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A "few" questions ;)

von razlem, 21. Februar 2011

Beiträge: 10

Sprache: English

razlem (Profil anzeigen) 21. Februar 2011 04:41:34

Could I use "iom" instead of "malmultaj" to say "few"? Or is the correlative an undefined amount?

Also, is there some kind of registry to find local Esperanto groups? (I tried Google, but no dice)

adrideo (Profil anzeigen) 21. Februar 2011 05:19:58

razlem:Could I use "iom" instead of "malmultaj" to say "few"? Or is the correlative an undefined amount?
Iom is sometimes used to imply "few" or a small amount, but that's not inherent in the meaning of the word. If you want to emphasize that it is a small number/quantity you can also make use the -et suffix along with "iom". Is there an example context you're working with?
Also, is there some kind of registry to find local Esperanto groups? (I tried Google, but no dice)
Esperanto-USA has a listing of local groups, but I don't know if it is exhaustive.

etala (Profil anzeigen) 21. Februar 2011 05:21:46

"Malmultaj" does mean "few".
"Iom" does mean only "some quantity", which can be large, small, or anything in between.

razlem (Profil anzeigen) 21. Februar 2011 05:33:14

adrideo:Is there an example context you're working with?
In response to a question of "how many?"

"A few" - "iom/malmultaj"

adrideo (Profil anzeigen) 21. Februar 2011 06:58:51

razlem:In response to a question of "how many?"

"A few" - "iom/malmultaj"
In that case, if I were to hear "iom," I'd probably think of it as "some," rather than "few." If you don't like "malmultaj" there, you could go with "iometo de/da/el."

sudanglo (Profil anzeigen) 21. Februar 2011 11:19:48

Strictly, 'a few' is for countable things. So my preference is for 'malmultaj' or 'kelkaj'.

Should the question be phrased with a transitive verb eg How many people do you know who can speak Esperanto?, the answer should perhaps be in the accusative.

erinja (Profil anzeigen) 21. Februar 2011 13:29:38

You also have to remember that iom is grammatically either an adverb or a verbNOUN, so you have to treat it differently than malmultaj (an adjective, obviously) in the grammar of your sentence.

New Orleans doesn't have an Esperanto club and as far as I'm aware there are only a couple of speakers in that region. I looked when I went there for tourism a couple years ago. The closest person was at least an hour away.

EDIT: Good catch, darkweasel I obviously wrote that too fast!

darkweasel (Profil anzeigen) 21. Februar 2011 13:31:09

erinja:a verb
demando.gif demando.gif demando.gif

Miland (Profil anzeigen) 21. Februar 2011 13:48:20

razlem:Could I use "iom" instead of "malmultaj" to say "few"? Or is the correlative an undefined amount?
Iom does not necessarily mean "few" in the sense of a definitely small quantity. However, in my view it might do so in context, e.g. Sur la ŝoseo estis nur iom da aŭtoj, "On the road there were only a few vehicles". You may find it helpful to study the examples in PMEG (section "Iom", second box with the preceding comment).

T0dd (Profil anzeigen) 21. Februar 2011 14:00:24

It's interesting to me that KELKA, in the singular, is seldom heard, although Z. used it. KELKAJ, in the plural, refers to countables, as sudanglo said, but in the singular it can be used for continuous quantities, as in KELKA TEMPO. You could ask for KELKAN KAFON, but KELKE DA KAFO seems to be the more popular usage.

The English phrase "a few" conveys a denial of "many", which distinguishes it from "some." "How many drinks did you have?" "A few". In such a case, the aim is to emphasize that it wasn't a lot of drinks. So MALMULTAJ or NE MULTAJ or even NUR KELKAJ would accomplish that.

KELKETAJ would also be possible, although it only gets two hits in Tekstaro.

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