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'Kion' or 'Kiojn'?

de bartlett22183, 2011-marto-28

Mesaĝoj: 19

Lingvo: English

bartlett22183 (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-28 00:39:35

A grammar point that is not clear to me as a beginner. Within the last few days, I sent an email to a correspondent with the sentence (fragment), "La kursoj, kiojn me studas per komputilo, estas per DVD-oj (me ne konas la propran vortan Esperantan), sed [ktp]". Totally apart from the instance that I do not have an adequate E-o vocabulary for such modern non-Zamenhofan non-Fundamenta concepts as Digital Video Disk (DVD), I do not know grammatically whether in the sentence fragment above I should have written 'kion' or 'kiojn' for a plural referent. Any references will be welcome.

T0dd (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-28 01:09:53

bartlett22183:A grammar point that is not clear to me as a beginner. Within the last few days, I sent an email to a correspondent with the sentence (fragment), "La kursoj, kiojn me studas per komputilo, estas per DVD-oj (me ne konas la propran vortan Esperantan), sed [ktp]". Totally apart from the instance that I do not have an adequate E-o vocabulary for such modern non-Zamenhofan non-Fundamenta concepts as Digital Video Disk (DVD), I do not know grammatically whether in the sentence fragment above I should have written 'kion' or 'kiojn' for a plural referent. Any references will be welcome.
You might have a look at Jordan's comments here.

The -O series of correlatives do not usually take a plural, so in this case you'd use kiujn. PMEG says "La tabelvortoj je O povas ricevi N, sed normale ne povas ricevi J."

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-28 02:15:02

The way I usually explain it is that the -u correlatives are for specifics and the -o correlatives are for generalities. If you know that it's plural, then you're being specific, hence you should be using "kiuj" and not *"kioj"

Therefore I usually teach that you should NEVER make an -o correlative plural. It seems like there might be a few very limited cases where it's ok, but it's easier just to avoid it completely and use kiuj, iuj, ĉiuj, etc. anytime when you felt tempted to use *kioj, *ioj, *ĉioj, etc.

BTW "propra" means "own". As in "Portu vian propran libron", bring your own book. Propra is a false friend of the English word "proper". Think of "proprietary" as your cognate, not "proper".

It should be "Mi ne konas la ĝustan esperantan vorton" (or "vorton esperantan" if you prefer that order for some reason)

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-28 08:54:00

Kioj is, for all practical purposes, never used. (In particular, it does not occur in PMEG). In Butler's Step by step, section 52, we have the example question Kio estas kokinoj? A footnote says: "It would be logical and correct to say Kioj estas kokinoj? (or even Kioj estas tioj?). But the singular form (Kio) is usual."

Roberto12 (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-28 09:33:07

I've got a titbit to add. I've heard people pronounce the words kiuj and tiuj as "kiwi" and "tiwi", presumably because they didn't want them to sound like *kioj and *tioj. Given that those words officially don't exist, there's no point distorting the pronunciation.

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-28 11:35:20

Roberto12:I've got a titbit to add. I've heard people pronounce the words kiuj and tiuj as "kiwi" and "tiwi", presumably because they didn't want them to sound like *kioj and *tioj. Given that those words officially don't exist, there's no point distorting the pronunciation.
Well, if they're pronouncing them as "'kiui" I can imagine it sounding like "kiwi" (more like "kiyuwi") with a bit with a strange accent, which'd be OK, but to put the stress on both the i and pronounce the j like a stressed i, with a very brief "w" sound would be very strange and I'm not sure how they'd easily go from saying "kioj" to "kiŭi" when "ŭ" clearly ain't in there lango.gif.

gyrus (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-28 12:11:50

I think the only correct use of "kioj" is when someone uses a plural word which you don't know/didn't hear properly and you're questioning it.

E.g.
"Ĉu vi ŝatas la kokinojn?"
"La kiojn?"

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-28 13:22:10

Roberto12:I've got a titbit to add. I've heard people pronounce the words kiuj and tiuj as "kiwi" and "tiwi", presumably because they didn't want them to sound like *kioj and *tioj. Given that those words officially don't exist, there's no point distorting the pronunciation.
I don't think it's to differentiate with *kioj, I think it's because those people have difficulty pronouncing "kiuj" and can't be bothered to practice enough to get it right.

darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-28 13:27:04

There's another thread about kioj on these forums, maybe some will find it interesting.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2011-marto-28 14:16:52

gyrus:"Ĉu vi ŝatas la kokinojn?"
"La kiojn?"
I would still say "La kion?" in that case.

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