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Word order and questions

de Alkanadi, 30 de mayo de 2016

Aportes: 5

Idioma: English

Alkanadi (Mostrar perfil) 30 de mayo de 2016 07:56:07

Is this true?

Kion vi petas = Vi petas kion
Kie vi estas = vi estas kie
Kiu estas tiu = tiu estas kiu

bryku (Mostrar perfil) 30 de mayo de 2016 09:43:14

Alkanadi:Is this true?

Kion vi petas = Vi petas kion
Kie vi estas = vi estas kie
Kiu estas tiu = tiu estas kiu
Yes, but add a question mark to be clear. Slavic languages share the same feature:
Kion vi petas? = Vi petas kion?, Polish: O co prosisz? = Prosisz o co?
Kie vi estas? = vi estas kie?, Polish: Gdzie jesteś? = Jesteś gdzie?
Kiu estas tiu? = tiu estas kiu?, Polish: Kim jest tamten? = Tamten jest kim?
Though the second form is rare and used only on certain occasions. I think the same is with Esperanto.

hazelnutfox (Mostrar perfil) 1 de junio de 2016 19:40:37

You can see the second form as a sentence to which you don't know the ending or want it confirmed etc. - you start it, and only at the end add the question particle and change your intonation (in writing - put a question mark, which you, Alkanadi, omitted, making the sentences incomprehensible if you didn't mention questions in the topic).
In English, it would be something like: You ask for what? - Kind of surprised reaction, speaker wants the first person to repeat that part. I believe it's used only (mostly?) in spoken language, of course including dialogues in books (I'm most familiar with those).

Esperanto with its -n doesn't always SVO order in a sentence as the -n form shows what the object is. Polish has even more forms, and tossing and mixing parts of sentence is natural - although, as Bryku says, this form of questions is still rare, such short questions don't allow much reordering.

erinja (Mostrar perfil) 1 de junio de 2016 20:54:41

I'd re-order a question only if I'm verifying what I heard and asking the speaker to fill in the blank, but it's theoretically possible to put the question in any order.

Kion vi volas? = What do you want?

Vi volas kion? = I caught that you want something but I didn't manage to catch what; can you tell me what that was? Or else, surprise. You want WHAT? It would be rare to choose this sentence as a first choice, normally someone has already said something that this sentence would be responding to.

robbkvasnak (Mostrar perfil) 1 de junio de 2016 21:34:23

Vi KION volas?!?!?!
En la polineziaj lingvoj oni demandus: Volas vi kion?
Feliĉe akuzativon havas Eperanto - tia planis Z - granda cerbo, granda animo. Lin mi dankas por tiu libereco.

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