erinja:One factor to consider, which is discussed in the excellent "Lingvo kaj vivo", is that it isn't always a good idea to pack too much grammatical information into a small space

Indeed, and Esperanto already shoves a lot of information into very small, simple one/two letter endings

(but I might add that one can balance rigid grammatical representation with context and with pragmatism, and Esperanto does an alright job. I actually was having trouble with this whole idea in regards to Proto/Modern Indo-European since in Japanese, there's a bit difference between -masu and -mashita, where as thematic vowels (and vowel ablauts, which for the uninitiated is a vowel switching system between Ø, e, ē, o, ō) have a lot of focus in Indo-European.

In the end though, one could argue that simple information differences (e.g. past/present/future, while all remaining close to the general feel of the indicative mood) aren't so important that we absolutely must have 20 syllables to distinguish them. (in fact, I don't think there's evidence of an established proto-Indo-European "past" and "future" tenses laŭ Esperanto that weren't modified variants of the various moods). But it shows that the more different concepts are, or the less there is a need to distinguish them outside of context, the less visible differentiation there is.

Now, coming from that Indo-European bias and returning to Esperantujo, I guess we could say that Esperanto is very similar.

(that was anticlimatic, wasn't it ))

On the thought experiment itself, how about:
-ebli as an ending describing possibilities (of course in real EO this would be confusing due to then natural meaning of "eblas")

and
-voli as an ending describing things you want to happen in XYZ condition.

This would then make "se" the "conditions marker", which is slightly more ambiguous than the more abstract use it has today, which is also a conditions marker, but with restricted use.

So:
Se domo brulus, en jarcento 15 la tuta urbeto endanĝereblis, sed nun kun modernaj fajrestingistoj, nur la najbaraj domoj estas normale endanĝeraj.
If a house was burning, in C15th the entire town would have been in danger (it was possible for the entire town to be in danger), but now with modern firefighters, only the neighbouring houses are normally endangered.

Se mia domo brulus, mi mem penvolis savi ĝin, antaŭ ol* mi lernis ke unu needukita homo ne povus facile savi lian domon. Nun, mi petegus tujan asiston de la fajrestingistaro!
If my house were to be alight, I used to want to try myself to save it, before I found out that one untrained person would not easily save their own house. Now, I would immediately ask for assistance from the fire brigade.

*what's the "post" equivalent of this phrase?

---

The latter feels off, much more so than the first one I feel, since the first one at least has the idea of uncertainty with "eblis", where as the latter makes it sound like I have been in the situation before and am speaking about those experiences rather than from experience or from intuition/imagination.

Anyway, I think intus/antus/ontus are easy, just not used enough so that when we find them (those of us from relatively isolating languages where we recognise the whole word rather than scan it for individual components), they throw us off a bit.

Additionally, if those sentences didn't make the distinction between the past and present, I reckon you could easily do something like:

Se mia domo brulis, mi panikus. (If my house was/had been burning, I would panic).

Alas that might throw some speakers off, and if you over analyse the english use of "had", there's that "conditional use of the past tense" coming through that's not there in "was". (But we also have "if my house is (doing XYZ)", so it's not that bad to an English speaker clearly, just complicated what others think of it, from less tense-focussed languages)).

doubleclix:Without passing judgement, I'm curious as to how this would improve the language. Would you like to be more expresive and avoid ambiguity?

It's simpler than the current system, though I must not have explained it all that well.

erinja:And I think that L is a poor choice of letter. I think that the difference between -is and -ils could be difficult to understand in rapid speech, especially in certain accents.

Whatever the letter, it would have to be a consonant that transitions easily into S or T. Putting all accents aside, the only letters that would work are L and R.

erinja:One factor to consider, which is discussed in the excellent "Lingvo kaj vivo", is that it isn't always a good idea to pack too much grammatical information into a small space.

In Latin, verbs contain the tense, person, voice, aspect, and mood all in a single word, and Latin was spoken much more than it was written.

swfarnsworth:I've been thinking about Esperanto's verb conjugation for a while, and while it is functional, it could be easily improved. I have no plans of trying to convince others to implement the changes (which would end up like Ido), though I'd like to see what everyone else thinks of it.

You look at esperanto much from English point of view. Before making any changes try other points - Chinese, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, French... And most of all - try to learn it fully and use it for some years. Then perhaps no improvements would be necessary at all.

sudanglo:How would the distinctions be made between :
mi manĝis/mi estis manĝinta, and mi estis manĝonta/mi estos manĝinta, and la domo estis konstruita/la domo estis konstruota?

