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How to say "in five minutes"

od Lorion, 5 stycznia 2010

Wpisy: 16

Język: English

RiotNrrd (Pokaż profil) 6 stycznia 2010, 05:18:59

tommjames:PMEG[/url] has the following quote:

Por aĉeti ĝin vi devas pagi inter 100 kaj 200 eŭrojn.
I have trouble believing that that isn't an error*. I checked several of my textbooks, and can find no indication anywhere that "inter" acts any differently than the other prepositions.

What rule allows the accusative -n to follow "inter" in that example? Obviously I am missing something, somewhere.

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* Which doesn't mean it is an error - I've been wrong before, and probably will be again.

Oŝo-Jabe (Pokaż profil) 6 stycznia 2010, 07:03:17

RiotNrrd:
tommjames:PMEG[/url] has the following quote:

Por aĉeti ĝin vi devas pagi inter 100 kaj 200 eŭrojn.
I have trouble believing that that isn't an error*. I checked several of my textbooks, and can find no indication anywhere that "inter" acts any differently than the other prepositions.

What rule allows the accusative -n to follow "inter" in that example? Obviously I am missing something, somewhere.
You are missing something. PMEG: En ĉi tiaj frazoj la rolvortetoj neniel koncernas eventualan postan O-vorton, sed havas sencon nur por la nombro. (En these kinds of phrases the role-word in no way concerns the upcoming noun, but has sense only for the number.)

Mi vidis inter cent kaj ducent homojn. → Mi vidis homojn.

ceigered (Pokaż profil) 6 stycznia 2010, 08:22:23

Osxo-Jabe said what I wanted to say - the inter only addresses the time. It's like saying "Mi bezonas minutojn kiuj estas inter kvantoj da kvin kaj dek" (of course, saying that sounds totally unnatural and like a robot "I REQUIRE MINUTES WHICH ARE IN BETWEEN THE QUANTITIES OF FIVE AND TEN", so the "inter" portion of the phrase gets shoved in front of the accusative noun for our sakes).

Effectively, in another interpretation, the "inter .... kaj ...." acts like an adjective, just as "al mia hejmo" in "Mi volas iri al mia hejmo" acts like an adverb describing the course of action of "iri".

But it's not a huge problem - for the most part the accusative is understandable in that sentence via context. Unless of course you're doing Russian reversal on the sentence.

En Soveta Rusio, Inter kvin kaj dek minutoj bezonas VIN!

tommjames (Pokaż profil) 6 stycznia 2010, 10:47:53

RiotNrrd:What rule allows the accusative -n to follow "inter" in that example? Obviously I am missing something, somewhere.
I don't think any rule is needed for this, but in any case Oŝo-Jabe has pretty well explained why it's possible; the "inter" in this case doesn't act upon the noun, but instead the expressions of quantity. It works the same with the other prepositions that have quantity-sense.

Miland (Pokaż profil) 6 stycznia 2010, 15:01:02

tommjames:
Thanks, I've corrected my earlier post. As a number of people have indicated, inter kvin kaj dek has a similar function to cirkaŭ sep, and so we would follow either by the accusative minutojn.

RiotNrrd (Pokaż profil) 7 stycznia 2010, 02:53:32

Well, I learn something new every day! Or, at least, I try to. ridulo.gif

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