mihxil:

erinja:We never say "la kioma..." to ask the hour.

I doubt this is 'never' said..Since Esperanto is not a natural language, anybody's decision is at good as another's.

It is a question of the established usage of over a century. That is why anyone's decision is not as good as anyone else's, in practice. Try using la before kioma in an exam or advanced course, and you will surely be corrected.

It's true. Esperanto is more than just the 16 rules. It's also about established precedent and a corpus of literature, and "Kioma horo estas?" has long been established (since the very beginning) as the way to ask the time.

It's a bit like saying, I don't like the word "tablo", I'm going to call it a kunkrura ebenaĵo instead. Sure, you could call it that, but that isn't what we normally say as the word for "table", and people would think that you're weird or that you don't speak well if you went around saying that.

At any rate I wouldn't even say that "La kioma horo estas?" is correct grammar, unlike "kunkrura ebenaĵo", which is correct but unusual.

erinja:At any rate I wouldn't even say that "La kioma horo estas?" is correct grammar, unlike "kunkrura ebenaĵo", which is correct but unusual.

If 'La kioman fojon li jam ripetis sian rakanton' and 'en la kioman klason?' are correct (I copied them from the examples from ~kioma en PIV '87), then I don't see why 'La kioma horo estas?" would be not be correct. It simply makes no sense.

PMEG has 'Je (la) kioma horo okazis tio?' I don't know what (la) means, but I suppose it means that it's optional.

You can perhaps hold standing that 'La kioma horo estas?' is a bit unusual, but it is only a very small detail, and furthermore you can't explain why it is incorrect. Correcting it if somebody uses it, as Miland suggest, would according to me be pretty pedantic. If we are only allowed to talk using idiomatic and cliche expressions we can as well just learn english.

For one thing, the answer to "Kioma horo estas?" doesn't necessarily have "la" in it, regardless. If the answer is "tagmezo" or "noktomezo", those expressions are not necessarily accompanied by "la" (there are abundant examples of those both with and without "la").

By not including "la" in the question, we are not precluding the possibility that "tagmezo" or "noktomezo" could be the answer. Normally we do not speak of "la tagmeza horo", for example.

At any rate, even in the absence of a specific rule that says "don't use la with kioma", doesn't mean that we should use that form. Esperanto is more than the sum of its grammar rules. We have Esperanto idioms, we have certain ways we say things. You can say whatever you want to say but people will feel free to judge your speaking according to the norms of the community.

I can't find a specific grammatical rule that would make it wrong to say "la kioma horo estas?" But it isn't said. It isn't used. And, after more than a hundred years of precedent, I wouldn't choose to be the first to say "You know what? I want to ask the time in a completely different way than the rest of the Esperanto-speaking community!" [to be fair, I did find 2500 hits on Google for "la kioma horo estas", but it's a far cry from the 194000 hits for "Kioma horo estas")

While Esperanto is much, much more flexible with its forms and idioms than most other languages, we do still have idioms. In many cases, there are many, many ways to get across a certain idea, but there is a certain "most common way" and perhaps some less common ways. "La kioma horo estas?" would count as even less than a less-common way.

When I correct lessons, I usually let a student know if a certain form that they used is not technically wrong, but a very unusual way to say something. I don't want them to come out speaking some kind of weird Esperanto, but I always want them to know where the line is between wrong, technically correct but just not done, and correct/common. They can take that information and do with it what they please, just as you can take what I'm telling you now and do with it what you please.

The point is that if I were teaching English and someone wrote in an exercise, "I was here ere the clock struck three", I would tell them that the preferable form would be "I was here until three o'clock". The first form is not technically wrong but we don't normally say it that way. When you are learning a language, you should be aware of how people normally speak that language, even if you choose not to speak that way. It would be a disservice to the learner to say "Yes, your sentence is correct, great job!" because the learner might not be aware that no one has spoken that way for the last hundred years. In Esperanto, the form "La kioma horo estas?" has NEVER been common in the entire existence of the language, so why would I ignore it and pretend everything is ok if a learner uses it? Esperanto is very flexible but this is a formulaic type of expression - many languages have formulaic expressions for common questions and situations - and usually it's advisable to stick to the formula in these cases.

--

Regarding your specific examples, "La kioman fojon..." is using 'la' to talk about a specific occasion. That sentence would actually be wrong without "la"; at the very least, were I to drop "la", I'd make it plural, "Kiomajn fojojn li ripetis sian rakonton!"

"En la kioma klaso...", I would argue that classes are discrete rather than continuous, so we are choosing one out of a specific group. Whereas time of day is continuous, it isn't choosing from a limited set of possible times (technically it is unlimited, depending on how small of a time calculation we are reporting - 5 minutes, 3 seconds, 129nanoseconds, 329 milliseconds, etc etc.... after midnight.)

mihxil:I don't see why 'La kioma horo estas?" would be not be correct. It simply makes no sense.

