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Grammatical Mistake In Joke (or not?)

fra Polaris,2009 12 25

Meldinger: 19

Språk: English

Polaris (Å vise profilen) 2009 12 25 08:53:12

Okay--in the joke about Einstein's coat, a line reads, "La sama kunlaboranto renkontas Ejnŝtejnon, vestitan per la sama malnova mantelo" Now, I understand that Eintein takes an accusative N, but I can't for the life of me figure out why the next word isn't "vestita". I know that the word "vestitan" refers to Einstein, which takes the accusative -n (Ejnŝtejnon). But why would vestita take the -n? Thanks!

robinast (Å vise profilen) 2009 12 25 10:29:15

My Esperanto skills are still shy and I can not be absolutely sure that I am right here - but "vestitan" seems rather natural for me. The "vestita" acts as an adjectival attribute here, doesn't it? Compare:
...renkontas vestitan Ejnstejnon...
or change the word order:
La sama kunlaboranto renkontas vestitan per la sama malnova mantelo Ejnstejnon.

darkweasel (Å vise profilen) 2009 12 25 10:43:17

Because adjectives get the same case ending as the nouns they refer to.

Well, indeed in this case there can be a subtle difference between "vestita" and "vestitan"

"Ejnŝtejnon vestitan" (wah, I hate such Esperantizations) = Einstein who was dressed...
"Ejnŝtejnon vestita" = Einstein when he was dressed

This sentence is, however, clearly not a grammatical mistake.

dimichxp (Å vise profilen) 2009 12 25 10:58:25

darkweasel:"Ejnŝtejnon vestitan" (wah, I hate such Esperantizations) = Einstein who was dressed...
"Ejnŝtejnon vestita" = Einstein when he was dressed
This sentence is, however, clearly not a grammatical mistake.
Vi ne pravas. Se 'vestita' estus sen akuzativo ĝi apartenus al 'kunlaboranto', ne 'Ejnŝtejno' (mi ŝategas tiajn Esperantigaĵojn ĉar ne ĉiu scias kiel prononci fremdajn nomojn).
Pardonu, mi verŝajne miskomprenis vin.

Miland (Å vise profilen) 2009 12 25 11:40:39

I didn't read the joke. Could you please quote it in full?

ceigered (Å vise profilen) 2009 12 25 11:58:53

In this particular case, I guess "vestitan" is accusative in order to further reduce ambiguity. However, whether it is wrong or ignorant, I still reckon a large amount of EO'ists, particularly we who don't have a phonetically represented accusative case (English, Chinese etc), and those who speak a language with a more unique word order or logic like Japanese, will probably not worry about the accusative in such a case (if it wasn't for this thread, I probably wouldn't care much myself unless I was doing technical writing.

horsto (Å vise profilen) 2009 12 25 13:51:41

Polaris:Okay--in the joke about Einstein's coat, a line reads, "La sama kunlaboranto renkontas Ejnŝtejnon, vestitan per la sama malnova mantelo" Now, I understand that Eintein takes an accusative N, but I can't for the life of me figure out why the next word isn't "vestita". I know that the word "vestitan" refers to Einstein, which takes the accusative -n (Ejnŝtejnon). But why would vestita take the -n? Thanks!
It's about simplifying sentences:
La knabo, kiu staras tie, ploras = La knabo, staranta tie, ploras.
Ĉu vi vidis la motorbiciklon, kiu pasis ĉi tie antaŭ unu horo? = Ĉu vi vidis la motorbiciklon, pasantan ĉi tie antaŭ unu horo?
As you can see, the participle belongs to the noun and gets the same ending.
You can find that in the gramatiko de Seppik, which is an old one, but I nethertheless like it. I didn't find it in PMEG.

darkweasel (Å vise profilen) 2009 12 26 10:22:24

There's something about that you are allowed not to use the accusative in some cases in PMEG.

dimichxp: bonvolu skribi ĉi tie nur en la angla, por ke ankaŭ ĉiuj aliaj legantoj de tiu ĉi forumo povu kompreni nin okulumo.gif

btw: "ejnŝtejno" isn't even how he's pronounced in German - an Esperantization according to the pronunciation would be "ajnŝtajno". Not that I wanted to revive this old discussion about whether or not to Esperantize personal names ...

tommjames (Å vise profilen) 2009 12 26 11:17:40

Polaris:Now, I understand that Eintein takes an accusative N, but I can't for the life of me figure out why the next word isn't "vestita".
Since there's only 1 Einstein it can seem a little strange to use "n", because there's clearly no need to disambiguate as you would with, for example, "the domon ruĝan", where we refer to a particular house (the red one) out of the others. However "n" can be used with pronouns to show that you're referring to that person when he was in that state (as opposed to other states he might be in.. hence the possibility to disambiguate).

The differences in meaning then would be as follows:

"renkontas Ejnŝtejnon, vestita"
met Einstein, and he was in a dressed state.

"renkontas Ejnŝtejnon, vestitan"
met Einstein when he was dressed

You can get other examples of that at the section in PMEG entited
Eble tamen N-finaĵo

horsto (Å vise profilen) 2009 12 26 12:46:53

Hello darkweasel and tommjames,

you think that it's a question of Perverba priskribo de objekto, I wrote that it's about building sentences. Didn't you read my message or do you think I'm wrong? This would interest me.

@tommjames: What's the difference between he was in a dressed state and he was dressed?

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