Til indholdet
Svare

-anto, ato and ajxo

af arkadio, 6. aug. 2010

Meddelelser: 9

Sprog: English

arkadio (Vise profilen) 6. aug. 2010 19.36.51

Is there any difference between the -ato (or -anto) version of a noun characterized by a certain action, and the -ajxo word? For example, are "brulajxo" and "brulato" synonyms? By my reading of PMEG, they are, but I might be missing something.

Miland (Vise profilen) 6. aug. 2010 19.45.26

Anto means an agent that is doing something. So kuranto is someone who is running. Ato is the object of an action, so parolata lingvo means "spoken language". Aĵo means something concrete, so manĝaĵo means something eatable.
Taking your example: bruli means to be on fire, so brulanto means something that is burning, while brulaĵo can mean any concrete object associated with burning, usually fuel. Coal could be brulaĵo.

arkadio (Vise profilen) 6. aug. 2010 19.53.53

Miland:Anto means an agent that is doing something. So kuranto is someone who is running. Ato is the object of an action, so parolata lingvo means "spoken language". Aĵo means something concrete, so manĝaĵo means something eatable.
Taking your example: bruli means to be on fire, so brulanto means something that is burning, while brulaĵo can mean any concrete object associated with burning, usually fuel. Coal could be brulaĵo.
Thanks for the reply. The "brulato" was just a careless error. I should have written "brulanto." So a piece of coal can always be a "brulajxo," but only a "brulanto" while it is burning. A piece of bread is always a "mangxajxo," but only a "mangxato" while being consumed. Got it.

darkweasel (Vise profilen) 6. aug. 2010 20.29.24

No, not really: -anto and -ato always refer to a person (except maybe in some scientific words). So a brulanto is a burning person.

For objects you need -aĵo which means both -antaĵo and -ataĵo depending on context.

arkadio (Vise profilen) 7. aug. 2010 01.44.57

darkweasel:No, not really: -anto and -ato always refer to a person (except maybe in some scientific words). So a brulanto is a burning person.

For objects you need -aĵo which means both -antaĵo and -ataĵo depending on context.
Thanks. I see that PMEG bears you out. So a house may be "brulanta," and a "brulajxo," but not a "brulanto." I assume that "person" means anything with the quality of personality --- not only a human being. My cat could be an "amato."

arkadio (Vise profilen) 7. aug. 2010 01.45.30

arkadio:Is there any difference between the -ato (or -anto) version of a noun characterized by a certain action, and the -ajxo word? For example, are "brulajxo" and "brulato" synonyms? By my reading of PMEG, they are, but I might be missing something.

Miland (Vise profilen) 7. aug. 2010 22.59.30

Anto is usually used to refer to a person, but it doesn't strictly have to. That is why Butler's dictionary says "But it can also mean an object (= -antaĵo)". That is also why PMEG uses normale (last sentence before the first box).
Grammatically ant is just part of an active participle indicating an agent, and -o can be any substantive. Thus brulanto would normally refer to a human torch, but it doesn't strictly have to, although brulaĵo is usually used for a fuel.

erinja (Vise profilen) 8. aug. 2010 00.10.11

I agree that -anto and -ato are normally reserved for people only.

But let's look at "brulato" for a second - bruli is an intransitive verb, it means "to be consumed by fire". -at- is a passive participle, meaning that it's receiving the action of a verb, it's referring to the object of a verb. However, bruli doesn't take an object. So the word "brulato" doesn't make any sense at all, you can only have "brulanto".

Let's then consider only the case of "brulanto"; let's assume that this is one of those exceptional cases where it's not a person being referred to with -anto. "Brulanto" would mean "one who is burning".

The -aĵ- suffix does NOT mean "one who is XXX-ing". Rather, by definition, it means a concrete manifestation of an abstract idea. The meaning is very different from describing the one who is doing the action. A brulaĵo technically could be used to refer to anything at all related to fire - various types of fuel for the fire, various effects of the fire (ash, soot, etc), the spark to kindle the fire. These things are "brulaĵoj" at any time at all, and they do not necessarily refer to things being burned. It's a very general word, "brulaĵo". An additional difference has to do with time. A "brulanto" is burning RIGHT THIS SECOND. A brulaĵo is a brulaĵo, regardless of where the fire has started yet or finished. It's not related to the actual timing of the burning action.

tommjames (Vise profilen) 8. aug. 2010 10.52.58

I suppose it can be argued that there's strictly no reason an "anto" form absolutely has to show a person, but from where I'm standing the overwhelmingly vast majority of those forms do exactly that, with only a very miniscule number of exceptions, some of which PMEG mentions on that page. For me it's pretty clear, if it's a burning person it's brulanto, if it's a burning thing then it's brulantaĵo. Deviating from that is pointless and will just confuse people.

If context makes it clear what the intended sense is then I guess it's arguable we shouldn't have to worry about using "aĵ" in this way, but for better or worse that is just how the language works. Not much point splitting hairs about the technicalities of it, imo.

Tilbage til start