Поруке: 16
Језик: English
horsto (Погледати профил) 10. октобар 2020. 00.44.02
Yumemitai:I've just started learning Esperanto, and I came across the use of these words as conjunctions.You can exchange the two parts of the sentence:
However, if word order is mostly free, and these question words can be used as conjunctions, isn't it ambiguous which one is the question and which one is the conjunction?
For example:
"Kie estas vi, kiam ŝi estis mortigata?"
"Kie estis vi, kiam ŝi estis mortigata?" = "Kiam ŝi estis mortigata, kie estis vi?"
Both forms are questions.
"Mi estis en Nov-Jorko, kiam ŝi estis mortigata." = "Kiam ŝi estis mortigata, mi estis en Nov-Jorko."
Both forms are not questions.
And RiotNrrd is totally right,
"Kiam ŝi estis mortigata, mi estis en Nov-Jorko."
is a short form of:
"Kiam ŝi estis mortigata, tiam mi estis en Nov-Jorko."
horsto (Погледати профил) 10. октобар 2020. 11.19.19
Yumemitai:Interesting, I think I now understand your question. And indeed, there is no difference in the words between:
However, if word order is mostly free, and these question words can be used as conjunctions, isn't it ambiguous which one is the question and which one is the conjunction?
"Kie vi estis, kiam ŝi mortis?"
and:
"Kie vi estis?" "Kiam ŝi mortis?"
In written form you of course have the question marks. I never thought about that before.
RiotNrrd (Погледати профил) 10. октобар 2020. 14.45.36
That doesn't mean that no one would ever say something ambiguous. People say what they say. But I don't think this is something that is a particular problem in Esperanto. More of an "edge case" kind of issue that is typically solved by context or intonation or some other obvious means in speech, and (as mentioned) by question marks in text.
Sepe (Погледати профил) 05. новембар 2020. 21.24.03
Yumemitai:However, if word order is mostly free, and these question words can be used as conjunctions, isn't it ambiguous which one is the question and which one is the conjunction?Unfortunately, as far as I know, written Esperanto has no way to disambiguate such a question. In speech, intonation would usually make it clear. Borrowing punctuation from Spanish to delimit the part of the sentence with interrogative intonation:
For example:
"Kie estas vi, kiam ŝi estis mortigata?"
If I didn't make a mistake, this means "where were you, when she was being killed?"
However, because the sentence order could be either way, this could also mean, "Where you were, when was she being killed?" (Which, I suppose, could imply that you live in a place with a different time zone, so while she was being killed, it was a different time for you.)
The only solution is either picking up which is which by context, or having a particular word order be correct.
Or, there's something I don't know of yet. How does this work?
- ¿Kie estis vi, kiam ŝi estis mortigata? “¿Where were you when she was killed?”.
- Kie estis vi, ¿kiam ŝi estis mortigata? “Where you were, ¿when was she killed?”.
tommjames (Погледати профил) 06. новембар 2020. 15.28.21
Yumemitai:A solution needs a problem, and in this case I must say I struggle to see what the issue is. Despite its apparent ambiguity the phrase "Kie estis vi, kiam ŝi estis mortigata?" would always be understood to mean 'Where were you when she was being killed?' If you want emphasize the place then use tie in the way novatago suggested: Ĉu tie, kie vi estis, kiam ŝi estis mortigata?
The only solution is either picking up which is which by context, or having a particular word order be correct.
Or, there's something I don't know of yet. How does this work?
nornen (Погледати профил) 06. новембар 2020. 17.40.45
Kie vi estis tiam, kiam ekpluvis? = Where were you at the time the rain began to fall?
Kiam ekpluvis tie, kie vi estis? = When did it start to rain at your place?
If we now omit the "tiam" and the "tie" we actually do have a little ambiguity, but --as novatago pointed out-- this can be easily avoided by not omitting these words.