Messages : 9
Langue: English
arkadio (Voir le profil) 6 août 2010 19:36:51
Miland (Voir le profil) 6 août 2010 19:45:26
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 (Voir le profil) 6 août 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.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.
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.
darkweasel (Voir le profil) 6 août 2010 20:29:24
For objects you need -aĵo which means both -antaĵo and -ataĵo depending on context.
arkadio (Voir le profil) 7 août 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.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."
For objects you need -aĵo which means both -antaĵo and -ataĵo depending on context.
arkadio (Voir le profil) 7 août 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 (Voir le profil) 7 août 2010 22:59:30
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 (Voir le profil) 8 août 2010 00:10:11
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 (Voir le profil) 8 août 2010 10:52:58
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.