pastorant:
An Examnple of the 120 forms of a Cherokee verb:
I'm tying you up: guyalvhi'a
I'm tying you(pl) up: deguyalvhi'a
I'm tying him up: jiyalvhi'a
I'm tying her up: galvhi'a
He's tying you up: jatlviha

So in a sense, even though Cherokee doesn't have an accusative form, exactly, the verb still contains information about subject and object. Is that right? So someone who didn't want an accusative in a language still couldn't point to Cherokee as a language with a complete absence of such a form.

How does it work if you're not using pronouns; for example, if I wanted to say "I'm tying my dog up", how would I work the verb form? Would I use nouns, plus the verb form for "I'm tying him up", assuming my dog is male?

erinja:
So in a sense, even though Cherokee doesn't have an accusative form, exactly, the verb still contains information about subject and object. Is that right? So someone who didn't want an accusative in a language still couldn't point to Cherokee as a language with a complete absence of such a form.

How does it work if you're not using pronouns; for example, if I wanted to say "I'm tying my dog up", how would I work the verb form? Would I use nouns, plus the verb form for "I'm tying him up", assuming my dog is male?

You would say "I'm tying him up the dog": jiyalvhi'a gili.
You could also say "The dog, I'm tying him up"
The verb contains a direct object, so you're just adding the word gili (dog) for clarification. Usually, once a direct object is mentioned, it's not brought up again.
If you were to say "I ate the soup", the literal translation would be "The soup, I ate it". This is how most Amerindian languages work actually. Most other Amerindian languages may have an accusative, but it's deemed redundant.
"I see the dog, is transitive, so you would say "The dog, I see it". So an accusative is technically not needed. An accusative-like ending in Amerindian languages is something called "the transitive case".
Ex. I see the dog -> The dog, I see it
But, if you habe "The cat sees the dog", it would translate to "The dog, it is seen by the cat". Cat would get the transitive ending. A little confusing, eh?

[quote=erinja
Wow. This website is Esperanto detractors in a nutshell. It's strange to me, though. It seems like criticisms of Esperanto being "unsightly" is like code meaning "not looking Western European", and Esperanto being "not international enough" really means "not being similar enough to Romance languages".

It contains "invented words" yet has an "artificially limited" vocabulary (how can both of these be true?) and is "unable to form internationally known words" (evidently the writer has never heard of the east vs west debate among Esperanto speakers, for words like "biologio" versus "vivscienco")

Esperanto has so many different things to complain about, yet the criticisms I see about it are usually either flat-out untrue, or personal opinions masquerading as objective truth. Most criticisms of Esperanto do not even touch on what I consider to be the language's major flaws./quote]Bravo, Erinja!! Exactly my feelings too. However, what do you consider to be the language's major flaws?

erinja:
Wow. This website is Esperanto detractors in a nutshell. It's strange to me, though. It seems like criticisms of Esperanto being "unsightly" is like code meaning "not looking Western European", and Esperanto being "not international enough" really means "not being similar enough to Romance languages".

It contains "invented words" yet has an "artificially limited" vocabulary (how can both of these be true?) and is "unable to form internationally known words" (evidently the writer has never heard of the east vs west debate among Esperanto speakers, for words like "biologio" versus "vivscienco")

Esperanto has so many different things to complain about, yet the criticisms I see about it are usually either flat-out untrue, or personal opinions masquerading as objective truth. Most criticisms of Esperanto do not even touch on what I consider to be the language's major flaws.

Bravo, Erinja!! Exactly my feelings too. However, what do you consider to be the language's major flaws?

fojo:
Bravo, Erinja!! Exactly my feelings too. However, what do you consider to be the language's major flaws?

Verbs are not grammatically marked as transitive or intransitive. This is a minor thing, and I don't know if there's even a way to solve something like this, but it's a bit annoying to have to memorize it.

The major problem, as I see it, is that Esperanto roots are not truly grammar-neutral. You have adjective roots like "ruĝ/", verb roots like "kur/", and noun roots like "dom/". Clear enough, right? But it isn't always clear what kind of root something is, and this can influence what endings you can add to it.

Let's take the root martel/ It has the meaning of "hammer". But if this were a "noun root", then "martelo" would mean "a hammer". If it were a "verb root" then "martelilo" would be the correct word for "a hammer". And if it is indeed a noun root, and we say "martelilo", what does this mean? Is it a tool to help you use a hammer?

"martel/", by the way, is a noun root. A "martelo" is a hammer (although "marteli" means "to hammer", so if you were familiar with the verb "marteli", you might very well think it was a verb root!).

Root types also influence use of suffixes like -ec-. You can put -ec- on noun roots without a problem ("hundeco" - dogginess?) but if you put it on an adjective root, it's a bit redundant, since you could have just used the -o ending for that (blanka = white; blanko = blankeco)

Anyway, there's no way to predict which way a given word will go; the only thing you can do is look it up in a dictionary and see what the primary entry is. So, for example, you would expect to see martel/o as the primary entry for "hammer" (and perhaps martel/i as a sub-entry).

In most cases these roots aren't a huge difficulty; if you aren't sure, you can usually just put on an ending that may be redundant, just to be sure the listener will understand. But I do view it as a flaw.

You can read a little more about it at the Esperanto wikipedia:

http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normala_radiko

erinja:

fojo:
Bravo, Erinja!! Exactly my feelings too. However, what do you consider to be the language's major flaws?

Verbs are not grammatically marked as transitive or intransitive. This is a minor thing, and I don't know if there's even a way to solve something like this, but it's a bit annoying to have to memorize it.

