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nek...nek... and the accusative

di VocabGuy, 04 dicembre 2015

Messaggi: 10

Lingua: English

VocabGuy (Mostra il profilo) 04 dicembre 2015 01:10:53

I've been using a very old textbook to teach myself Esperanto. Yes, I'm finally getting around to some serious study. My problem is that the textbook has plenty of exercises, but no answers are given in the book. I have a simple question regarding the use of the word "nek". I'm supposed to translate the following sentence to Esperanto:

"They have neither apples nor peaches."

I translated this as, "Ili havas nek pomoj nek persikoj."

Is this correct, or should I use the accusative so it would be, "Ili havas nek pomojn nek persikojn."

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

EDIT: I actually found the answer by looking at a sample sentence in the book. Apparently, my brain didn't want me to see it until after I asked the question. Unless I'm mistaken, the second translation is correct.

sergejm (Mostra il profilo) 04 dicembre 2015 05:17:54

Even if you use nek, you must use accusative, if it is needed via logic:
Ili havas nek pomojN nek persikojN.
En la ĉambro estis nek pomoj nek persikoj. There were neither apples nor peaches in the room.

VocabGuy (Mostra il profilo) 04 dicembre 2015 06:37:07

sergejm:Even if you use nek, you must use accusative, if it is needed via logic:
Ili havas nek pomojN nek persikojN.
En la ĉambro estis nek pomoj nek persikoj. There were neither apples nor peaches in the room.
Dankon! I was just confused because it seems that every Esperanto preposition I've learned so far use the nominative case (or whatever it's called). I guess nek isn't exactly a preposition, though, is it? ridulo.gif

As long as I'm thinking about it, are there any prepositions in Esperanto that use the accusative case? I know a little German, though not much, and it uses accusative, dative and genitive cases with prepositions. Is Esperanto truly so uniform that it only uses the nominative?

opalo (Mostra il profilo) 04 dicembre 2015 09:54:14

Nek is a conjunction, like kaj and aŭ.

Prepositions are followed by the nominative, unless they need to express motion towards something, e.g. "I ran in the garden" (nominative) vs. "I ran into the garden" (accusative), Mi kuris en la ĝardeno vs. ĝardenon. (However, al, ĝis, el always take the nominative because they always express motion.)

Some prepositions, like krom and anstataŭ, may occasionally be followed by the accusative for the sake of clarity.

sergejm (Mostra il profilo) 04 dicembre 2015 11:37:52

VocabGuy:
Dankon! I was just confused because it seems that every Esperanto preposition I've learned so far use the nominative case (or whatever it's called). I guess nek isn't exactly a preposition, though, is it? ridulo.gif

As long as I'm thinking about it, are there any prepositions in Esperanto that use the accusative case? I know a little German, though not much, and it uses accusative, dative and genitive cases with prepositions. Is Esperanto truly so uniform that it only uses the nominative?
Without preposition check by they
I have apples -> I have THEM -> Mi havas iliN -> Mi havas pomojn
The apples are in the room -> THEY are in the room -> Ili estas en la ĉambro -> La pomoj estas en la ĉambro
With prepotistion use with into (en -n) and onto (sur -n) but not with to (al).

Vestitor (Mostra il profilo) 04 dicembre 2015 11:48:31

The so-called important distinction made between sentences like "I ran in the garden/I ran into the garden" seem a contrived complication to me. Is it even useful to have one word for 'in', 'into' and 'within', which then needs markers to distinguish them?

Matthieu (Mostra il profilo) 04 dicembre 2015 13:54:22

Vestitor:The so-called important distinction made between sentences like "I ran in the garden/I ran into the garden" seem a contrived complication to me. Is it even useful to have one word for 'in', 'into' and 'within', which then needs markers to distinguish them?
It's not "necessary" because you can be understood without it (French doesn't have this distinction, for instance), but many languages (German, Hungarian, Finnish, Russian, Slovak and probably all other Slavic languages) have this distinction and it is also part of the grammar of Esperanto.

opalo (Mostra il profilo) 04 dicembre 2015 14:13:17

Of course you could conceivably replace it with Mi kuris al en la ĝardeno — after all Mi falis de sur la seĝo is standard Esperanto.

I expect that the idea that the accusative could represent motion may have started with expressions like Mi eniris la ĉambron, leading to Mi venis Varsovion and by a natural analogy to en la ĝardenon.

MoutOp (Mostra il profilo) 04 dicembre 2015 14:38:56

In fact, in a lot of languages, the accusative have a sense of motion. For example, in Latin - one of the fonts of Esperanto -, I can say "in hortum" (into the garden), and in this case I use the accusative; but I can also say "in horto" (in the garden, motionless), and in this case I use the ablative.

Is it necessary? Maybe not. But it's truly useful. Volapük tried to use only nominative with prepositions ("in gad" was "in the garden" and "into the garden" ), but the usage didn't tolerate this: some volapükists respected the rule, some others used accusative on the substantive ("in gad" / "in gadi" ) and others on the preposition ("in gad" / "ini gad" ). The decision of Zamenhof avoided this kind of confusion.

Today, in modern Volapük, we use the third solution ("ini gad" ).

erinja (Mostra il profilo) 04 dicembre 2015 15:47:06

MoutOp:In fact, in a lot of languages, the accusative have a sense of motion. For example, in Latin - one of the fonts of Esperanto -, I can say "in hortum" (into the garden), and in this case I use the accusative; but I can also say "in horto" (in the garden, motionless), and in this case I use the ablative.

Is it necessary? Maybe not. But it's truly useful. Volapük tried to use only nominative with prepositions ("in gad" was "in the garden" and "into the garden" ), but the usage didn't tolerate this: some volapükists respected the rule, some others used accusative on the substantive ("in gad" / "in gadi" ) and others on the preposition ("in gad" / "ini gad" ). The decision of Zamenhof avoided this kind of confusion.

Today, in modern Volapük, we use the third solution ("ini gad" ).
How interesting!

I never thought much about why Esperanto made this distinction, but as a native English speaker, which obviously makes this distinction (in/into, on/onto, etc) it made sense to me that Esperanto also makes the distinction, though with a different form than a preposition.

Many ways of marking something grammatically, right? Many languages though a direct object with a grammatical ending, but some languages use a preposition to show a direct object, so it doesn't seem strange to me that in a case like this, where some languages use a preposition to distinguish, that you might use grammatical endings to distinguish instead.

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