Messages: 15
Language: English
FoxtrotUniform (User's profile) April 16, 2016, 8:51:21 PM
La klaŭnojn sendu!
Send in the clowns!
Other than that I cant formulate a rule a sense of when to switch it up.
robbkvasnak (User's profile) April 16, 2016, 9:26:35 PM
- Ha! La hundon mordis mia frato sed pri la kato ninion scias mi!
nornen (User's profile) April 16, 2016, 10:28:37 PM
La hundo mordis la katon. (normal order)
La katon mordis la hundo (kaj ne la katinon). (emphasis on cat)
Mordis la hundo la katon (kaj ĝi ne lekis ĝis). (emphasis on bite)
Imagine the emphasis on "tion":
Tion mi ne diris, mi diris multe, tamen tion, tion, kion vi aludas, tion mi ne diris!
Sometimes you have to move certain phrases to the front (Wh-fronting), because those phrases are intrinsically emphasized.
Question words must stand at the beginning:
Kion vi diris? (OSV)
Kion diris vi? (OVS)
Relative pronouns must stand at the beginning:
Mi vidis la hundon, kiu mordis la katon. (SVO)
Mi vidis la hundon, kiun mordis la lupo. (OVS)
Mi vidis la hundon, kiun la lupo mordis. (OSV)
FoxtrotUniform (User's profile) April 16, 2016, 11:35:57 PM
nornen:Switching from SVO to another word order is normally done in order to emphasize the phrase you moved to the beginning of the sentence:So is it something along the lines of verbal emphasis which can cause all sorts of implications
La hundo mordis la katon. (normal order)
La katon mordis la hundo (kaj ne la katinon). (emphasis on cat)
Mordis la hundo la katon (kaj ĝi ne lekis ĝis). (emphasis on bite)
I didn't say you borrowed the money. Simple statement of fact.
I didn't say you borrowed the money. (Implication someone else said it.)
I DIDN'T say you borrowed the money. (Implication, even though I've been accused of saying it, it's not true)
I didn't SAY you borrowed the money. (Implication, I thought/implied it, but didn't say it).
I didn't say YOU borrowed the money. (Implication, I said someone else borrowed it.)
I didn't say you BORROWED the money. (Implication, I said you stole it, I said it was a gift, etc.)
I didn't say you borrowed THE money. (Implication, I said you borrowed some money, but not this very specific money in question)
I didn't say you borrowed the MONEY. ((Implication, I said you borrowed something else.)
Or is there something else going on?
RiotNrrd (User's profile) April 17, 2016, 12:27:42 AM
FoxtrotUniform:Other than that I cant formulate a rule a sense of when to switch it up.If you stick with English word order, you will be fine nearly all of the time. However, as you've noticed, you can see other word orders. In general they have much the same emphasis as if you were wording them in English, but sometimes they simply mirror the word order of the native language of the speaker. So, don't read too much into them. Remember that because of the well-marked accusative case, it is much easier to untangle different word orders than it is in English, so Esperanto speakers feel freer to switch it up now and again. Sometimes it's just to create some variation. Sometimes it's for euphony. Sometimes it's to emphasize a certain part of the sentence more than another. Sometimes it's just the way that feels most natural to them. There is no hard and fast rule as to which it might be, so go for the core meaning first, and if there's a nuanced message there hopefully context will help drive it out.
Polaris (User's profile) April 17, 2016, 1:49:09 AM
FoxtrotUniform:I'm still trying to figure out Esperanto word order. Fortunately it follows more about or less the English syntax. I've noticed that sometimes a OVS word order will be used. About the only feeling I get is this word order is used with the imperative:Good topic, Foxtrot! As others have pointed out, while Esperanto word order is more fluid than English in terms of use (as well as much more flexible from a rules standpoint), S V O word order seems to be the norm UNLESS you are changing the order for the purposes of emphasis. Let me give you a quick example.
La klaŭnojn sendu!
Send in the clowns!
Other than that I cant formulate a rule a sense of when to switch it up.
If an Esperanto speaker were to say "la junajn knabojn instruis la nova instruistino" (O V S), he is probably emphasizing that it was the YOUNG BOYS whom the new teacher taught (maybe other teachers are discussing why the boys in their classes now seem to have either a particular skill or a particular deficit, so they're ferreting out that they all had this teacher). In S V O word order (which is normal), "la nova instruistino intruis la junajn knabojn" it might simply mean that it was the new teacher who had the young boys in her class (as opposed to some other teacher). The up-shot? Deviation from standard S V O word order usually signals an effort to draw special attention to the part mentioned first.
erinja (User's profile) April 17, 2016, 3:43:23 AM
So in a sentence like "The book was written by Zamenhof", instead of saying "La libro estis skribita de Zamenhof", you could more succinctly say "La libron skribis Zamenhof".
There is no real difference between "Zamenhof wrote the book" and "The book was written by Zamenhof" other than emphasis (emphasis on Zamenhof versus on the book), so you can word it in active voice but with OVS in order to keep the succinctness of the grammar, along with maintaining the emphasis on the book versus Zamenhof.
Alkanadi (User's profile) April 17, 2016, 6:26:11 AM
Example of OVS:
Tiun ĉi sonartikolon verkis kaj produktis Andreo Bach el Gdynia en Pollando
http://esperantaretradio.blogspot.com/
lagtendisto (User's profile) April 17, 2016, 12:14:06 PM
RiotNrrd:Remember that because of the well-marked accusative case, ...Have you ever try to recognize accusative -n in spoken conversation *without* seeing lips of other speaker i.e. within noisy surrounding at some music concert k.t.p.? Thats reason why Lidepla conlang uses 'Den' accusative particle in case of inverted order. 'Den' someones can roar, to roar '-n' (especially -jn) suffixes could be difficult without getting knot into tongue. 'Den yabla me chi! — The apple I am eating!'
nornen (User's profile) April 18, 2016, 7:24:42 PM
erinja:Just one more note to supplement the excellent comments that have already been posted, OVS is occasionally used to avoid a passive voice.I am wondering why anyone would want to use the passive voice in as simple a sentence as "La libron skribis Zamenhof". What is the difference between "La libron skribis Zamenhof" and "La libro estis skribita de Zamenhof"? (Obviously one is active and the other is passive, but what pragmatic or semantic difference is there?)
So in a sentence like "The book was written by Zamenhof", instead of saying "La libro estis skribita de Zamenhof", you could more succinctly say "La libron skribis Zamenhof".
spreecamper:Have you ever try to recognize accusative -n in spoken conversation *without* seeing lips of other speaker i.e. within noisy surrounding at some music concert k.t.p.? Thats reason why Lidepla conlang uses 'Den' accusative particle in case of inverted order. 'Den' someones can roar, to roar '-n' (especially -jn) suffixes could be difficult without getting knot into tongue. 'Den yabla me chi! — The apple I am eating!'I don't think this is an issue in real life. If you can't here the -n in "la pomon mi manĝas" you can still understand what the utterance is about (animacy helps). Take Spanish for instance: the plural ending is -s and many dialects drop final s. Hence, "mi manĝas la pomon" and "mi manĝas la pomojn" sound exactly the same. However there are very, very few situation where this really matters and where the exact meaning cannot be inferred from context.
Or take German: "Das Brot, das das Kind gegessen hat, war verschimmelt." The relative pronoun "das" could be either nominative or accusative and "das Kind" could be both, too. But I doubt that anyone would interpret it as "La pano, kiu manĝis la infanon, estis putra."