) July 21, 2015, 7:15:44 PM

AmericanBull:I can see the difference in what kind of questions kiom and kioma are asking, but I can't recall a time when anyone has ever asked me "what kind of time is it?". Is there a more practical way of understanding the kioma question, or is it more of an exercise in the theory in the combination of affixes and still being able to extract sensible meaning?
The problem here is that English has no "ordinal" form of "how much" like it has with the acual numbers (1 > first; 2 > second, etc). Du is to dua as kiom is to kioma.

So basically what one is saying when asking "kioma horo estas" (what time is it) is "which-th hour is it?" which of course is answered as "estas la dua horo (it is the second hour)"

Tempodivalse (User's profile) July 21, 2015, 7:40:34 PM

It may be that the original poster is confused between the -om correlatives, which deal with quantity, and the -el or -a correlatives, which deal with manner and quality, respectively.

There is nothing wrong with making an adjective out of the adverbial correlatives, when you want them to modify a noun directly.

Tioma drinkado estas malbona por la sano. - That much drinking isn't good for health.

Ĉiama - eternal.

Vestitor (User's profile) July 21, 2015, 8:19:58 PM

orthohawk:
The problem here is that English has no "ordinal" form of "how much" like it has with the acual numbers (1 > first; 2 > second, etc). Du is to dua as kiom is to kioma.
Oh? So what explains constructions like 'at the eleventh hour' then? Or the rather formal: 'What's the hour?' when referring to the time?

orthohawk (User's profile) July 22, 2015, 1:28:31 PM

Vestitor:
orthohawk:
The problem here is that English has no "ordinal" form of "how much" like it has with the acual numbers (1 > first; 2 > second, etc). Du is to dua as kiom is to kioma.
Oh? So what explains constructions like 'at the eleventh hour' then? Or the rather formal: 'What's the hour?' when referring to the time?
I guess I don't understand what thee is asking about? what's to "explain"?

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