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To Be or NOT To Be (Avoiding the word Esti?)

di Polaris, 30 dicembre 2010

Messaggi: 30

Lingua: English

tommjames (Mostra il profilo) 02 gennaio 2011 15:35:40

T0dd:An intransitive verb can't really use the ending at all. What would "vojaĝiĝi" mean, for example?
They can, the meaning is more or less the same as "ek".

http://bertilow.com/pmeg/vortfarado/afiksoj/sufi...

ceigered (Mostra il profilo) 02 gennaio 2011 16:46:43

This is why I hate the idea of using iĝi passively - it looses the idea of "become"... Alas, using iĝi passively seems acceptable in Esperanto, but why it picked up a -atiĝi meaning and not a -antiĝi meaning bugs me greatly.

Is "interesiĝi" not readable as "to become interesting" in Esperanto as it is currently, as that seems like a less idiomatic reading.

T0dd (Mostra il profilo) 02 gennaio 2011 19:38:52

tommjames:
T0dd:An intransitive verb can't really use the ending at all. What would "vojaĝiĝi" mean, for example?
They can, the meaning is more or less the same as "ek".

http://bertilow.com/pmeg/vortfarado/afiksoj/sufi...
I forgot about those usages! Very good! I would probably never say "estiĝi"; I think I'd prefer "ekesti" every time (Not that my habits are normative in any way). "Sidiĝi", on the other hand is pretty standard Esperanto.

@ceigered -- My impression is "interesiĝi" really only has the passive meaning now. I think if you want to say "She became interesting" you'd have to say "Ŝi (far)iĝis interesa" or something of the sort.

And now I'm wondering about "amikiĝis"...became a friend, or became friendly?

orthohawk (Mostra il profilo) 02 gennaio 2011 19:55:19

T0dd:

And now I'm wondering about "amikiĝis"...became a friend, or became friendly?
Become a friend. Amik- is a nominal root. to keep the "nominalness" and make it a word, you just add the noun ending, -o. when you add the adjectival ending, -a, you have *added* the idea of adjectiveness to the nominal meaning of the word. I think, to keep the adjectiveness (to make friendly), you would have to have an affix to that effect between the root and the -iĝi ending.

tommjames (Mostra il profilo) 02 gennaio 2011 20:06:32

ceigered:Alas, using iĝi passively seems acceptable in Esperanto
Well you can use iĝ to translate some ideas that are put into the passive voice in other languages (was born → naskiĝis, etc), but it doesn't mean the iĝ-verb is "passive" in Esperanto.

I know some people think differently and believe that a phrase like "skribiĝis de la aŭtoro" is a perfectly good passive construction, but as far as I'm concerned that's just horribly mangled Esperanto. Not only is it simply not the passive voice (it can't be.. the fundamento explicitly says so), but that kind of usage blatantly ignores the real meaning of -iĝ in a transitive verb which is to convey the middle voice, not the passive.

"Naskiĝis", "interesiĝas" and other such forms function as the intransitive variant of an ergative verb. That is similar to the passive but it's really not the same thing and IMO it's important to be clear on this point.

ceigered:Is "interesiĝi" not readable as "to become interesting" in Esperanto as it is currently, as that seems like a less idiomatic reading.
No, because as T0dd points out the root interes' is a transitive verb, not an adjective. The effect of -ig and -iĝ depends a lot on the part of speech category of the root you use it with.

ceigered (Mostra il profilo) 03 gennaio 2011 09:22:14

Thanks guys! That explanation has helped greatly. So essentially iĝi isn't just "become", it's more "if you append this to a word, it gives it the magical ability of an ergative verb when intransitive", thus using wikipedia's example of "break":

"mi rompas" "mi rompiĝis" (I break (something), I break)?
So essentially the input/output of the verb is cut in half and the output is only given, yes?

e.g. SUB>verb>OBJ (normal flow of an action with a beginning and end)
Then SUB<verb (ergative representation of the above)

But because things like "blui" mean "to be blue", "bluiĝi" then would sort of ergatively intransify "to be", thus:
SUB=to be something (normal copula)
SUB<to be something (rerepresenting the copula as an action with a beginning and end)

THUS "to become interesting" = interesantiĝi (which isn't too bad, since "interesant" sounds atleast familiar compared to "interesteteguligemec ktp") - although this is a hard call since even -anta can sort of be used pseudo-transitively in practice...

Is that all right? Sorry for the convoluted thought process!

If so, then that's a load off my mind. The explanation that iĝi makes verbs passive was just hurting my head lango.gif.

tommjames (Mostra il profilo) 03 gennaio 2011 11:44:00

ceigered:"mi rompas" "mi rompiĝis" (I break (something), I break)?
So essentially the input/output of the verb is cut in half and the output is only given, yes?
Pretty much yes. Such -iĝ verbs render the outside agent responsible for the action as almost an afterthought, which is why you usually won't see it specified. Of course it is possible to do so, but not in the normal passive way. For example you could say "la branĉo de la arbo rompiĝis pro la vento", the branch on the tree broke because of the wind (but not "was broken by the wind").

More info here.

ceigered:But because things like "blui" mean "to be blue", "bluiĝi" then would sort of ergatively intransify "to be", thus:
Well "to be" is already intransitive so I'm not sure you could meaningfully "intransify" it. But if by that you meant "become", then yes, that's how I'd read it; bluiĝi = fariĝi blua = to become blue.

ceigered:THUS "to become interesting" = interesantiĝi
I don't think anybody would really say that. T0dd's "(far)iĝi interesa" is how I and I believe everyone else would usually say it.

ceigered (Mostra il profilo) 04 gennaio 2011 05:10:47

Tommjames:he branch on the tree broke because of the wind (but not "was broken by the wind").
Hmm, yes, I see what you're saying there - in English "by" is acceptably because such sentences often have a past participle there, but without the past participle "by" certain feels out of place.
Well "to be" is already intransitive so I'm not sure you could meaningfully "intransify" it. But if by that you meant "become", then yes, that's how I'd read it; bluiĝi = fariĝi blua = to become blue.
Well, that's essentially what I mean, just not enough words to describe it lango.gif What I meant was that the iĝi shows the verb as if it were transitive in a sense, but if we view such intransitive verbs as transitive, it just goes around in circles because the role of the object is shared by the subject and verb itself from one perspective and eventually heads would just explode from the shear confusion of it all - well, mine would anyway.
I don't think anybody would really say that. T0dd's "(far)iĝi interesa" is how I and I believe everyone else would usually say it.
Oh of course, I just wanted to get down what an acceptable form would be using an transitive verb and the idea of "becoming" it without that ergative effect occurring.

Thanks for you great help! ridulo.gif

yugary (Mostra il profilo) 04 gennaio 2011 05:22:29

In some languages, like Korean and Japanese for instance, virtually all adjectives are verbs. (In Korean, I can think of only two exceptions offhand: 새 ('new') and 헌 ('old' or 'used'). So to Esperantists here, forms like bluas or grandas seem perfectly natural.

ceigered (Mostra il profilo) 04 gennaio 2011 07:45:19

Same in Chinese and Indonesian too - there is a lesser used copula (adalah) in Indonesian, but only for noun=noun expressions, and Chinese's 是 copula only apears in the same type of noun=noun expressions (thus "你好吗／ni hao ma" (you good?), "我很好谢谢／wo hen hao xiexie" (I very good thanks))

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