I'm learning Esperanto using the public domain book "A Complete Grammar of Esperanto", by Ivy Kellerman Reed (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7787) and I'm a little confused by instances where "plej" is used without being preceded by "la".
For example:

Oni ofte miras kies domo en nia vilaĝo estas plej bela, kaj kiu domo estas la plej agrabla loĝejo.
(People often wonder whose house in our village is most beautiful, and which house is the most pleasant dwelling.)

Agrabla juna knabo, la plej juna el la servistoj, tiam restis ekster la pordo.
(A pleasant young boy, the youngest out of the servants, at that time was staying outside the door.)

Sed la plej agrabla el la sezonoj estas la somero.
(But the most pleasant out of the seasons is the summer.)

It seems that if after "plej" you're going to provide a noun then "la plej" is used, and if you're just going to provide adjectives you just use "plej". However in the second and third examples above it seems that if you're going to use "el" then you have to use "la plej". Is that correct?

Thanks, Brett

'Tis not correct (to my knowledge)

You just use "la" in such circumstances as you would in English, and like in English, it is not entirely necessary. It's purely stylistic.

You could say "Agrabla juna knabo, plej juna el la servistoj, tiam restis ekster la pordo".

However...

Having "la" attached to an adjective when there is no noun is like saying "the ..... one". So, "La bela" is like saying "the beautiful one", and so forth. It's why we say "la angla" for "English (language)", as it sort of turns that adjective into a name for something both the speaker/writer and the listener/reader can figure out what it is without explicitly stating the noun component.

So:

"La plej juna el la servistoj" could be thought of as "the youngest one of the servants" or "the youngest of the servants" (English permits "The (adjective) (without "one")" in the case of comparatives and superlatives), where as "plej juna el la servistoj" (I'd avoid this because it feels a bit messy) could be thought of as "youngest of the servants).

The reason why "la plej juna" is used here is because in this sort of phrase (the (adjective) of the (noun)) normally has this sort of structure from what I've found. Some might not use that structure, but I don't see a problem with it

Whereas, in "kies domo en nia vilaĝo estas plej bela" can get away more often than not without the "la" because we don't need a la before "plej bela" as we know instantly what's referring to what - the "plej bela" is referring to the "domo". If we got rid of everything between "kies" and "estas", we'd probably want a "la" before "plej bela" because it feels better that way.
"Kies estas la plej bela".

I tried searching for an EO only explanation to see if I'm on the right track but I'm only finding Ido lessons that way, which is funny since "la difinita artiklo kun adjektivoj" contains EO only nuances in it...

ceigered:
I tried searching for an EO only explanation to see if I'm on the right track but I'm only finding Ido lessons that way, which is funny since "la difinita artiklo kun adjektivoj" contains EO only nuances in it...

The correct Esperanto word is artikolo and I'm pretty sure that adjektivoj isn't Ido as Esperanto's -oj is -i in Ido.

Concerning the question:
Oni ofte miras kies domo en nia vilaĝo estas plej bela, kaj kiu domo estas la plej agrabla loĝejo.
This doesn't have la before plej bela because it is a predicative adjective. You don't need to use the definite article there (but you're allowed to - then there's an implicit domo after the adjective), but in other cases logic almost always requires one before adjectives, except in cases like plej multaj homoj ne scipovas Esperanton = "most people don't know Esperanto". In general I guess you can do the same as in English...

ceigered, darkweasel: thanks for the quick replies!

I forgot to add one other example, which I'm not confused about, but which does use plej before a noun without saying "la plej":

En ĉi tiu sezono la kampoj kaj arboj frue komencas montri plej belajn kolorojn.
(In this season the fields and trees early begin to show most beautiful colours.)

To me the English "most beautiful colours" seems quaint and old-fashioned, I'd more naturally say "very beautiful colours".

ceigered:
Oni ofte miras kies domo en nia vilaĝo estas plej bela, kaj kiu domo estas la plej agrabla loĝejo.
This doesn't have la before plej bela because it is a predicative adjective. You don't need to use the definite article there (but you're allowed to - then there's an implicit domo after the adjective), but in other cases logic almost always requires one before adjectives, except in cases like plej multaj homoj ne scipovas Esperanton = "most people don't know Esperanto". In general I guess you can do the same as in English...

Normally in English for predicative superlatives I use "the", e.g. "that book is the most interesting", which as you say has an implicit "book" after "interesting". We can also say "that book is most interesting", but again the "most" sounds to me like another way of expressing "very".

One good thing about learning foreign languages is that you have to brush up on your own language's grammar. I think I need to do that in this case!

Thanks again!

darkweasel:

ceigered:
I tried searching for an EO only explanation to see if I'm on the right track but I'm only finding Ido lessons that way, which is funny since "la difinita artiklo kun adjektivoj" contains EO only nuances in it...

The correct Esperanto word is artikolo and I'm pretty sure that adjektivoj isn't Ido as Esperanto's -oj is -i in Ido.

That must have been my problem then, 'twouldn't surprise me if Google picked up on the root of the word "artiklo" more than the Esperanto-only oj in "adjektivoj". Strange!

(alas, searching with "artikolo" in lieu of the word "artiklo" did not yield anything I had hoped it would, so I shall abandon that whole idea altogether!)

brett73:ceigered, darkweasel: thanks for the quick replies!

I forgot to add one other example, which I'm not confused about, but which does use plej before a noun without saying "la plej":

En ĉi tiu sezono la kampoj kaj arboj frue komencas montri plej belajn kolorojn.
(In this season the fields and trees early begin to show most beautiful colours.)