The reason is that the definite article is used when answering a question about a specific time, not asking it (Je kioma horo la vagonaro alvenos? Je la tria).

mihxil:PMEG has 'Je (la) kioma horo okazis tio?' I don't know what (la) means, but I suppose it means that it's optional.

No, it means that it is not used - it is subkomprenata, and its meaning here is "specifically". It corresponds to the one used in answering the question.

mihxil:Correcting it if somebody uses it, as Miland suggest, would according to me be pretty pedantic.

It is a question of using the language as it is, not as you would like it to be. Can you name a single reputable author who has put la before Kioma horo estas?

mihxil: If we are only allowed to talk using idiomatic and cliche expressions we can as well just learn english.

That's an exaggeration of the situation, which is that Esperanto has far fewer idiotismoj than English. But far be it from me to discourage anyone from learning English; I think it is a very good idea!

erinja:
(to be fair, I did find 2500 hits on Google for "la kioma horo estas", but it's a far cry from the 194000 hits for "Kioma horo estas")

Sorry about that off-topic, but I don't see a big value of evidence pri Google hits. Even the google spiderbots aren't capable to list every webpage on earth until know. I'm getting really sick, that one company should determine what's common and what's not. That will kill one day lot's of information and new ideas apart Google rated mainstream information. Just for the reason that it's not listed and accessible at the first 10 result pages of that Google search machine. And manipulating strategies of Google's search algorith are known. It's really no secret.

Furthermore there still excist opinions outside the Net.

erinja:For one thing, the answer to "Kioma horo estas?" doesn't necessarily have "la" in it, regardless.

I am not trying to argue that using 'la' is necessary or even better. Just that it is not wrong, which you literrally said it was. I'm objecting to only that.

It started with a simple analysis of why I thought I used 'la' previously. Just amusingly I pondered why I did that, and now I find myself in some discussion about this stupid detail. I didn't even mean to promote that usage. I simply hadn't even thought about it. It seemed correct to me, and I still think it is, though I'm aware now that it may be a somewhat whimsical.

erinja:Regarding your specific examples, "La kioman fojon..." is using 'la' to talk about a specific occasion. That sentence would actually be wrong without "la"; at the very least, were I to drop "la", I'd make it plural, "Kiomajn fojojn li ripetis sian rakonton!"

"kiomajn fojojn" I would not even understand. It may be wrong or mean something strange. It's like talking about the second timeS that he told his story. I'd propose 'Kiomfoje'. aŭ 'Kiom da fojoj' here, to just express wonder about how often he tells it. I by the way also not think that "Kioman fojon li jam ripetis sian rakanton?' is wrong (i'm sorry, the actual example had a question mark). With or without 'la', it seems to me pretty much the same.

My analysis would be that both with and without 'la' before 'kioma' are possible because it seems that since it's a question, for that questioner it seems kind of an 'indefinite' thing. But on the other hand the question is definitely asking for something definite. So whether or not the hour in the question is 'definite' and hence needs an article is a bit subject to interpretation (definite to whom?), and hence both forms are encountered. Though grantedly, at least in case of 'kioma horo estas', not equally often.

I do not think it has anything to do with discreteness or continuity. I must say that I think you simply made that up. But even if not, why can the answer 'la naŭa horo' then contain the article? Is the hour in the answer not continuous any more?

Oh please, qwertz. Are you really trying to say that there is some kind of vast conspiracy to convince Esperantists online to use one form of grammar rather than another, through manipulation of Google hits?

I would never say that something with 421 hits was obviously more common than something with 300 hits, but we are talking about a couple of factors of 10 here. Google searches are an unscientific tool but it gives you an order of magnitude idea of how common something is in everyday use.

The word kioma itself means "which number (in a series)", the answer to which may be "the first", "the second" and so on. Thus the reason why la is wrong in the question is that it is a pointer to a specific time, and the questioner does not know what the time is. Kioma horo or je kioma horo cannot point to any hour, only ask which one. The la in the answer is able to be specific. It is as if someone asked "In which of these houses do you live?" and someone pointed to a house and said "That one". But the questioner cannot point (without looking silly, or pointing into the air).

Miland:The word kioma itself means "which number (in a series)", the answer to which may be "the first", "the second" and so on. Thus the reason why la is wrong in the question is that it is a pointer to a specific time, and the questioner does not know what the time is. Kioma horo or je kioma horo cannot point to any hour, only ask which one. The la in the answer is able to be specific. It is as if someone asked "In which of these houses do you live?" and someone pointed to a house and said "That one". But the questioner cannot point (without looking silly, or pointing into the air).

The first line from PMEG about 'la':

La vorteton la oni nomas difina artikolo. Ĝi montras, ke oni parolas pri certa afero konata de la alparolato.

So, since we are talking about something which is presumably known by the one spoken to (why would we otherwise ask it?), it is certainly defendable to use 'la' with 'kioma'.

By the way how would any one point to an hour? I think your argument is silly.