One solution would be to let the presence or absence of a direct object indicate whether the verb is transitive or intransitive, as we do in English--sometimes. "Drown" is both transitive and intransitive, so we can say both "The cat drowned" and "He drowned the cat." The meaning of the second form is clear from the fact that there's a direct object. Of course, in English, "to die" is always intransitive. We can't say "He died the intruder," but if we were going to export this "open" transitivity into Esperanto we'd have to allow constructions like that.

The major problem, as I see it, is that Esperanto roots are not truly grammar-neutral. You have adjective roots like "ruĝ/", verb roots like "kur/", and noun roots like "dom/". Clear enough, right? But it isn't always clear what kind of root something is, and this can influence what endings you can add to it.

Let's take the root martel/ It has the meaning of "hammer". But if this were a "noun root", then "martelo" would mean "a hammer". If it were a "verb root" then "martelilo" would be the correct word for "a hammer". And if it is indeed a noun root, and we say "martelilo", what does this mean? Is it a tool to help you use a hammer?

"martel/", by the way, is a noun root. A "martelo" is a hammer (although "marteli" means "to hammer", so if you were familiar with the verb "marteli", you might very well think it was a verb root!).

A famous, and annoying, example is "broso" is a noun, and "brosi" is the relevant verb, to brush. But "kombi" is something you do not with a "kombo" but with a "kombilo".

Root types also influence use of suffixes like -ec-. You can put -ec- on noun roots without a problem ("hundeco" - dogginess?) but if you put it on an adjective root, it's a bit redundant, since you could have just used the -o ending for that (blanka = white; blanko = blankeco)

I think there is sometimes a fairly clear distinction between, for example, "blanko" and "blankeco." As I see it, "blankeco" refers to the property of whiteness in general, whereas "blanko" would refer to a particular hue or instance. "Estas malmulta blanko en tiu pentraĵo."

But there are plenty of cases where I'm not sure whether to use -eco or not. To talk about cleverness or stupidity, do I need "lerteco" and "stulteco" or can I just use "lerto" and "stulto"? My instinct is to use -eco in these cases, but that may be because I'm accustomed to there being endings on the English versions of these words. The general principle in Esperanto is supposed to be "neceso kaj sufiĉo," and that means use just enough affixes to convey your meaning, and no more. Indeed, English "necessity" would suggest an affix on "neceso", but what else could "neceso" really mean, other than necessity? I suppose the same thing goes for "lerto" and "stulto".

T0dd:
But there are plenty of cases where I'm not sure whether to use -eco or not. To talk about cleverness or stupidity, do I need "lerteco" and "stulteco" or can I just use "lerto" and "stulto"? My instinct is to use -eco in these cases, but that may be because I'm accustomed to there being endings on the English versions of these words. The general principle in Esperanto is supposed to be "neceso kaj sufiĉo," and that means use just enough affixes to convey your meaning, and no more. Indeed, English "necessity" would suggest an affix on "neceso", but what else could "neceso" really mean, other than necessity? I suppose the same thing goes for "lerto" and "stulto".

Yet I see "lerteco" and "stulteco" much more often than I see "lerto" and "stulto", even though (logically) the -ec- ending is not really necessary here. I think this issue with different root types encourages people to tack on a lot of endings that aren't necessarily needed, just to be sure the listener will understand.

What does the following mean?
Tio estas stulto

If we lack context, It could mean

Tio estas stulteco

That is (an example of) stupidity

but it seems to me that it could also mean

Tio estas stultaĵo.

That is a stupid thing -a concrete thing that results from or is a manifestation of stupidity - rather than an inanimate object with a low IQ (which it could also mean, if you were talking about a computer which keeps giving the wrong answer, for example). The difference may be subtle, but it is real.

In my opinion, It's not wrong to use those affixes, because they can fine tune the shades of meaning.

One could also simply say Tio estas stulto and let context give the shade of meaning or if a finer shade of meaning isn't needed.

erinja:
Yet I see "lerteco" and "stulteco" much more often than I see "lerto" and "stulto", even though (logically) the -ec- ending is not really necessary here. I think this issue with different root types encourages people to tack on a lot of endings that aren't necessarily needed, just to be sure the listener will understand.

awake:What does the following mean?
Tio estas stulto

If we lack context, It could mean

Tio estas stulteco

That is (an example of) stupidity

but it seems to me that it could also mean

Tio estas stultaĵo.

That is a stupid thing -a concrete thing that results from or is a manifestation of stupidity - rather than an inanimate object with a low IQ (which it could also mean, if you were talking about a computer which keeps giving the wrong answer, for example). The difference may be subtle, but it is real.

I think this is the whole root of the problem, actually, that a word like "stulto" isn't well-defined. I am pretty sure (though not 100% certain) that if you put an -o on an adjective root, the meaning (by definition) is "nomo de eco" (a name of a quality). That definition uses "eco", so it seems to me that it's redundant to include "eco" on adjective roots, by definition.

But this is a really complex topic to get into, and I think that even experienced Esperanto grammarians are probably not in agreement on all of this.

Suffice it to say - I think we can all agree that the noun/adjective/verb root system can make it difficult to always correctly guess the meaning of a word, if it has an ending it doesn't usually get (stulto, etc).

Actually I think the -o form is usually the most difficult. In the PMEG, Bertilo suggests that if you use a dictionary or other source to figure out what the -o form of a word means, then you can use that to figure out what all of the other forms (-a form and -i form) mean, as well as what kind of root it is.