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"I sat, reading a book" in EO

ya ceigered, 8 Januari 2010

Ujumbe: 22

Lugha: English

ceigered (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 8 Januari 2010 11:01:25 asubuhi

Would this be:
- Mi sidis, leganta libron,
- Mi sidis, leginta libron,
- Mi sidis, legante libron,
or
- Mi sidis, leginte libron?

(my main problems are the a/e distinction and accusative in the second phrase (solvable by going "Mi legis libron, sid-nt-"), my next problem is tense - I'm going for "ant-" in this sentence, with "int-" possibly meaning "having been reading").

Then there's always the choice of "Mi sidis kaj legis libron." rideto.gif

Cheers!

tommjames (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 8 Januari 2010 11:43:22 asubuhi

I'd translate your sentences as follows:

- Mi sidis, leganta libron. I sat, reading a book.
- Mi sidis, leginta libron. I sat, having read a book.

- Mi sidis, legante libron. I sat, reading a book.
- Mi sidis, leginte libron. I sat, having read a book.

The difference between the "a" and "e" forms is that the former describes your state when you were doing the action, while the latter describes the manner of your doing the action. As you can see above we'd render both ideas the same in English but it's possible to conserve the nuance in Esperanto via the a/e endings.

ceigered (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 8 Januari 2010 12:05:34 alasiri

Cheers mate! So I'm assuming in a normal sentence "-anta" might be the best default choice (as it shows relation to the subject of the sentence just as a normal verb would)?

tommjames (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 8 Januari 2010 12:23:17 alasiri

In practice I think the need to distinguish will generally be minimal, but it can be useful. In this instance though I don't think the choice matters that much. It seems equally sensible to think of reading a book as a description of yourself at that time as well as the way in which you sat, so I wouldn't worry too much. I guess it just depends what you want to emphasize, if anything. Personally I'd go for your simpler "mi sidis kaj legis libron."

Rogir (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 8 Januari 2010 3:26:30 alasiri

I strongly recommend using the -e form.

matrix (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 8 Januari 2010 4:26:54 alasiri

You may say as well:
[LISTO]
Mi sidiĝis, legante libron.[/list][LISTO]
Mi eksidis, legante libron.[/list]“legante libron” completes the main verb (“sidis”, “eksidis”, “sidiĝis”), so it would be better to use the -e form.

Rogir (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 8 Januari 2010 5:11:18 alasiri

Nah, the translation for sidiĝi/eksidi would be 'to sit down'.

horsto (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 8 Januari 2010 6:10:10 alasiri

I have to admit that I don't understand anything from what tommjames wrote about the difference between the "a" and "e" forms.
For me it's an error to use the 'a' form, you can read how to use the 'e' form
here.

ceigered (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 8 Januari 2010 6:53:04 alasiri

Cheers all! I'm going to go with -e due to Rogir and Horto's recommendations, but as you said Tommjames, "mi sidis kaj legis libron" is pretty good (still, these more complex verb constructions are useful to know properly no doubt, otherwise I'll be tormenting myself trying to reverse engineer the logic of it all lango.gif)

horsto (Wasifu wa mtumiaji) 8 Januari 2010 7:31:09 alasiri

niko-tina: With the -e ending, you would link it to the verb, sidis.
That's not what PMEG says:
PMEG:
Participo kun E-finaĵo montras kroman agon, kiu rilatas al la subjekto de la frazo. Anstataŭ diri du frazojn, unu por ĉiu ago, oni kunmetas la frazojn al unu:
Li legis sian libron kaj manĝis samtempe pomon. → Manĝante pomon li legis sian libron. La manĝado daŭris samtempe kun la legado.
That means, the participe is linked to the subject, not to the verb.
niko-tina:
If you say "Mi sidis, leganta libron" then you are linking leganta with mi.
I don't see the link, I would agree if the sentence would be:
Mi, leganta libron, sidis.
That's a special way of constructing subfrazojn.

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