Messages: 54
Language: English
xBlackWolfx (User's profile) September 30, 2010, 1:13:38 PM
sudanglo:I read somewhere, I think, that Zamenhof use 'antaŭ ol' in the circumstances outlined in the link that Tom gave, because there was a similar structure in Russian - and of course the Esperantists followed Zamenhof's usage.that's interesting, so zamenhof made that rule himself? of course if you think about it, it's not any more logical than how esperanto (and IE languages in general) use interrogative pronouns to form clauses. in japanese for example, most 'clauses' are simply inserted into the main sentence like an adjective or adverb. the only exception is sentences that start with 'when' (japanese does this by placing a specific word at the end of the sentence, which serves no other purpose)
Miland (User's profile) September 30, 2010, 1:39:31 PM
ceigered (User's profile) September 30, 2010, 1:56:29 PM
Re Zam using inspiration from Russian, wiktionary's definition for BULGARIAN (can't find Russian outside of prepositional sense) is "prezdí (before?) da (close to/until/up to)" (преди да). Using what I know about Slavic languages not being very divergent, that's probably got a Russian equivalent somewhere.
Perhaps "ol" is somehow related in meaning, but I'm not sure.
Ido chickens out and avoids the issue altogether by stealing from French (again) and uses "avan".
xBlackWolfx (User's profile) September 30, 2010, 2:21:36 PM
Mi ne scias kio mi volas fariĝi...
that cant be right. in all languages i know of the second object would either have to be direct object or indirect object (it is in japanese), but in esperanto it's neither? that makes no sense! if that is grammatically correct, then in esperanto there is no difference between the sentences: i want to become something and something wants to become me!
erinja (User's profile) September 30, 2010, 3:27:53 PM
Read the explanation accompanying lesson 6.
Fariĝi is an intransitive verb like "esti". Therefore, -n is not used with it. It doesn't take a direct object, because "to become" isn't an action that one thing can perform on another thing.
Are you making full use of your lingvohelpanto? Your lingvohelpanto is there to help you. Certainly you should feel free to come to the forum with questions but you should also take advantage of your lingvohelpanto's experience. For example you can say "Hey, this sentence didn't make sense to me, can you explain why it is worded like this and not like that?" Or "Can you give me a rule of thumb to help me decide when to use this form and when to use that form?" Most lingvohelpantoj should be experienced enough that they can give you hints to help make things clearer for you. If your lingvohelpanto can't explain things to you, then choose a different one who can. Hopefully you chose a lingovhelpanto who speaks English. Feel free to ask him or her for English-language explanations of whatever you're unsure of.
erinja (User's profile) September 30, 2010, 3:34:45 PM
xBlackWolfx:Zamenhof made the whole language himself. Or at least, the base of it. It would make complete sense, therefore, to suppose that he also made the "antaŭ ol" rule!sudanglo:I read somewhere, I think, that Zamenhof use 'antaŭ ol' in the circumstances outlined in the link that Tom gave, because there was a similar structure in Russian - and of course the Esperantists followed Zamenhof's usage.that's interesting, so zamenhof made that rule himself?
It's really not that hard.
My rule of thumb is that if antaŭ comes before a simple noun, don't use 'ol' (because antaŭ is functioning as a preposition). If antaŭ is followed by a verb or a phrase that includes a verb, then you need "ol".
It works the same with "post", except that normally we don't say "post ol"; we normally say "post kiam". Technically you could say "post ol" and "antaŭ kiam" but normally we don't. You could also technically say "post ke" and "antaŭ ke", as far as I'm aware, but again, we normally don't.
xBlackWolfx (User's profile) October 1, 2010, 1:26:26 AM
erinja (User's profile) October 1, 2010, 1:53:31 AM
In the long run, "ol" and "kiam" will no longer sound weird to you. It will become a grammatical particle in your brain, and you will no longer think of it as meaning "than" (or "when").
It's worth noting that it would be a weird choice to use only "ke" in this context and never "ol". People would think that you talk weird. Not necessarily wrong, but different. It's up to you whether you want to choose to speak noticeably different than the rest of the Esperanto community.
I did a search of Esperanto literature at tekstaro.com and found zero uses of "antaŭ ke", and only two of "post ke". If you don't like "ol", I suggest going with "kiam" instead. "post kiam" is well established, and "antaŭ kiam" is also well represented in literature. I think you can understand the logical basis for using kiam, in addition.
tommjames (User's profile) October 1, 2010, 10:11:51 AM
xBlackWolfx (User's profile) October 1, 2010, 10:17:57 AM
the thing that disorients me the most is the particularly complex sentences with multiple clauses, it's hard to tell where one clause ends and another begins.