razlem:But Zamenhof's idea of "necessary" was a bit biased (accusative case, for example).

Well, "necessary" depends a great deal on what your goal is. If the goal is to allow the word order in Esperanto to more accurately map to a set of natural languages whose word orders differ, then marking the direct object is a very workable solution. A fixed word order would, of course, only map to languages whose word orders are very similar, and leave out all those whose word orders are different.

The accusative case gives Esperanto a great deal of flexibility in matching peoples native languages (at least, insofar as word order goes). Is it "necessary" to do that? Technically, no. But for practical reasons, it sure helps people from differing language backgrounds to string their words together in a fashion that they are comfortable with.

RiotNrrd: Is it "necessary" to do that? Technically, no. But for practical reasons, it sure helps people from differing language backgrounds to string their words together in a fashion that they are comfortable with.

But doesn't that go against Zamenhof's philosophy of "necessary and sufficient"?

I mean, if you're going to put in an accusative case, why not put in more prepositional cases and remove the isolated prepositions altogether? A genitive case would clean things up for sure, but of course it's not really necessary for basic communication.

razlem:A genitive case would clean things up for sure, but of course it's not really necessary for basic communication.

What is "basic communication"? Is this a design goal of your language? What is non-basic communication?

Todd

Necessary and sufficient are subjective measures. My opinion is different from your opinion, and I'm sure both of our opinions are different from Zamenhof's opinion.

I have frequently been glad of the existence of a direct object because of the flexibility it gives me with word order. This is what you've already been told but I think you would need to speak the language well (if not fluently) to fully appreciate this marker. Sure, Esperanto has a "most common" word order that could nearly be considered standard. But if someone uses a different word order, I can still understand them easily. I can vary the word order of my sentence not only to change the emphasis of a sentence (Mi vidis katon. --Ho, katon vi vidis? / I saw a cat. --Oh, you saw a *cat*?) but also to create a sort of alternative to a passive voice form. For example, in English we say "The book was written by John". We could word this in Esperanto as "La libro estis skribita de Johano." BUT we can go a step more elegant and say "La libron skribis Johano". Sure, it means literally the same as "John wrote the book". But the emphasis is on the book, not on John, just like in the English "The book was written by John".

We see this frequently when crediting actions. A document might be signed as "Skribis Tomaso Tajpisto. Tradukis Johano Ĵonglisto" (Written by Tomaso Tajpisto. Translated by Johano Ĵonglisto)

You can read the dry grammar, you can even read books describing everyday speech (like the excellent "Being colloquial in Esperanto"). But it's hard to appreciate the degree of flexibility and ease of expression that Esperanto gives you unless you learn it thoroughly. Beginner-level or even intermediate knowledge wouldn't be enough to teach you the range of nuance and expression you can achieve, in my opinion.

A lot of people who speak their native language, plus a foreign language, plus Esperanto, feel that even if they speak the other foreign language very fluently, they still feel more free to express themselves in Esperanto. They feel that even with a good mastery of the other foreign language, Esperanto comes closest to giving them the expressive power they have in their native language. This is a subjective "measure" as well. I don't doubt that you can learn a lot about a language's strengths and weaknesses by studying its grammar and attributes, but I think there's a great deal of expressive power in Esperanto that doesn't come through just by reading the grammar. It sounds hippy dippy and naive, I know, and I am so cynical, but Esperanto has a kind of spirit that makes it a joy to speak, and a joy to use to express yourself.

erinja:This is what you've already been told but I think you would need to speak the language well (if not fluently) to fully appreciate this marker.

I'm familiar with using an accusative case, it's used in Russian (and to some extent in German).

But I find this particular concept to be aesthetic in nature. And there's nothing wrong with that, it gives the language a cultural flare. But for speakers of languages that don't have a proper accusative case (English, Chinese, Romance languages), it can be difficult to learn how it can be used. (I know this first-hand).

On that note, why is "bonan tagon" accusative? I never really understood that ._.

