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A question about the word "Kiam"

fra DefectiveTomato,2016 7 26

Meldinger: 8

Språk: English

DefectiveTomato (Å vise profilen) 2016 7 26 18:59:10

Hello everyone,

I'm fairly new to Esperanto (I've started about two months ago), and I'm still trying to figuring out the some of the grammar of Esperanto. I have a question about the word "kiam" and how to use it.

How would I say "When he was a boy, (he played a lot)" vs "When was a boy?". It seems that it would both be "Kiam li estis knabo" but I'm not sure what makes them different. In English it's the word position of the word "was" ("When he WAS a boy" vs "When WAS he a boy?") but I'm not sure what the distinction is in Esperanto (or maybe I'm just using the wrong word). I'm sorry if my question isn't clear enough because I'm having a hard time putting it into words, but if anyone knows the answer it would be a big help!

erinja (Å vise profilen) 2016 7 26 20:31:49

The difference would be the tone of voice and the question mark at the end. In Esperanto, like in English, we tend to use a rising tone at the end of a sentence to indicate a question, so this tone (or in writing, a question mark) would indicate the difference between "When he was a boy..." and "When was he a boy?"

RiotNrrd (Å vise profilen) 2016 7 27 00:20:01

One thing I try to avoid is to use the k-correlatives as the first word in sentences that are not questions. So I would say "Tiam, kiam li estis knabo...", for "When he was a boy..."

If the first word in a sentence is a k-correlative, it generally implies that this is a question. I don't know if this is a solid rule or not, but it is customary.

sudanglo (Å vise profilen) 2016 7 27 11:47:14

An intelligent question.

One of the very few instances of when I have been misunderstood using Esperanto in an international context is when I have begun a sentence using kiam and been interrupted by my interlocutor who has imagined that I was asking a when question.

As regards whether there is a signal from intonation, I would point out that there seems to have been very little academic analysis on this point - how intonation is used in Esperanto to distinguish meaning.

As Riot points out preceding words can flag the sentence as not a when question, eg En 1965, kiam mi estis studento,

Also being allowed to complete the sentence may make it clear - if I hadn't been interrupted mid-sentence it would then have been obvious that I was not asking a when question, eg kiam vi estis en la urbo, ĉu vi vidis Johanon?

erinja (Å vise profilen) 2016 7 27 18:37:04

You can definitely flag a statement (versus question) by adding tiam to the beginning.

...however I never do that myself. I figure that if someone lets me finish my sentence then the meaning will definitely be clear, like sudanglo says.

bartlett22183 (Å vise profilen) 2016 7 27 18:51:47

sudanglo:As regards whether there is a signal from intonation, I would point out that there seems to have been very little academic analysis on this point - how intonation is used in Esperanto to distinguish meaning.
Use of intonation, one of the so-called suprasegmentals, can be tricky, considering that different languages use intonation differently. In tonal languages, the intonation itself is lexical, just as much a part of the word as consonants and vowels. I have read (I will stand corrected) that in at least some of the Bantu languages, tone may indicate grammatical categories, such as verb moods. Whether that is right or not, the idea indicates that intonation can be used variously for various purposes in different languages. Therefore it can be a very tricky matter in constructed international auxiliary languages (such as, obviously, Esperanto).

DefectiveTomato (Å vise profilen) 2016 7 27 19:38:34

Wow! Thanks for all these replies! This really help a lot, and I think I understand much better now.

And after researching a little more about my own question about "kiam", I think the problem is occurring because "kiam" can be used as either a preposition or a question word (I'm not sure what the formal name for that is). So the only way to tell which usage is being used is either through a word like "Tiam" or through context/intonation. (I think adding a short word or a suffix to indicate the usage of a ki- word like "kiam" would help Esperanto, but "tiam" works too)

But anyway all these replies have been very helpful and insightful so thank you all!

erinja (Å vise profilen) 2016 7 27 19:51:04

bartlett22183:Use of intonation, one of the so-called suprasegmentals, can be tricky, considering that different languages use intonation differently. In tonal languages, the intonation itself is lexical, just as much a part of the word as consonants and vowels. I have read (I will stand corrected) that in at least some of the Bantu languages, tone may indicate grammatical categories, such as verb moods. Whether that is right or not, the idea indicates that intonation can be used variously for various purposes in different languages. Therefore it can be a very tricky matter in constructed international auxiliary languages (such as, obviously, Esperanto).
That may be true for Bantu languages but I think that a rising tone to indicate a question is common in a lot of languages. Of course you would not want to rely only on this, but realistically, a sentence like "Kiam vi venis hejmen", spoken by a computer with a totally flat tone, then looking at a person for an answer, would be understood to be a question, versus a statement, because if it were a statement, the person has not finished their statement, and would keep talking to complete the thought ("Kiam vi venis hejmen..... ......mi vidis ke vi havis multajn sakojn"). And this is obviously an issue ONLY for the spoken word, because in writing there is a question mark. I have never ever, in what is now approximately 20 years of use of Esperanto, had confusion on whether a "kiam" sentence was a question or a statement. Either someone lets you finish talking and it's clear, or there is a written question mark (or period) and it's clear.

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