If I understand swfarnsworth's proposal correctly, these would be
mi manĝis/mi estis manĝisa
mi estis manĝosa/mi estos manĝisa
la domo estis konstruita/la domo estis konstruota. (i.e. no change here)

Whether it would be a good idea is another matter. What can one say with this new system that one can't already say, unambiguously, in Esperanto, as it is?

Another point, from the point of view of speakers of English: Esperanto has no exact translation for "I should have". We use Mi devintus as the nearest approximation. With this proposed system it would, I suppose, be "Mi devils", no nearer.

swfarnsworth:Whatever the letter, it would have to be a consonant that transitions easily into S or T. Putting all accents aside, the only letters that would work are L and R.

K, P, N, M, F seem just as good as L and R to me - and I can imagine "RS" might be hard for some speakers of some languages, especially those who would rhotacise (right word?) their s's rather than pronounce it as two separate consonants (and then it would sound more like the basic as/is/os anyway).

"intus/antus/ontus" would be easiest to pronounce though, since they're very basic in syllable structure (-VC-CVC), where as "als/ils/ols" are -VCC.

(-aks/-iks/-oks would sound awesome though. Or maybe I just love that "x" sound. Sounds a cross between classical and futuristic...).

Ultimately though, I don't think there's much further to go with the idea of hypothesising a different system of endings, if they have the exact meaning as existing yet logical structures. Especially since the existing system uses a combination of two already existent affixes, which seems simpler than adding another set.

geo63:You look at esperanto much from English point of view.

Why does everyone assume this is the English point of view? .

The English point of view would be to have a completely separate word for "would/should", too much verb conjugation screws with our minds .

ceigered:

geo63:You look at esperanto much from English point of view.

Why does everyone assume this is the English point of view? .

The English point of view would be to have a completely separate word for "would/should", too much verb conjugation screws with our minds .

Because "other" languages might not need these words to express the same idea - why should esperanto need them?

And I am hardly everyone. Just me.

geo63:

ceigered:

geo63:You look at esperanto much from English point of view.

Why does everyone assume this is the English point of view? .

The English point of view would be to have a completely separate word for "would/should", too much verb conjugation screws with our minds .

Because "other" languages might not need these words to express the same idea - why should esperanto need them?

And I am hardly everyone. Just me.

Esperanto doesn't need them, just saying that if we want to talk about an English view of what Esperanto should be like, we have to really screw up Esperanto big time ..

You're company is appreciated enough for two people rather than just one

geo63:You look at esperanto much from English point of view.

What makes you say that?

ceigered:K, P, N, M, F seem just as good as L and R to me - and I can imagine "RS" might be hard for some speakers of some languages, especially those who would rhotacise (right word?) their s's rather than pronounce it as two separate consonants (and then it would sound more like the basic as/is/os anyway).

You have a point, though my attempts to explain why some of those may not work when combined with S or T resulted in a text wall that even I wouldn't want to read.

ceigered:"intus/antus/ontus" would be easiest to pronounce though, since they're very basic in syllable structure (-VC-CVC), where as "als/ils/ols" are -VCC.

Another user mentioned that participles can be used as verbs(i.e. intus/antus/etc.), though in my study of Esperanto, I've never found anything saying that. You are correct, though, it would be easier to pronounce.

Miland:

sudanglo:How would the distinctions be made between:
mi manĝis/mi estis manĝinta, and mi estis manĝonta/mi estos manĝinta, and la domo estis konstruita/la domo estis konstruota?

If I understand swfarnsworth's proposal correctly, these would be
mi manĝis/mi estis manĝisa
mi estis manĝosa/mi estos manĝisa
la domo estis konstruita/la domo estis konstruota. (i.e. no change here)

You are correct .

swfarnsworth:Another user mentioned that participles can be used as verbs(i.e. intus/antus/etc.), though in my study of Esperanto, I've never found anything saying that.

I'd be very surprised if the PMEG doesn't mention it somewhere. Just about everything is in there.

In any case, it logically follows from the idea that "esti Xa" can be expressed as "Xi" (put into whatever tense you like).

Estas grava = gravas

The participles are of the form "esti Xa", so turning them into verbs follows naturally.

Estas devinta = devintas
Estos devanta = devantos

and so on.

Both of these forms are, in fact, not very common (although the first form above is much more common than the second, which is quite rare). Simpler tenses are nearly always more easily understood, and are rarely less precise than necessary. But the complex forms exist, for when you really, really, really need that extra sliver of precision, and are willing to put up with the puzzled looks of others in order to achieve it.