Berichten: 6
Taal: English
bryanhaydukewich (Profiel tonen) 30 april 2009 23:23:20
I don't seem to understand the direct object marker at all. I am going through a lesson in Ana Pana and everything explained about direct objects makes sense to me. However, something is not explained or maybe I don't understand grammar all that well:
In many of the questions, sentences like "Ni logxas en apartamento" appear.
Why doesn't such a sentence end with apartamento(n)?
Isn't living a type of action verb, we the subject, and the apartment is the place acted upon?
Also, is "esti" not an action verb and not require the direct object marker in the same sentence? I see many sentences in the lesson plan using the verb "esti" but none of the nouns in the sentence have (n) on the end. Although I think I very occasionally see some that do include the (n) ending--how confusing!
Thanks for your help.
Oŝo-Jabe (Profiel tonen) 1 mei 2009 00:07:22
bryanhaydukewich:In many of the questions, sentences like "Ni loĝas en apartamento" appear.The reason that sentence doesn't have the accusative, is because 'apartamento' is part of a prepositional phrase, which is describing the action. In this case 'en apartamento' is telling where the action 'loĝas' took place.
Why doesn't such a sentence end with apartamento(n)?
Isn't living a type of action verb, we the subject, and the apartment is the place acted upon?
It can be hard to use '-n' right, but after a while you develop a pretty good sense of which words you need to use it on.
bryanhaydukewich:Also, is "esti" not an action verb and not require the direct object marker in the same sentence? I see many sentences in the lesson plan using the verb "esti" but none of the nouns in the sentence have (n) on the end. Although I think I very occasionally see some that do include the (n) ending--how confusing!'Esti' is a linking verb, not an action; It links the subject to the noun/adjective on the other side of it. You could think of 'Mia amiko estas bona' as saying 'mia amiko=bona'.
I found some of the explanations in the thread about 'estas' here very helpful.
Other words like 'esti' which link a subject to a word it's description are: 'fariĝi', 'iĝi', 'resti', 'ŝajni', 'montriĝi', 'nomiĝi', 'elektiĝi', 'aperi', 'aspekti'.
The reason you might see a sentence with 'esti' that has the accusative, is if it has compound tenses. For example the sentence 'Ŝi estis batonta ilin' (She was going to hit him.) In sentences like that, the accusative comes from the participle 'batonta' and not from 'estis' though.
I hope this clears some things up.
erinja (Profiel tonen) 1 mei 2009 00:39:28
bryanhaydukewich:Living is not an action verb, is the bottom line. Your clue to this is the presence of "en".
Isn't living a type of action verb, we the subject, and the apartment is the place acted upon?
Let's say that I said "I live the apartment". That doesn't really make sense. How can you live an apartment? Rather, you live IN the apartment. Living is something you do, you don't really do it TO something. As was already mentioned "in the apartment" just tells you the location of the action.
It is more obvious with a verb like "eat".
I eat an apple. The apple is eaten by me. I am the subject, the apple is the object. Clear, right? I perform the eating action on the apple.
Let's make that "I eat an apple in a room". Am I eating the room? No! It only describes where I am doing the eating. The -n can go after a preposition only in a few very specific cases, so the presence of a preposition (a word like in, on, with, by, etc) is a clue that the word after it doesn't need the -n. So this sentence would be "Mi manĝas pomon en ĉambro" (no -n for ĉambro, because I'm not eating the room, any more than I am "living" an apartment)
bryanhaydukewich (Profiel tonen) 1 mei 2009 21:37:03
One last question, with what I know now. I came across "Cxu vi havas gxefratojn?" Is havi considered an action verb? It doesn't seem like an action to have something, although maybe I'm just mentally stuck on the title "action verb." There is no prepositional phrase after it, so I think I will use the rule of whether there is a prepositional phrase or not to eliminate the (n). Good idea?
jchthys (Profiel tonen) 1 mei 2009 22:40:12
bryanhaydukewich:One last question, with what I know now. I came across "Ĉu vi havas gefratojn?" Is havi considered an action verb? It doesn't seem like an action to have something, although maybe I'm just mentally stuck on the title "action verb." There is no prepositional phrase after it, so I think I will use the rule of whether there is a prepositional phrase or not to eliminate the (n). Good idea?Good.
darkweasel (Profiel tonen) 3 mei 2009 10:48:38
A few exceptions:
- Prepositions that normally signify place can get the -n for movement (mi iras en la domo = I go in the house, mi iras en la domon = I go into the house).
- "esti" and everything that ends with -ighi doesn't get -n. So: "mi estas austro", not *mi estas austron*.