Príspevky: 88
Jazyk: English
sudanglo (Zobraziť profil) 13. októbra 2010 22:07:21
It seems more to be a question of logic as to why 'La kioma horo estas?' is not used.
Think about the English equivalent - What time is it?, or the French - 'Quelle heure est-il?
Would you ever say 'The what time is it?' or 'La quelle heure est-il?'
No, because you are not referring to a previously identified time, or defining a specific time, or using any other meaning of 'The' or 'La'.
horsto (Zobraziť profil) 13. októbra 2010 22:33:44
sudanglo:I am not all sure that this is a question of idiom.Perhaps you should stop thinking in other languages. In Esperanto you don't ask for the time, you ask for the hour, that makes the difference. You ask for a certain hour and therefore it's of course possible to use the definite article.
It seems more to be a question of logic as to why 'La kioma horo estas?' is not used.
Think about the English equivalent - What time is it?, or the French - 'Quelle heure est-il?
Would you ever say 'The what time is it?' or 'La quelle heure est-il?'
No, because you are not referring to a previously identified time, or defining a specific time, or using any other meaning of 'The' or 'La'.
In my dictionary both forms are marked as possible and I don't know why it's important to discuss about that, there is no way to misunderstand any of them.
mihxil (Zobraziť profil) 13. októbra 2010 22:45:40
sudanglo:These are not the same. In Esperanto you ask 'The how-many-eth hour is'. That makes a difference. Since english is a germanic language and german and dutch would both add the article here, I used it here too.
Think about the English equivalent - What time is it?, or the French - 'Quelle heure est-il?
Again from PMEG
Ne uzu la ĉe frazparto, kiu havas alian difinilon. Aliaj difiniloj estas posedaj pronomoj, tabelvortoj je U, A aŭ ES, la vorteto ambaŭ, kaj duondifina unu:So, 'kiom' is not such a 'difinilo', and by the way it is not even any more used as a proper 'tabelvorto' because it is made to an adjective. So I think it is not a 'difinilo' and hence usage of 'la' is not forbidden. And it is also actually used. Two out of five examples in PIV use 'kioma' with 'la', both marked 'Zamenhofa'.
ceigered (Zobraziť profil) 13. októbra 2010 22:59:27
(nur ŝerco! ne min ataku!)You're either saying:
"la kioma horo" ("subject") estas _____"
and forgetting something at the end there, namely a "what" word,
or you're just giving "kioma" something it doesn't need in the slightest.
By the logic of giving "kioma" a "la", is not "horo" more worthy of one? After all, we're asking about a specific hour, a specific bit of time, pri certa afero konata de la alparolato. That certain affair is understood by the fact there is -as, "kioma" and no other mention of past/future that we're asking about the current time.
"La kioma" is grammatically possible, but it seems redundant and superfluous. The fact that it is a question word should be enough to grant it the ability to be article free for life.
Anyway, I don't know about you, but I reckon I'd understand "la horo?" with rising intonation , rather than "la kioma?", and would probably ask "kio? Kiom da homoj tie cxi? Kiom da segxo?" after hearing "la kioma"? (well, NOW I've heard of it here and seen this discussion I'd probably recognise the time usage, but I'd still ask about the others first).
ceigered (Zobraziť profil) 13. októbra 2010 23:12:27
erinja: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?To be honest, he does have a point in that those figures may be inaccurate, as it may recognise "la kioma horo estas" etc as "la horo kiam mi blah blah blah estas blah blah blah kiom blah blah a".
So there may be even less accounts of "la kioma horo estas" (plus variations) than google reveals!
(one again, joking, joking, don't crucify me!) 
darkweasel (Zobraziť profil) 14. októbra 2010 5:22:57
erinja:Sorry erinja but I disagree.
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!"
The problem in this discussion may be that English lacks a word for kioma, so I will now, in the context of this discussion, use "howmanieth" ("how many" + "-th") to translate it.
I don't think a question that asks for what number something is can logically be plural, except maybe if the subject is plural too: la kiomaj estas tiuj libroj? ("the howmanieth are these books?"). Kiomajn fojojn li ripetis sian rakonton? makes no sense to me ("howmanieth times has he repeated his story?"?). A sentence that does make sense and probably conveys the meaning you're aiming for is Kiom da fojoj li ripetis sian rakonton?.
Now it is true that Esperantists do not normally use la when asking about time, but I'd say it would be more logical to do so. After all:
La kioma horo estas? - Estas la tria horo!
"The howmanieth hour is it?" - "It's the third hour!"
Without la:
Kioma horo estas? - the expected response would be something like Estas tria horo!.
I know, I know, that's not usual. I'm talking about logic, not about established usage in Esperanto. Surely I may also be influenced by my first language which does have a word for kioma and which does use the definite article in such occasions.
tommjames (Zobraziť profil) 14. októbra 2010 9:59:59
I'll be sticking with "kioma horo estas" myself, but if someone chooses to refer to the hour with an article I'm not going to complain about it.
sudanglo (Zobraziť profil) 14. októbra 2010 10:56:59
La kioma horo estas doesn't make sense anymore than La kiu vi estas makes sense.
But kioma estas la horo does make sense.
However this latter form needs context to disambiguate.
If a friend mentions an interesting forthcoming programmme on TV with the time it is on and then later you want to be reminded of when it appears in the schedule then 'Kioma estas la horo' could be used. But it could also be used to ask what the time is (now).
As regards the point made that if we allow Esperanto to become highly idiomatic then we may just as well use English, there is more than a grain of truth in that.
So Radio and Erinja, the argument that you should say something in a particular way because that's the usage is (necessarily) much weaker in the case of Esperanto.
Esperanto is easy because of its regularity, easy spelling, word-building and so on but also very much because it is not an idiomatic language.
It is a mistake to treat esperanto as though it were just another language like the national ones.
Zamenhof argued right from the beginning that the only sensible interlanguage was an artificial one. That is, one that did not share many of the characteristics of the national languages.
Horst - what do you think 'Quelle heure est-il' means literally?
tommjames (Zobraziť profil) 14. októbra 2010 11:06:18
sudanglo:La kioma horo estas doesn't make sense anymore than La kiu vi estas makes sense.You're making a false comparison. "Kiu" is what PMEG would term a "difinilo", and isn't used with another difinilo ("la" in this case), so "la kiu" is wrong. The same cannot be said for "kiom" or "kioma". Miĥil already pointed this out in his post above.
sudanglo (Zobraziť profil) 14. októbra 2010 11:18:08
The natural languages do not abandon historical baggage readily - look at English spelling - so that most of them are an unholy mess, cluttered with inherited forms.
However, if a better, clearer form comes along, the Esperantists are much more likely to embrace it, confining the older form to the dustbin of history.
Already, in NPIV there are quite a few entries with the note 'archaic'.
There are some oddities in Esperanto like Eldoni for publish and Priskribi for an oral description, but mercifully it's clarity and logic which largely rule the day.
As an example of a something that was discarded you can look at Elrigardo which was abandoned in favour of Aspekto.