I think there’s not much need for a passive in Esperanto. Sure, some might find it ‘useful’, but it’s not really necessary with the accusative. Take this sentence:

“The bill was signed into law on the thirteenth.”

It’s bad style to render this as La leĝpropono estis subskribita en leĝon je la dek-tria. Instead, as arkadio mentioned, we make use of the ‘useless’ accusative and say:

La leĝproponon oni subskribis en leĝon je la dek-tria.

In many other cases the middle serves the purpose elegantly, as illustrated by naskiĝi.

In perhaps five percent of cases it is necessary to resort to the passive plus esti form—but even there, one can use a shortcut:

La branĉo rompatis de la vento.

And it’s more precise, having two tense markers!

jchthys:I think there’s not much need for a passive in Esperanto. Sure, some might find it ‘useful’, but it’s not really necessary with the accusative.

Ahhh, we have an Aktivismano in our midst! If you don't already know about it, you may be interesed to learn about the philosophy of Aktivismo which was dreamed up by Marko Rauhamaa, the guy who runs the Free Esperanto Course at pacujo.net. There's not a great deal of material online to read about it but I did manage to find some discussion on the subject between him and Bertilo on the Google Groups

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc....

The essense is getting rid of the passive and just making greater use of the accusative, and oni. Bertilo seems against such a move, and I'm with him on that as the passive, useless though it may be in many situations, does have a few stylistic and disambiguation benefits.

If these languages can thrive with far greater ambiguities, why reform Esperanto for such minor ones?

Why indeed? That's too large a can of worms for me to open. I wouldn't suggest an attempt at reform -- even if proposed changes really represent improvements. I just want to speak clearly.

La branĉo rompatis de la vento.

Is this an exotic kunmetita verbformo? Rompatis = Estis Rompata? "The branch was being broken by the wind"? When I've used these in the past (e.g. "estintus laboranta" for "would have been working") I was informed that the Better Sort of Esperantist would not approve.

Many people would say la fenestro rompiĝis pro la vento to say what you mean, and it means roughly the same.

arkadio:Is this an exotic kunmetita verbformo? Rompatis = Estis Rompata? "The branch was being broken by the wind"? When I've used these in the past (e.g. "estintus laboranta" for "would have been working") I was informed that the Better Sort of Esperantist would not approve.

Another problem in Esperanto with the passive of becoming, so far not touched upon in this discussion, is the use of the participle would appear to indicate some sort of time sense when non really is meant. For example in La fenestro estis rompita, the ita past participle indicates a time previous to the auxiliary verb (or completeness of the action, however you want to look at it). But a passive of becoming action is instant and the time it happened is shown by the auxiliary verb alone. For this reason a faction rose up in support of the use of the ata form (known as atismo), which would get rid of any connotation of "beforeness" and show the action happened right at the time of the auxiliary verb.

Atismo has been ruled against by the Akademio de Esperanto and discouraged by PMEG and other notable Esperanto grammarians as it just replaces one problem with another, as you can read at that link above. So personally I wouldn't go with those forms.

An example I remember reading somewhere to show the problem with atismo is the following. In normal esperanto you have the sentence:

Viaj ŝuldoj estos pagitaj de mi

which means your debts will be paid by me, as a one-time passive action. The debts will just be paid off and that's the end of it. The atism form of

Viaj ŝuldoj estos pagataj de mi

would show (according to normal Esperanto) that the payments of the debts would be ongoing over time, as and when they arise; clearly not the intended meaning. So you can see one time-sense problem has just been substituted with another.

So the atists are advocating for tense over aspect in the -ata participles? I can see how that would clarify certain sentences:

"JFK estis murdata en 1963."

To an atist, this sentence gives the year of the murder. But how would the atists make up for the loss of aspect?

Viaj ŝuldoj estos pagataj de mi would imply that the payments of the debts would be ongoing over time, as and when they arise. So you can see one time-sense problem has just been substituted with another.

I, a non-atist, would also interpret the sentence that way. "Pagataj" is imperfective, and can therefore describe the repeated or habitual. If someone said that to me, I'd take it to mean that my debts would be paid as they arose.

arkadio:"JFK estis murdata en 1963."

As I recall (from a magazine I read in childhood), Lee Harvey Oswald needed to fire two shots to kill JFK. After the first, JFK said 'I've been hit.' JFK estis murdata. He was in the process of being murdered, but the act was not complete.

Then a second shot rang out, and JFK collapsed. JFK estis murdita. The act of murder was complete.

Thus ita is used of finished actions, whereas ata is used for incomplete or continuing acts.

arkadio:To an atist, this sentence gives the year of the murder. But how would the atists make up for the loss of aspect?

They don't, that's one of the problems with atismo. As they make Viaj ŝuldoj estos pagataj de mi into an "at that time" action, the time to time now-and-again aspect of the ata participle is lost, or least rendered ambiguous.

arkadio:

Viaj ŝuldoj estos pagataj de mi would imply that the payments of the debts would be ongoing over time, as and when they arise. So you can see one time-sense problem has just been substituted with another.

I, a non-atist, would also interpret the sentence that way. "Pagataj" is imperfective, and can therefore describe the repeated or habitual. If someone said that to me, I'd take it to mean that my debts would be paid as they arose.

Sorry I didn't mean to imply an atist would see it that way. They wouldn't, as you can see from my comments above.

Of course the whole itsmo/atismo debate would never have happened if Esperanto had gone the way of Ido's es suffix. It seems a little absurd to me that you have 2 camps arguing over which participle is correct, when the real solution (apparently rendered impossible by the fundamento) is not to even use the participles at all.

Then a second shot rang out, and JFK collapsed. JFK estis murdita. The act of murder was complete. Thus ita is used of finished actions, whereas ata is used for incomplete or continuing acts.

That much is clear. I were just speculating on the meaning of "estis murdata" to an atist.

Of course the whole itsmo/atismo debate would never have happened if Esperanto had gone the way of Ido's es suffix. It seems a little absurd to me that you have 2 camps arguing over which participle is correct, when the real solution (apparently rendered impossible by the fundamento) is not to even use the participles at all.

In practice there is rarely a problem. In "The man was murdered last week," and the "The murdered man's body lay in state," the time senses are, or should be, clear. Still, as you pointed out, the Ido -es suffix appeals to one's sense of elegance. (I've never taken more than a cursory look at Ido. It seemed to be a fussier version of Eo. Less fun, less weird, less interesting.) Maybe it was Zamenhof's intention to prejudice speakers toward active constructions. Thanks for the information on atismo. I'd never heard of it. I'll read about it in PMEG.

tommjames:

arkadio:To an atist, this sentence gives the year of the murder. But how would the atists make up for the loss of aspect?

They don't, that's one of the problems with atismo. As they make Viaj ŝuldoj estos pagataj de mi into a 1-time action, the time to time now-and-again aspect of the ata participle is lost, or at very least, rendered ambiguous. Which is perhaps even worse than the problem of having ita not referring to the past, or a completed action.

Of course an atist would recommend the use of estis murdadata for an imperfect aspect…