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"I should've brought...?"

by roint, January 22, 2010

Messages: 20

Language: English

darkweasel (User's profile) January 24, 2010, 3:58:07 PM

voli, ke ... requires an U-verb, so you can't say *mi volas ke mi kunportis poŝtukon.

Vilinilo (User's profile) January 24, 2010, 4:20:13 PM

niko-tina:It is not exact becasue TRANSLATION IS NEVER EXACT.

There are always some nuances (look at Miland's post) that won't be carried through the translation, no matter how well you do it.
Not always. Ain't ĉokolado a perfect and exact translation of chocolate?

roint (User's profile) January 24, 2010, 6:22:21 PM

Before reading these responses I didn't realize what a syntactically abstract construction "should've brought" is. I knew that the phrase didn't seem "good" in literal Esperanto ("estu kunportinta") but I couldn't figure out why.

As far as I can determine, I would say that a good middle ground would be "estus bone se mi kunportis naztukon", which seems to maintain and enhance the spirit of the self-flagellating original phrase. Why not be a little extreme while talking about snot?

The verb "devi" is sometimes difficult for me to parse, because of the semantic differences between to "have to do" something and to "should" do something. Direct translations of English language thoughts in those sort of verb moods (if verb mood is what I mean) can apparently be kind of shabby.

Miland (User's profile) January 24, 2010, 7:05:08 PM

darkweasel:voli, ke ... requires an U-verb...
I can wish that something had happened. My wish may be impossible to fulfil, but that is another matter. That is how I can use voli, ke with a past tense. It may indeed be wiser not to entertain wishes about the past and simply say Mi bedaŭras (or domaĝe), ke mi ne kunportis poŝtukon.

erinja (User's profile) January 24, 2010, 10:11:45 PM

If you parse it out logically, "devus" definitely doesn't mean the same as "should"

But in my experience, Esperanto speakers use "devus" in nearly the same way as we use "should" in English. So I would translate "should" as "devus" without shame.

It is worth noting that a meaning like "should" is much more ocmmon in everyday speech than a meaning like "would have to". This is probably why devus has morphed into this sort of meaning.

Esperanto sometimes works in a somewhat less logical way than its advertising would suggest. For example, a woman [vir/in/o] is not a female man - but please everyone, I beg of you, my use of this example is in no way a suggestion that we change the topic of this thread into an argument about /in/!

Oŝo-Jabe (User's profile) January 25, 2010, 4:56:54 AM

roint:As far as I can determine, I would say that a good middle ground would be "estus bone se mi kunportis naztukon", which seems to maintain and enhance the spirit of the self-flagellating original phrase. Why not be a little extreme while talking about snot?
As I understand it, don't verbs have to agree on both sides of "se"?

ceigered (User's profile) January 25, 2010, 5:26:22 AM

Oŝo-Jabe:
roint:As far as I can determine, I would say that a good middle ground would be "estus bone se mi kunportis naztukon", which seems to maintain and enhance the spirit of the self-flagellating original phrase. Why not be a little extreme while talking about snot?
As I understand it, don't verbs have to agree on both sides of "se"?
I thought it was SE+normal verb phrase, verb+US. Because "se" tells us it's a hypothetical construction, the normal verb tells us the tense of the hypothetical construction, and the -us tells us the "would be" outcome of the prior hypothetical situation.

Miland (User's profile) January 25, 2010, 12:59:46 PM

I had revised my original suggestion to estus bone se mi kunportus naztukon because of this problem of consistency of the type of tense used.

To use estintus bone se mi kunportintus naztukon might succeed better in bringing in the past, but I prefer not to use such complex tenses.

darkweasel (User's profile) January 25, 2010, 3:40:19 PM

ceigered:
Oŝo-Jabe:
roint:As far as I can determine, I would say that a good middle ground would be "estus bone se mi kunportis naztukon", which seems to maintain and enhance the spirit of the self-flagellating original phrase. Why not be a little extreme while talking about snot?
As I understand it, don't verbs have to agree on both sides of "se"?
I thought it was SE+normal verb phrase, verb+US. Because "se" tells us it's a hypothetical construction, the normal verb tells us the tense of the hypothetical construction, and the -us tells us the "would be" outcome of the prior hypothetical situation.
No, you use the US-form in both parts of the sentence.

Btw, about devus: PMEG: Povus, devus kaj volus

ceigered (User's profile) January 25, 2010, 4:22:32 PM

darkweasel:
No, you use the US-form in both parts of the sentence.]
PMEG - @ US en se-frazoj

This seems to give the general impression that the usage varies depending on the sense, particularly depending on whether we are talking about something completely hypothetical (us + se + us ktp.) or a possible real act.
In this case, I see no problem with "-Us formo"+"Se Realmoda Frazo". To me, this draws emphasis to the fact the person could have brought tissues, but didn't, where as the Se+us+us phrase just seems to be a hypothetical situation.

e.g. "Se mi povus kanti (per ajna metodo, cxe ajna dato/tempo), mi estus kantulo (tiam, nun, estonte, ktp)"
vs. "Se mi povis kanti tiam kiam la muzik-agento estis tie ĉi ĉe mia domo, mi estus ŝatega pop-kantulo nun."

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