Al la enhavo

Grammar Chart

de Jafiki91, 2010-januaro-23

Mesaĝoj: 18

Lingvo: English

Jafiki91 (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-23 04:12:47

Hello everyone! I'm new to learning Esperanto and was wondering if anyone could send me or even just show me where to get a complete Esperanto grammar chart. one that shows all the different tenses and participles of verbs, the correlatives, nouns, adjectives, etc.
I'm a bit of a linguistics nerd and I've always found it helpful to have a chart like that for reference when studying other languages.

Thank you to anyone who can help me out.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-23 04:54:07

This page is a relatively brief grammar guide:
http://www.esperanto-chicago.org/key.htm

...but if you want something that prints out on a single page, that isn't it. It might print to a single page if you chop out the explanations of grammar and the word lists.

If no one on this forum finds something more suitable within a day or so, I can make a single-page summary for you without much trouble. In my desire not to re-invent the wheel, I'll wait a little to see if someone already has something like this.

RiotNrrd (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-23 04:57:32

It's not a chart, but here's an English version of La Fundamento, which covers the entire grammar on one page.

Jafiki91 (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-23 05:18:21

these are both quite helpful. i just question certain aspects.
for instance, Im an AP Latin student, and i was wondering if its possible to form other infinitives and subjunctives..
(ie, paroli = to speak; parolinti = to have spoken?) or are there other ways of conveying these types of things?

LyzTyphone (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-23 05:53:29

It's possible~ The same as "parolantas", ksp. Just not that conventinal. The reason is that usually 3 tenses (and the help of ek-, jam, -ad) will work for most of the situations.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-23 14:41:02

I have never seen participles used to form another kind of infinitive, such as parolinti. I have some doubts as to whether this is allowed. The infinitive form is the most basic, stripped-down verb form and totally free of tense, by definition. I don't believe you can somehow add tense to it by means of a participle. On the other hand the participle endings are added to the conditional -us ending, which is also defined as being without tense. So I suppose anything's possible but I have never personally seen the participle endings with an infinitive.

In any case, use of the participle endings on verbs is a somewhat controversial topic. It is never necessary. That's not to say that it isn't sometimes convenient to do it - you'll see the -intus ending in Esperanto on a semi-regular basis. But in practice you won't see it commonly, and it is a relatively new development in the history of Esperanto.

I want to underscore what LyzTyphone has just said about the three main tenses.

It is hard for native English speakers to understand this at a core level, and all the more if they have studied Latin (as I also did).

We almost never use these fancy compound tenses in Esperanto.

Yes, we can. It's totally possible.

But we don't do it unless we consider it important (for some reason) to convey, precisely, the exact time when something happened. These cases are rare. Overuse of compound tenses, using them as often as you would in English, marks you out as a beginner who doesn't know what you're doing.

If you read Esperanto texts, you'll find little in the way of these fancy verb tenses with participles. It isn't because the texts are dumbed down for beginners; it's because this is how we really talk and write.

In conclusion - figure out which tense works best for your situation - past, present, or future, or the verb forms that convey no idea of tense (infinitive, imperative, conditional). And try hard to stick to those tenses.

Having said all this, I won't withold from you what I think you want, which is a page like
this. Use the information wisely, and don't overdo it with the complex tenses!

darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-23 16:08:41

parolinti = esti parolinta
Where's the problem? This is perfectly acceptable.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-23 19:20:31

darkweasel:parolinti = esti parolinta
Where's the problem? This is perfectly acceptable.
As I said:
So I suppose anything's possible but I have never personally seen the participle endings with an infinitive.
For the record, I did a search in tekstaro, and only found one use of "inti", in the form of "atinginti", and it was in the context of someone speaking their own version of reformed Esperanto. This was the context:
La Moderna (interrompe): ...sed ante du dekadoj. Ante tri jaroj mi uvris mian koron por Esperanto, kaj jen mi devancintas vin. Ho, povra konestablo, ĉiudiurne vi devus devori novajn vortojn por atinginti min! (Subite li turnas sin al La Juna.) Ĉu ne, senioro? Nu?..

My search was fairly thorough, I think I can say with confidence that participles with an infinitive ending are not really used in Esperanto.

Not to say you absolutely can't. But I wouldn't recommend it. And I certainly wouldn't go telling a beginner "Go ahead and do it", knowing full well that the beginner risks not being understood.

I say, learn the language as it is. And then later, when you've gained experience, think about whether you need these innovations or not. If you still think you need it, go ahead and do it. But learn the classical way first, to ensure that you will be understood by other speakers.

Oŝo-Jabe (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-23 19:27:47

I would tend to agree that using participles with infinitives is a way to add tenses to an otherwise tenseless form. The Ido page at Wikipedia shows "iranti", "irinti", and "ironti" as the Esperanto equivants of "irar", "irir", and "iror". Most of the time though the simple infinitive is sufficient.

Plus Erinja, as you said -intus is picking up use. -Nti forms are just the infinitive forms of that, so people should have no trouble understanding.

Jafiki91 (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-23 19:32:19

wonderful! this is all very helpful. I did have the feeling that using more time specific compound tenses wouldn't be as common in Esperanto. I just wanted to make sure of it.

I study all kinds of languages, from Latin to Arabic, and each one always has certain elements the convey similar meanings in completely different ways.

Reen al la supro