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How would one say "don't have to" in Esperanto?

de LiamBeaman, 21 de mayo de 2016

Aportes: 52

Idioma: English

mkj1887 (Mostrar perfil) 19 de junio de 2016 15:17:09

I was given to understand, by something I read long ago, that the use of “ne devas” to mean “mustn’t” (instead of “don’t have to”) was a Germanism used by Zamenhof himself, thus requiring circumlocutions involving “bezoni” or “necesi” or whatever to insure not being misunderstood if you want to express the idea of “don’t have to”.

Fenris_kcf (Mostrar perfil) 20 de junio de 2016 06:36:00

And this is just wrong. In German the modal verb system is slightly broken, but not nearly as severe as in English. Again: For some reason the English language began to use "must not do" in such a way, that "do" instead of "must" is negated. English is the only language i know, in which such a strange and exception in the modal verb system exists.

erinja (Mostrar perfil) 20 de junio de 2016 13:51:32

mkj1887:I was given to understand, by something I read long ago, that the use of “ne devas” to mean “mustn’t” (instead of “don’t have to”) was a Germanism used by Zamenhof himself, thus requiring circumlocutions involving “bezoni” or “necesi” or whatever to insure not being misunderstood if you want to express the idea of “don’t have to”.
I have never heard of this but it would not surprise me. There are a number of "Zamenhofian" turns of phrase that didn't really survive into later Esperanto, particularly ones that he came up with early in the language, whether it was a word choice or a way of putting a phrase together. Sometimes the community came up with a different way of saying something and the different way was what stuck.

One well-known example is the "flugiloj de facila vento" that we find in "La Espero". No one uses "facila" to mean "rapid" anymore.

vejktoro (Mostrar perfil) 22 de junio de 2016 05:05:21

Fenris_kcf:The confusion most likely arises due to the fact that when using "must" in English a negation affects the main verb instead of the inflected modal verb (like in all other cases). It's a little hard to explain in English since the whole modal verb system is kind of broken, but let me try:

"i cannot sleep."

In this phrase the negated verb is "can". The writing "cannot" shows this. Negating "sleep" would result in a different meaning and is probably expressed in a total different way, e.g.: "i can do the following thing: not sleep." (~ "i can stay awake."). I know some will say that "i can not sleep." is a way to express this, but there seems to be a controversy about that ...

However in the case of must it's the other way round:

"i must not sleep."

... means: "i must do the following thing: not sleep.". Now negating "must" requires a different phrase like e.g. "i don't have to / need to sleep.".

In Esperanto one can negate both main verb and modal verb, but usually only the modal verb is negated. So "mi ne devas fari tion." indeed means "i don't have to do this.".
For one, you are talking about English not Eo, and secondly, and somewhat rudely, what the heck are you on about? 'mustn't' is a contraction of 'must not' - They are the same. As are cannot, can not and can't. In Modern English you generally can only negate modal verbs. A lack of contraction doesn't or if you wish does not push the negation to the following verb.

To negate other, non-modal (helper/tense) verbs, you have to use a place taker.. the verb 'to do' for instance.

English 'not' cannot move about like Eo 'ne' and "ne devi' as oppossed to 'devi ne' has no En equivalent in the dialects I speak. Not sure what paper you got your info from, but it doesn't seem to be based on a descriptive grammar of English.

Of course, you may have had a point I completely missed, if so, do explain.

Fenris_kcf (Mostrar perfil) 22 de junio de 2016 08:11:11

'mustn't' is a contraction of 'must not' - They are the same
I don't claim that "mustn't" and "must not" are different, but, as i was told, "cannot" and "can not" indeed are. As i wrote there seem to exists different positions regarding this. Maybe you should explain yours a little closer.
In Modern English you generally can only negate modal verbs
This is obviously not true, as i showed. In "i must not sleep" definitely the main verb "sleep" is negated, and not the modal verb "must".
A lack of contraction doesn't or if you wish does not push the negation to the following verb. […] To negate other, non-modal (helper/tense) verbs, you have to use a place taker.. the verb 'to do' for instance.
No idea what you mean with this. Maybe sth. like "i don't can sleep." or "i can do not sleep."? Both sound quite odd to me, but since English ain't my mother tongue i don't qualify to judge this.

Please correct me if i'm wrong!

vejktoro (Mostrar perfil) 22 de junio de 2016 17:59:31

Just a warning, I enjoy talking about grammar and can answer and ask questions for hours so I hope not to go too off-topic or get to windy and boring.

So I'll try to be brief.

vejktoro (Mostrar perfil) 22 de junio de 2016 18:20:29

In older forms of English, the word 'not' could follow pretty much any verb. And these verbs could move within the sentence to form questions. This is now lost. Modern English only inverts modals to form questions and attaches 'not' only to these same verbs. For every other verb, 'to do' takes it's place. It is the verb to do that moves to form questions or takes the neg when a neg is needed.

For instance, in the past one could say, "I must sleep not" "sleep" was negated directly. Now it is the auxiliary verb that is negated to negate the sentence. We say "I must not sleep." Not is attached to must NOT to sleep. Note that you cannot contract not with the main verb. The first language modern speaker will understand "I must sleep not" as a weird way of saying "I must not sleep."

Again, and this is important, A modern speaker will NEVER contract not to the main verb, but always to the modal.. "I must sleepn't" is impossible.
"I mustn't sleep." is fine.

I can also invert: "I must not sleep." to "Must I not sleep?" or " Mustn't I sleep?."

With other non-modal verbs an auxiliary modal fills this role.
We don't say, "you yelled not." we say "you did not (didn't) yell."

To form the question we again use do: NOT "yelled you?" or "yelled not you?", but "did you yell?" or "didn't you
yell."

vejktoro (Mostrar perfil) 22 de junio de 2016 18:26:52

As for can not, cannot and can't, it is all about style. In each case, however, NOT is attached to can and not the main verb. The main verb is indeed negated as the sentence itself is negated, but this happens via the auxiliary.

'Cannot' is the most accepted form for fancy writing. 'Can not' is the same, but can be used to emphasis NOT, and is seperatable for the purpose of question inversion: "Can you not sleep?". 'Cannot' is heavy, and doesn't move as well: "Cannot you sleep?"

"can't" is less formal but can replace both cannot and can not, and it can move: "can't you sleep?"

vejktoro (Mostrar perfil) 22 de junio de 2016 18:31:52

Hope that clears it up, and sorry to those who where just curious about the Eo.

Interesting that in a language with less strict word order like Eo, we have the case of 'NE' before or after the verb 'devas' actually occupying a different position semantically and creating a different meaning. Whereas the English 'NOT' always occupies the same semantic position, that is, attached to the modal, and different meanings are not generated by stylistically moving it about.

Does anyone know of any Esperanto verbs other than 'devas' where this occurs?

Alkanadi (Mostrar perfil) 23 de junio de 2016 07:43:10

vejktoro:Does anyone know of any Esperanto verbs other than 'devas' where this occurs?
I think povi would work like that.

Mi ne povas fari tion
Mi povas ne fari tion

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