Meddelelser: 38
Sprog: English
darkweasel (Vise profilen) 20. feb. 2010 18.47.02
gyrus (Vise profilen) 20. feb. 2010 23.48.22
tommjames (Vise profilen) 21. feb. 2010 01.18.28
gyrus:why would you say something so ambiguous as hundmanĝi when you could just say manĝi kiel hundo?You could just as well ask why say hundmanĝi when you can say manĝi hundon.
It may be that the direct-object interpetation has the better explanatory power for the nature of the relationship between "hund" and "manĝi" in "hundmanĝi", but I don't wish to get into that. My point is just that there is nothing to say this is the relationship. It could just as legally mean an inclination or preference to eating dogs, or eating like a dog, or being forced to eat a horrible meal fit only for a dog, or whatever.
Of course, in context hundmanĝanto would probably be correctly understood to mean a person eating a dog, if that was what the speaker intended. I'm just saying though, don't go thinking "this is what the word means".
gyrus (Vise profilen) 21. feb. 2010 10.32.17
tommjames:Can you name a compound of noun+verb where the accepted meaning isn't performing the verb on the noun? It just seems like the most obvious and sensible interpretation to me, and Esperanto is supposed to be clear and unambiguous. Either way, I don't think you'd ever use hundmanĝi anywaygyrus:why would you say something so ambiguous as hundmanĝi when you could just say manĝi kiel hundo?You could just as well ask why say hundmanĝi when you can say manĝi hundon.
It may be that the direct-object interpetation has the better explanatory power for the nature of the relationship between "hund" and "manĝi" in "hundmanĝi", but I don't wish to get into that. My point is just that there is nothing to say this is the relationship. It could just as legally mean an inclination or preference to eating dogs, or eating like a dog, or being forced to eat a horrible meal fit only for a dog, or whatever.
Of course, in context hundmanĝanto would probably be correctly understood to mean a person eating a dog, if that was what the speaker intended. I'm just saying though, don't go thinking "this is what the word means".
. tommjames (Vise profilen) 21. feb. 2010 10.47.32
gyrus:Can you name a compound of noun+verb where the accepted meaning isn't performing the verb on the noun?Sure, I already gave one right back at the start: fiŝkapti.
Again though, I don't deny a simple direct-object relationship is or can be the most meaningful. I'm simply pointing out a grammatical matter here. Putting a noun on a verb doesn't make it the object, it just shows a relationship. That relationship may well be best understood as being of a direct object, but there's no reason at all that this has to be the case. Thus when someone asks "what does this word mean", be careful jumping to that conclusion.
Rogir (Vise profilen) 21. feb. 2010 13.14.02
tommjames (Vise profilen) 21. feb. 2010 13.27.20
Rogir:Fiŝkapti is just an example of what gyrus meant.No it's not, because fiŝkapti doesn't mean to catch a fish. It means to try to catch fish. You can fiŝkapti all day long and never catch a single fish.
ceigered (Vise profilen) 21. feb. 2010 16.19.12
tommjames:Mwahaha, ambiguity is awesome.Rogir:Fiŝkapti is just an example of what gyrus meant.No it's not, because fiŝkapti doesn't mean to catch a fish. It means to try to catch fish. You can fiŝkapti all day long and never catch a single fish.
@Darkweasel - fare de and al actually are brilliant examples of what could alleviate half the problems - dankegon!
I have to say though that "far" to me seems reformist in the bad sense - after all, "far" is a root, to make it some form of preposition would just make things very confusing, especially if EO went down a analytical evolutionary path (although, by THAT time (3254 AD anyone?
) I doubt it will be recognisable anyway). Anyway, I sense that "far" could cause a lot of troubles and conflicts with "far-" especially esperant'-e 
gyrus (Vise profilen) 21. feb. 2010 20.57.49
tommjames:The difference here is fairly negligible, and the fish still retains the accusative if you analyse it as "provi kapti fiŝojn" as the Reta Vortaro does. However, it also says it's transitive, which seems bizarre to me, as it seems much more apt as intransitive or bitransitive. Anyway, I think the fact that it's trying isn't related to the actual compounding, just to the fact that fishing is often a consecutive action with a varying success rate, unlike partopreni, for example.Rogir:Fiŝkapti is just an example of what gyrus meant.No it's not, because fiŝkapti doesn't mean to catch a fish. It means to try to catch fish. You can fiŝkapti all day long and never catch a single fish.
tommjames (Vise profilen) 21. feb. 2010 21.38.52
gyrus:The difference here is fairly negligibleI disagree, it's a fundamental difference. Catching a fish is not the same thing as engaging in an activity that happens to involve catching fish (maybe).