@Todd

Basic communication (to me) means the most efficient way of conveying an idea. But this is in the context of SVO languages (as Esperanto generally is).

Mi deziras al vi bonan tagon.

Whoah, let's not try and beat the "World of Warcraft" or even worse the Ĉu vi kredas je Dio?" threads

razlem:
What is Anglish exactly?

Anglish is really English used with native English roots and not the French + autres ones. How that goes depends on the intentions of the user. I like the aesthetics of the native germanic roots in English and find it sad that they've been in decline, and think kids should learn more about the roots of the English language rather than being taught in school "English is from French and German" .

Some others might promote Anglish simply to spite the French, which is a bit silly since then we'd go to the other extreme and lose all the Anglo-Norman roots in the English language which are quite interesting (and represent the beginnings of French from Latin to some extent too).

As for cases, I think no matter what you do it should be good as long as you mark it some how with some degree of flexibility but by still keeping it regular. EO's method is merely one method, there may be an equal/better/worse method out there which is still worth exploring.
Also, while it's not official EO, there is a "na" preposition (not really used it seems), thus Vejktoro's "Mi deziras al vi na bona tago", but it's not really part of EO's aesthetics, since Esperantic aesthetics seem to often involve subtlety with concise meaning, where as "na" seems a bit loud. The point is though that this could prove a good option since it seems silly to write "al na" or "el na" or "na en" etc, thus making the accusative the marker for everything that ain't covered by another preposition (or isn't the nominative)

While not a conlang, I know Japanese has that effect, in that everything has a post-position. Japanese doesn't have as flexible word order though as Esperanto, but theoretically could in some ways.

@ceigered

The most neutral alignment is, well, Neutral alignment, also called Direct alignment. It means that there is no distinction between the Subject, Agent, and Patient. In other words, no cases. The problem of the Agent/Patient distinction is solved by standardizing the word order. I chose SVO because it's used by 3 billion people.

http://www.frathwiki.com/Morphosyntactic_alignment

razlem:But doesn't that go against Zamenhof's philosophy of "necessary and sufficient"?

No, I don't think that it does. "Necessary" doesn't mean "the only way". It just means that something needs to be done in some way - it's something you can't "skip".

English identifies the accusative, just as Esperanto does. English does it mainly through word order, whereas Esperanto always does it with a marker. Identifying the direct object is "necessary" in both languages. They simply approach the solution in different ways.

The -n is also sufficient to accomplish the goal of identifying the accusative in Esperanto.

So, although it may not be necessary to identify the accusative specifically with an -n marker, it is necessary to identify it in some way, and the -n is as good a way as any. In some ways better than the English method (allows you a freer word order; resolves certain types of ambiguities), in some ways not as good (you have to remember to actually use it).

I think Zamenhof wanted a free word order (or, at least, freer than most native languages) in order to maximize its ability to match the forms of as many natural languages as possible, so he chose a solution that delivers that. It may not be the only possible solution, but it's the one he chose. And it carries advantages as well as disadvantages. There are always trade-offs in design.

I don't think perfection, or perfect regularity, was ever his goal with Esperanto. Because that ISN'T necessary. He just wanted something that was as easy as he could make it for as many people as he could make it for - something that was "good enough", but widely "good enough". I think Esperanto meets that goal. It isn't perfect. But it was never meant to be. Pragmatism was judged more important than perfection.

In the Wiki link that you give Todd it actually says 'Note that derivational affixes are bound morphemes. In that, derivation differs from compounding, by which free morphemes are combined'

Bu I don't want to split hairs over labelling.

I understood our young friend who is so desirous of improving on Esperanto to want rules for the meaning of compounds. And all words in Esperanto are compounds except stand-alone words like 'per' or 'kiel'.

It seems to me that Esperanto, more practically, and more opportunistically, shunts roots together to give useful words without a hard and fast system of rules of derivation.

Compare, say, 'profesori', 'fumi' and 'bicikli'.

Now you can say in each case that the meaning of the substantive root plus the meaning of 'i' is the meaning of the compound, but this doesn't really reveal the whole story.