To me the English "most beautiful colours" seems quaint and old-fashioned, I'd more naturally say "very beautiful colours".

It's purely stylistic. It's not so uncommon in Eo as it is in En though because there's no "old-fasioned" style in EO that I can think of (other than writing in Zamenhof-era Esperanto but that's not so much old fashion as much as it seems outdated).

But even in English you can find some saying "most (something) (something)" without "the", I do it on the odd occasion. So basically it's all about the style of the sentence and how you wanna sound.

[quote=s]ceigered[/s] Darkweasel ]
Oni ofte miras kies domo en nia vilaĝo estas plej bela, kaj kiu domo estas la plej agrabla loĝejo.
This doesn't have la before plej bela because it is a predicative adjective. You don't need to use the definite article there (but you're allowed to - then there's an implicit domo after the adjective), but in other cases logic almost always requires one before adjectives, except in cases like plej multaj homoj ne scipovas Esperanton = "most people don't know Esperanto". In general I guess you can do the same as in English...

Normally in English for predicative superlatives I use "the", e.g. "that book is the most interesting", which as you say has an implicit "book" after "interesting". We can also say "that book is most interesting", but again the "most" sounds to me like another way of expressing "very".

One good thing about learning foreign languages is that you have to brush up on your own language's grammar. I think I need to do that in this case!

Thanks again![/quote]In this case, it's "most" and not "very" because you're choosing between multiple things. If we were to say "This book is most interesting!" (tiu ĉi libro estas plej interesa) in Eo, one would expect there to be other alternatives (e.g. Kiu libro tie ĉi estas plej interesa? Tiu ĉi libro estas plej interesa). To translate "this book is most interesting" in the sense of "tre" and not "plej", you only use "tre". (Oh, tiu ĉi libro estas tre interesa!)

I checked NLP (2002 edition) and it lists two definitions for "plej" (in the first section). The first one is "Partikulo esprimanta gradon superna al ĉiaj kompareblaĵoj" and then gives example sentences which use "la plej". I take it this means the superlative "the most (adj/adv)".

The second meaning is "Partikulo esprimanta absolute altan gradon (sen esprimita komparo kun aliaĵoj)". It then gives example sentences which have sometimes "plej" and sometimes "la plej" (e.g. when meaning "we didn't have the faintest idea"). I take it this is the meaning of "highly, very" that we use in English.

The existence of that second meaning leads me to think that if "plej" isn't followed by "la" then it is usually meant to be "highly, very" and not the superlative, right? I think originally I was confused because I thought "plej" always indicated the superlative.

brett73:I checked NLP (2002 edition) and it lists two definitions for "plej" (in the first section). The first one is "Partikulo esprimanta gradon superna al ĉiaj kompareblaĵoj" and then gives example sentences which use "la plej". I take it this means the superlative "the most (adj/adv)".

The second meaning is "Partikulo esprimanta absolute altan gradon (sen esprimita komparo kun aliaĵoj)". It then gives example sentences which have sometimes "plej" and sometimes "la plej" (e.g. when meaning "we didn't have the faintest idea"). I take it this is the meaning of "highly, very" that we use in English.

No, this means "most" as well.

Translation: "A particle expressing an absolutely highest grade (without an expressed comparison with other things)". This is "most" in the sense that the writer does no give anything else to compare it with. E.g. "The most beautiful flower is a rose" (this definition), vs. "the most beautiful flower out of all the flowers here is the rose" (previous definition).

The existence of that second meaning leads me to think that if "plej" isn't followed by "la" then it is usually meant to be "highly, very" and not the superlative, right? I think originally I was confused because I thought "plej" always indicated the superlative.

It always does mean the superlative, there is no other meaning for "plej". So, there is no need to be worried. It's likely you became confused simply because the example sentences introduced examples with and without the use of "la" despite nothing being said about "la" used with "plej" beforehand (this is where often a beginner will suspect they have missed something if they are expecting the language to be so different they can't easily guess rules).

Thus to simplify:
"Partikulo esprimanta gradon superna al ĉiaj kompareblaĵoj" =
"the most beautiful flower (out of all the flowers) here is the rose"

And

"Partikulo esprimanta absolute altan gradon (sen esprimita komparo kun aliaĵoj)" =
"the most beautiful flower is the rose"

I don't have a problem with la plej. You will find several examples in PMEG (section "Plej", first box). You can use it where you might use "the" before a superlative in English.

ceigered:
It always does mean the superlative, there is no other meaning for "plej". So, there is no need to be worried. It's likely you became confused simply because the example sentences introduced examples with and without the use of "la" despite nothing being said about "la" used with "plej" beforehand (this is where often a beginner will suspect they have missed something if they are expecting the language to be so different they can't easily guess rules).

I think you're right that I became confused and thought "plej" by itself wasn't the superlative.

So what you're saying is "la plej" must refer to some group you're comparing with, and that group is made clear from context, but just "plej" must mean the most "in the world" or "in existence", for example "ĝi estas plej granda" would mean "it is the biggest (in the world)", right?

I was wondering if this could be explained in an example context. Say there is a karate dojo full of students. And let's say the highest karate rank is 6th dan black belt. Then if you singled out a student at the school you could say "Li estas la plej bona karateisto" meaning that he is the best in the class. But if you said "Li estas plej bona karateisto" then you mean he has achieved the highest rank, i.e. 6th dan black belt, right? That also implies that there might be other people in the world who share the same rank (of course more than one person has a 6th dan black belt in karate).

Thanks everyone for your help so far, this is my first thread and I'm very grateful for all the immediate and helpful comments you're making.