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Esti and the in-existance-is's of the world.

door ceigered, 7 juli 2009

Berichten: 17

Taal: English

ceigered (Profiel tonen) 7 juli 2009 05:17:45

I just made an interesting observation which has likely already been noted by many of you, so it could open up some interesting discussion. Has anyone noticed that the esperanto way of saying "there is" (aka in existances is) is so much simpler, easier and more logical than the English alternative? In fact I've noticed Germanic languages have a knack for making this a complicated aspect to study. In Swedish it's "det finns" (deh fins) (lit. it exists, even with plural forms), in German it's "es gibt" (it gives - learn that from playing Drawn to Life in German), has anyone else found a peculiar or interesting way to say something that should be as simple as "esti"?

I only know the English, German and Swedish methods, and I have a rough idea of the Russian version (it's either "yest'" or "eto"...?) so maybe there is a much bigger strange world of "there-is"s out there...

Rohan (Profiel tonen) 7 juli 2009 07:02:53

In French, one says 'Il y a', which literally means something like 'It has there'.

A (hopefully) informative detour: French, German and English, among many other languages, have what are called 'impersonal verbs'. Impersonal verb constructions compulsorily take a dummy subject, although it is semantically unnecessary.

For example, in English, one has to say 'It's raining.', although that 'it' isn't really required.

Esperanto does not have such verbs. So, 'Pluvas.', 'Tondras.', 'Tagiĝis.' are all perfectly well-formed sentences, just like 'Estas (io).'

ceigered (Profiel tonen) 7 juli 2009 07:59:25

Dankon Rohan, that was a very interesting detour ridulo.gif
This phenomenon of "dummy subjects" and "impersonal verbs", if "phenomenon" is not the wrong word, is quite interesting. I'm curious as to how it came around - I mean, in English, "there is" *kinda* makes sense... if you think of "there" very liberally (e.g. there is a cat - true, a cat is 'there'... wherever 'there' is lango.gif). But still it is very interesting ridulo.gif

russ (Profiel tonen) 8 juli 2009 10:02:04

I'm not sure I understand your poll options or your question. It always seemed clear to me that "there is" is simply "estas", e.g. "Estas kato sur la tablo"="There is a cat on the table." Am I missing something?

Of course one can't blindly translate words without paying attention to the meaning and context and intent, e.g. in "There is the cat I'm looking for", "there is" is "Tie estas". I.e. are you getting at the subtlety of whether the "there" in "there is" should be literally translated into another language or not?

Ironchef (Profiel tonen) 8 juli 2009 14:06:26

I am currently reading an old book I picked up from a library sale, called "The Gift of Tongues" by Margaret Schlauch (1942). It looks at all aspects of linguistics from a layman's point of view. You don't have to be a linguistics major to understand her explanations, which is wonderful! It's an old book, and I don't think it's been reissued since the 1955 edition but if your library has a copy of this, or you can find it online, I do suggest reading it as it explains why we, in English, have many of these speech-patterns and ways of phrasing things. It has certainly opened my eyes to some aspects of grammar I was not previously comfortable understanding.

ceigered (Profiel tonen) 8 juli 2009 14:12:42

I apologise russ for the vagueness of this thread, this thread is basically discussing the different ways different languages say "there is". The poll is just asking what you first thought the 'there is' construction would be in Esperanto as a learner, that is before you looked in the dictionary or were told the correct way. For instance, I was stuck between "esti", "havi" or simply nothing at all when I first began Esperanto ridulo.gif

Ironchef I'll look for that book if I can. The age doesn't look promising though as far as South Australian libraries go (lots of new, little of old), but if I do see it I'll certainly have a look at it.

RiotNrrd (Profiel tonen) 9 juli 2009 05:01:30

When I was just starting out, I would translate "there is" literally (tie estas), simply because it didn't occur to me that the "there" in "there is" is actually just meaningless filler.

But... there is no reason for it to be there. ridulo.gif

russ (Profiel tonen) 9 juli 2009 05:44:14

ceigered:I apologise russ for the vagueness of this thread, this thread is basically discussing the different ways different languages say "there is". The poll is just asking what you first thought the 'there is' construction would be in Esperanto as a learner, that is before you looked in the dictionary or were told the correct way. For instance, I was stuck between "esti", "havi" or simply nothing at all when I first began Esperanto ridulo.gif
Oh, "havi" would never have occurred to me. Are there many languages where the same verb like "have"/"havi" would be used for both "there is a cat outside" and "I have 3 cats"? They seem like rather clearly different concepts to me (existence vs possession).

However I know that various Slavic languages including Polish use the equivalent of "havi" only in NEGATIVE existence sentences, which seems bizarre to me. I.e. in Polish you'd say "tu jest kot" (literally "here is a cat", "ĉi tie estas kato") but the negation is "tu nie ma kota" (literally something like "here (no explicit subject) has no cat", "ĉi tie (iu neklara subjekto) ne havas katon") changing the actual verb simply because the sentence is negated, and changing the case of the noun from nominative (subject of "to be") to accusative (object of negated "have).

Polish doesn't do that for any other verb, e.g. "I am writing" or "I am not writing" both use the same verb for "write" as you would expect.

And even more oddly: in the FUTURE tense, Polish uses "to be"/"esti" for both positive and negative sentences, just as you would expect from a saner language ridulo.gif ... only in present and past does it change to "have" for negative existence. Really odd. ridulo.gif

robinast (Profiel tonen) 9 juli 2009 06:37:50

russ:Are there many languages where the same verb like "have"/"havi" would be used for both "there is a cat outside" and "I have 3 cats"? They seem like rather clearly different concepts to me (existence vs possession).
In Estonian, the verb is the same, only the phrase construction depends on whether to express the existance or possession.
"there is a cat outside"> "õues on kass": "there" is not translated, "a cat" (kass) is in nominative case.
"I have a cat">"mul on kass": "I" (mina/ma) is in adessive case (mul) and "cat" (kass) is in nominative.
"I have three cats"> "mul on kolm kassi": "I" (mina/ma) is in adessive case (mul) and "cat" is in singular accusative.
It principally is possible to use a special verb "omama" for "to have, to own" - but actually, it's just never used as a predicate in a correct Estonian. "oma" (own) functions mainly as a root for derivative words.

Harri.

ceigered (Profiel tonen) 9 juli 2009 10:41:18

Interesting Harri! 2 questions:
- On = to be, correct? (sounds like the Finnish olen/olet/on, e.g. minä/sinä/hän olen/olet/on pitkä = I/you/he-she am/are/is tall)
- How come in "mul on kass" and "mul on kolm kassi" the difference is in the use of the accusative?

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