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Help with Fundamento exercise

fra eshapard,2016 4 26

Meldinger: 6

Språk: English

eshapard (Å vise profilen) 2016 4 26 23:13:02

I came across the following sentence in the ekzercaro:

Tiu ĉi komercaĵo estas ĉiam volonte aĉetata de mi.

The translation given in The American Esperanto Book (Baker, 1907) is: This commodity is always willingly purchased by me.

Everything seems fine except for translating de mi as by me. Why not from me? If not this way, how would you say that it is purchased from me instead of by me?

nornen (Å vise profilen) 2016 4 27 02:06:06

This is really an interesting issue you presenting here.

The preposition "de" in combination with the verb "aĉeti" can indeed mean "buy from (someone)", as we can see in this example by Zamenhof:

Zamenhof:Sur la returna vojo li renkontis du lernejkamaradojn el pli alta klaso, kiuj aĉetis de li la birdon kontraŭ kelke da spesdekoj.
...who bought from him the bird...

At the same time, the agent of a passive verb is also introduced by "de", as we can see in the Fundamental Grammar:
All forms of the passive are rendered by the respective forms of the verb est (to be) and the participle passive of the required verb; the preposition used is de, „by”. E. g. ŝi est'as am'at'a de ĉiu'j, „she is loved by every one”.
Hence, your interpretation of the sentence you quoted is as correct as the one you found in Baker, 1907.

Tiu ĉi komercaĵo estas ĉiam volonte aĉetata de mi.
This commodity is always willingly purchased by me (e.g. from a storekeep).
This commodity is always willingly purchased from me (e.g. by a customer).

eshapard (Å vise profilen) 2016 4 27 03:19:09

Thanks nornen, that's very interesting.

So you thing this is just a little inherent ambiguity in the language? I can deal with that. okulumo.gif

nornen (Å vise profilen) 2016 4 27 03:27:23

eshapard:Thanks nornen, that's very interesting.

So you thing this is just a little inherent ambiguity in the language? I can deal with that. okulumo.gif
Because of this ambiguity, some people prefer to use "fare de" instead of "de" for marking the agent of a passive verb and "disde" for marking the origin of movement (also abstract movement like giving, receiving, selling, etc).

You get ambiguities all the time in any language (maybe except lojban):
Mi manĝigas la muson. Are you feeding the mouse or are you feeding your snake with the mouse?
Mi pentris ŝin nuda. Who is naked?
Multe da viroj vidis multe da virinoj. Who saw whom?

In 99% of the cases, context will leave no doubt about the actual intended meaning. If context isn't enough, rephrase...

eshapard (Å vise profilen) 2016 4 27 03:33:01

nornen:
Because of this ambiguity, some people prefer to use "fare de" instead of "de" for marking the agent of a passive verb and "disde" for marking the origin of movement (also abstract movement like giving, receiving, selling, etc).
Thanks. I can see how that would clear things up if context alone isn't enough.

And thanks for letting me know that both interpretations are possible. I wasn't sure if this particular case was ambiguous, or if it had a fixed meaning.

nornen (Å vise profilen) 2016 4 27 03:38:55

Also keep in mind that if we were not talking about exercise books, nobody would use a passive here (or at least I think nobody would). And the active sentence is unambiguous.

Tiun ĉi komercaĵon mi ĉiam volonte aĉetas.

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