メッセージ: 25
言語: English
Miland (プロフィールを表示) 2010年4月1日 14:50:04
Roberto12:How do you express the idea of "about to" in Esperanto?Use onta. According to Teach yourself Esperanto (page 123): "This is used to describe an action which has not yet started but is on the point of starting, and it gives the idea of 'about to' or 'going to' "
The page has a picture of a person walking off a cliff, with the advancing foot actually in the air, and the caption is La sinjoro estas falonta, which would mean here "The gentleman is about to fall".
novatago (プロフィールを表示) 2010年4月1日 18:08:16
Miland:Use onta. According to Teach yourself Esperanto (page 123): "This is used to describe an action which has not yet started but is on the point of starting, and it gives the idea of 'about to' or 'going to' "Yes. You (and the 123 page of Teach yourself Esperanto) are right. In fact I knew it. I guess that for some people (like me) is hard to do without some expressions and search the most similar way to express concepts.
Also, some veterans esperantists advice to avoid the forms -int, -ant, -ont because we can to replace them with simple forms, which are easier, without lose the meaning. Well, if we don't want to lose precision we must use -int, -ant, -ont.
Ĝis, Novatago
erinja (プロフィールを表示) 2010年4月1日 19:22:15
novatago:Also, some veterans esperantists advice to avoid the forms -int, -ant, -ont because we can to replace them with simple forms, which are easier, without lose the meaning. Well, if we don't want to lose precision we must use -int, -ant, -ont.The operative word here is avoid. We don't eliminate these forms. We avoid over-using them, precisely so that we can use them to convey nuances of meaning in these situations.
When we say "La viro estas falonta", we know that the meaning is "about to fall", as a distinct meaning from "The man is going to fall" (Which most people would translate as simply "La viro falos")
Roberto12 (プロフィールを表示) 2010年4月1日 19:30:53
1. The man was going to fall.
2. The man was about to fall.
In #2, the fall is due very soon after the time referring to, but in #1, the fall could happen at any time, possibly hours after the time referred to.
novatago (プロフィールを表示) 2010年4月1日 20:44:49
erinja:The operative word here is avoid. We don't eliminate these forms. We avoid over-using them, precisely so that we can use them to convey nuances of meaning in these situations.Actually, the first time I read the advise, that wasn't the given reason. They said that -int, -ant, -ont could be dificult to be understood.
Ĝis, Novatago
Miland (プロフィールを表示) 2010年4月1日 21:42:34
Roberto12:So how do we translateIf you mean that he was at continual risk of falling, you could put that Dum kelkaj horoj li emis (or riskis) fali.
"The man was going to fall", if the fall could happen at any time, possibly hours after the time referred to.
In the case of a certain future event you could add a time qualification after using onto e.g. La kondamnito estis punota dum la sekva monato.
erinja (プロフィールを表示) 2010年4月1日 23:39:11
novatago:Actually, the first time I read the advise, that wasn't the given reason. They said that -int, -ant, -ont could be dificult to be understood.They are difficult to understand if you embed them into words excessively. "Mi aliĝigintos lin al la seminario" (I will have made him sign up for the seminar)
They are not used frequently, and if you over-use them, thereby making your tenses more specific than strictly necessary, people can get the wrong idea. Also, your speaking becomes overly wordy and not very elegant.
It isn't wrong. But people could potentially misunderstand you in the sense that they think you're trying to emphasize the exact timing of things, when you're not (and they might think you're weird because you are placing a strong emphasis on the timing of every. single. verb.)
ceigered (プロフィールを表示) 2010年4月2日 4:40:44
darkweasel:Clearly it's a mutual drive to insanityceigered:That's what drives German-speaking English learners crazy about the English if-sentences. In Esperanto you use the US-form for the condition and for the result.
The logic I think of my argument was:
IF (state), then RESULT (-us)
But I did not know German did things differently to English in that regard - that's quite interesting - maybe the reduction in the use of -us equivalents in English when compared to German is related to the "simplification" of English as a whole. 
Bennon (プロフィールを表示) 2010年4月2日 5:48:08
darkweasel:In the particular case being discussed, I think the past tense "venis" is appropriate in the protasis. Using the conditional would have obfuscated the "it already happened" sentiment. If the conditional would have been used, it would imply that the hero might not come, but we use an indicative(ish) because we know he already did.ceigered:That's what drives German-speaking English learners crazy about the English if-sentences. In Esperanto you use the US-form for the condition and for the result.
The logic I think of my argument was:
IF (state), then RESULT (-us)
The very blurry border between tense and mood and the inclusion of the conditional as a tense proper makes this dilemma difficult to answer in esperanto. If there were a conditional past tense, perhaps that would be appropriate (although the indicative is used for contrafactual statements in quite a few languages with more developed mood systems). If the protasis did use the conditional -US, how would the speaker indicate that it already happened and we know the hero did come?