Bartlett, as I understand it the principle of necessity and sufficiency in Esperanto is this:-

The basic structural feature of Esperanto is the putting together of unchanging elements (that is the form of these components do not change).

Some of these are referred to as roots, some as gramatikaj finaĵoj.

As a purely practical matter you put together just the number of these elements that are necessary to convey the desired meaning and no more than that.

In making these compounds you have to take into acount the meaning of the roots.

So 'Martel' has the meaning of a hammer but you are not allowed to use the bare root (there are some roots to which this restriction does not apply) without a grammatical ending.

If you want to refer to the thing (the tool) you add (redundantly from the point of view of the meaning) the noun marker 'o'.

Martel-i would be an action, a sort of 'i', associated with the meaning of 'martel'. Given the nature of the world the action that fits the bill is to hammer.

For hammering (verbal noun) it wouldn't be sufficient to use Martelo because that would mean the thing (the tool). So you need to add another root to convey your meaning. In this case 'ad'.

However in the case of say 'trink', 'trink-o' is sufficient to convey the verbal noun (an act of drinking) since the meaning of 'trink' is verbal.

A drink (like beer, wine etc) then needs the root 'aĵ' (concrete thing) to get the meaning.

But you can't be too simplistic here. The meaning of Esperanto words is conditioned by what exists in the world.

So Manĝo is considered to be sufficient to convey the idea of a meal even though 'manĝ' is verbal and a meal seems quite concrete. Mangaĵoj refers to food stuff, components of a meal.

The system might seem difficult to apply - would perhaps cause a headache for computer - but in practice is very simple for human beings who know what the world is like and what things need to be labelled.

sudanglo:...but in practice is very simple for human beings who know what the world is like and what things need to be labelled

Not always. This is one of my main arguments against most IALs. It's that there's no sure way of knowing how the transfer of semantics changes when switching the vowel classifiers. For those who speak non-IE languages, the meaning would be lost or difficult to grasp.

(edited the typos) Dormi means 'to sleep', and is derived from an IE verb. Manĝi means 'to eat', and is also derived from an IE verb. Dormo means 'sleep', which is the state of sleeping, but manĝo is not the state of eating. Rather, it's what you eat- a meal.

Without having a regular semantic transfer, you risk confusion for speakers of those languages who assign the meanings differently. What may seem natural for some would seem alien to others. This is one of the biggest concepts I've attempted to tackle, and I believe it contributes to the success of the language as far as neutrality. To hell with verb transitivity- I erased all the inherent actions (eat, cook, sleep) from Angos' vocabulary.

ceigered: Why must I be human if I feel I'm different to what is culturally perceived to be the "standard" human?

Who here ever accused you of being human?!

hee hee

sudanglo:Ceiger to call something which is no more than a language design or project and hasn't yet been put to the acid test, is to put an unacceptable spin on it.

It is by no means evident that any such design could become a spoken language. That has to me demonstrated empirically, as there is no science of language or theoretical framework, from which you can make a prediction that the language design will work in practice,

Oh come on! Anyone can speak any of those languages cited before! All they have to do is learn it and speak it! There! Mission complete! It's a fricking language! All you need is someone willing to learn it and speak it!

Your idea of calling any other conlang other than Esperanto is unacceptable spin, if you ask me. I mean, what sort of acid test are you constantly referring to? People using a language to communicate, people enjoying a language's culture, and the fact the language can be used AS A LANGUAGE don't seem to be good enough evidence.

Either way I'm sort of dissapointed but not surprised that an Esperantist might call another conlang not a language. Esperantists are people nonetheless and can have the exact same type of biases as those who refuse to call Esperanto a language I guess. Ironic.

Not to mention I've heard you before complaining about all those evil linguists who refuse to accept Esperanto as a language because it doesn't suit their arbitrary ideas of what constitutes a language. So, why then is it fine to use the same arbitrary emotion based classification scheme for everything other than Esperanto?

razlem: Dormi means 'to sleep', and is derived from an IE verb. Manĝi means 'to eat', and is also derived from an IE verb. Dormo means 'sleep', which is the state of sleeping, but manĝo is not the state of eating. Rather, it's what you eat- a meal.

Naaa.

It's all good.
Mi devas dormon. Mi devas mangxon. Can people use this stuff to communicate?

Yep. Absolutely.

Digging up silly problems where there aren't any. Shheeesh. Let's go to the esperanto forums and talk about something else.

Honest to God, I get so much joy out of esperanto when I don't visit this site...
Why do I keep checking in every few days? It makes me barf.

I gotta get that checked out!

Is there some way I can get an account that will only allow me access to the esperanto stuff? Help... please... somebody... It ain't s'pose to be like this...

ahhhh!

that felt good

razlem:..manĝo is not the state of eating. Rather, it's what you eat- a meal

To have a meal (manĝo) necessitates being in a state of eating. Conversely, if one is in a state of eating, one is by the very act having a meal. Now, if two propositions reciprocally imply each other, they are equivalent. Therefore manĝo is indeed a state of eating.

"Eating a meal" is an English idiomatic expression, which need not be literally true. In fact what we actually eat is manĝaĵo.

razlem:

sudanglo:...but in practice is very simple for human beings who know what the world is like and what things need to be labelled

Not always. This is one of my main arguments against most IALs. It's that there's no sure way of knowing how the transfer of semantics changes when switching the vowel classifiers. For those who speak non-IE languages, the meaning would be lost or difficult to grasp.

I very much doubt it. This strikes me as one one of those conlang solutions in search of a problem. Do you have actual data indicating that speakers of, say, semitic or Asian languages stumble on this aspect of Esperanto?

When you take a verb and strip its verb ending and add -O, what you most often get is a word that refers to an instance of the action denoted by the verb. So MANĜO is "an eating", for which we also have the English word "meal". PROMENO is "a stroll", and so on.

When you want to speak more generally of these actions, as types rather than particular instances, you usually use the suffix -AD. So MANĜADO means "eating" as a general type of action, as in "Eating is necessary".

Without having a regular semantic transfer, you risk confusion for speakers of those languages who assign the meanings differently. What may seem natural for some would seem alien to others. This is one of the biggest concepts I've attempted to tackle, and I believe it contributes to the success of the language as far as neutrality. To hell with verb transitivity- I erased all the inherent actions (eat, cook, sleep) from Angos' vocabulary.

Your first step should be to ascertain whether the risk of confusion is real. I have my doubts about this one.

According to ReVo, manĝo can be both the act of eating and the thing you eat.

Yes Dark Weasel. Manĝo can also work like trinko. The point was the Esperanto words are not rigidly derived. There's a fair amount of opportunism - the principle of necessity and sufficiency.

It's very convenient to extend manĝo to mean meal. Then we can happily talk about matenmanĝo and verspermanĝo.

If we had regular trinkhoroj, then this might have happend in the case of trinko as well. However trinketo is a 'sip', whereas manĝeto is likely to be understood as a snack, or something less than a full meal.