Съобщения: 11
Език: English
FoxtrotUniform (Покажи профила) 21 март 2016, 21:28:54
Mi estas eksano de la Unona Armeo.
I am a former member of the US Army.
But when I saw the word eksano, what I thought was "sudden health". (ek-sano) vs. (eks-ano)
SO I opted for the very unambiguous eksa soldato.
Just as a point of interest how often can one word be parsed different ways. Context of course would make sudden health nonsensical. But I don't have the experience yet to start willy-nilly slapping affixes on to roots. If I did I would have opted for malmemori rather than forgesi.
morico (Покажи профила) 21 март 2016, 22:20:50
RiotNrrd (Покажи профила) 21 март 2016, 23:16:22
FoxtrotUniform:Just as a point of interest how often can one word be parsed different ways.Not that often, but it can happen.
"Disvolv-" confused me for the longest time. "Unwinding", maybe? The word can break up into dis- and volv-, of course, but, in fact, disvolv- is a unitary root that is unrelated to either dis- or volv-, and means "develop".
ek- words and eks- words can cause odd overlaps, as you have found. Another possible is using al- in front of a word that starts with i, or ali- ( as a prefix meaning "other" ) in front of certain words that don't.
Overall, however, the vast majority of words are easily and unambiguously parsable. You'll quickly learn the accidental oddballs.
These are the kinds of things jokes end up being created from. Remember that context is often quite important, and can serve to indicate which way a multiply-parsable word needs to go.
nornen (Покажи профила) 22 март 2016, 01:02:14
RiotNrrd:"Disvolv-" confused me for the longest time. "Unwinding", maybe? The word can break up into dis- and volv-, of course, but, in fact, disvolv- is a unitary root that is unrelated to either dis- or volv-, and means "develop".I dare contradict. Dis'volv'i does indeed means to unfold, to unfurl, to unravel. Compare:
volvi - dis'volvi
ravel - un'ravel, wind - un'wind
wickeln - ent'wickeln
(en)rollar - des'a'rrollar
Then the the figurative sense it also means "to develop". When an idea, a plant, a plan develops, it unfurls, it unravels, it unfolds, it folds open.
So disvolv is not a root, but two: dis'volv'.
Similar calques are el'sxalti (switch off, but German: aus'schalten = out'switch) and el'teni (stand, endure, but German: aus'halten = out'hold). Gladly Zamenhof chose ĉesi for cease, and not German *sur'aŭdi.
rikforto (Покажи профила) 22 март 2016, 01:03:46
FoxtrotUniform:Just as a point of interest how often can one word be parsed different ways.So, the website I'm about to link is notorious here. I hesitate to link it because the threat of derailing an interesting question is high, but this guy's hate-on for Esperanto did make him collect a list of homonyms...so it is useful.
The formula for finding them is pretty simple. Look for places affixes are contained in roots and check to see if what is left is a root on its own. If idoj weren't so counterproductive, that would be one of the reforms I'd support. But context is usually sufficient.
Alkanadi (Покажи профила) 22 март 2016, 06:13:15
FoxtrotUniform:Mi estas eksano de la Unona Armeo.This is okay but I would prefer:
Mi estas eks-ano de la Unona Armeo.
Mi estis ano de la Unona Armeo.
Mi estis soldato en la Unona Armeo.
Vestitor (Покажи профила) 22 март 2016, 11:56:14
rikforto:This one is amusing: dignagho: "age of dignity" / "a swim in a dike".FoxtrotUniform:Just as a point of interest how often can one word be parsed different ways.So, the website I'm about to link is notorious here. I hesitate to link it because the threat of derailing an interesting question is high, but this guy's hate-on for Esperanto did make him collect a list of homonyms...so it is useful.
They're probably a nuisance in terms of aiming for clarity, but the presence of these sort of homonyms (or homophones) makes the language more human. They're good for poetry too.
erinja (Покажи профила) 22 март 2016, 16:59:35
FoxtrotUniform:But when I saw the word eksano, what I thought was "sudden health". (ek-sano) vs. (eks-ano)There's another thing with eks-ano, that it isn't 100% clear whether you meant it as "eksa ano" or "ano de eksoj". "ekssoldato" would of course be the least ambiguous single-word choice.
If I did I would have opted for malmemori rather than forgesi.That would have been fine, and even if you end up with a word that is not the most commonly used word, it is an excellent way for a beginner to talk around a word they don't know.
Vestitor:They're probably a nuisance in terms of aiming for clarity, but the presence of these sort of homonyms (or homophones) makes the language more human.It is almost impossible to avoid some homonyms in a language like Esperanto, with such diverse word construction possibilities. Zamenhof built the vocabulary to avoid a lot of homophones, by changing a single letter of a root, to avoid those roots from being able to be parsed in more than one way (hence for banquet, we have bankedo and not banketo). But it is beyond anyone's capability to avoid dual-parsing in the entire language and I think that for such a flexible language, the dual-parsing words are remarkably few.
RiotNrrd (Покажи профила) 22 март 2016, 21:31:52
nornen:I dare contradict.You may.
Years ago, when it mattered, I found an entry in an old Esperanto\Esperanto dictionary that I had which listed disvolv- as a single root. I was unable to glean the meaning from the supposed dis- and volv-, therefore I was apt to believe it.
Which I still do, actually.
The whole unwinding thing sounds like a rationalization. Yeah, I guess you could get develop from that, but...
I no longer have the dictionary, unfortunately, as it had been borrowed rather than bought. I couldn't tell you which one it was. It seemed quite comprehensive, at least from the position of the 1950's, when it was printed.
Bemused (Покажи профила) 22 март 2016, 21:37:42
FoxtrotUniform:My favorite is kataro (runny nose) vs kat-aro (group of cats).
Just as a point of interest how often can one word be parsed different ways. Context of course would make sudden health nonsensical. But I don't have the experience yet to start willy-nilly slapping affixes on to roots. If I did I would have opted for malmemori rather than forgesi.