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Verb Conjugation - Improvements

de swfarnsworth, 8 août 2011

Messages : 24

Langue: English

swfarnsworth (Voir le profil) 8 août 2011 17:11:06

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.

Verbs would be formed like this:
1. Root
2. Tense Indicator - Same vowels as usual, including U if tense is irrelevant.
3. Mood indicator - Nothing is added for indicative ("normal") verbs, but L for subjunctive. I'm not sure why the subjunctive is treated like a tense in Esperanto (estus => would be), because it can also occur in the past tense (would have been doing).
4. Voice indicator - S for active (as usual), T for passive voice. Why the passive voice has to be a form of esti + a participle is beyond me, as changing the final consonant would have been a much simpler system.
5. Participle ending, if any (same vowels as usual). Instead of having different endings for participles (-anta, -ito, etc.), a vowel is simply added to the final consonant.

Thus, "Esperanto" would instead be "Esper'as'o". "Would have hoped", "Esperils"; "It will have been hoped for", "Ĝin estos esperit".

Again, I'm not encouraging anyone to use this, as Esperanto grammar is supposed to go unchanged. I'm just curious if anyone feels this system would have been better.

razlem (Voir le profil) 8 août 2011 17:20:40

It could be better in a lot of ways. But Esperanto speakers generally don't welcome such significant changes to the language; you'd be better off making your own language instead.

swfarnsworth (Voir le profil) 8 août 2011 17:31:57

razlem:Esperanto speakers generally don't welcome such significant changes to the language; you'd be better off making your own language instead.
I mentioned that I don't want anyone to implement the changes and that this is only an idea rideto.gif. Did you read the whole post?

razlem (Voir le profil) 8 août 2011 17:50:46

swfarnsworth:I mentioned that I don't want anyone to implement the changes and that this is only an idea rideto.gif. Did you read the whole post?
Yes, I did lango.gif

I'm just saying from experience: These forum-goers have seen plenty of "ideas" and "suggestions", none of which have been received nicely.

jan aleksan (Voir le profil) 8 août 2011 21:22:56

Please give more samples. I'm not sure I have understood (seems a bit complicated)

swfarnsworth (Voir le profil) 8 août 2011 21:48:38

jan aleksan:Please give more samples. I'm not sure I have understood (seems a bit complicated)
English: I would be eating [right now].
Esperanto: Mi manĝus.
Reformed: Mi manĝals. (The letter L is added after the A to indicate the word "would".)

English: I would have eaten.
Esperanto: Mi estus manĝinta. (To use the conditional in the past tense, you have to use "estus" and a participle.)
Reformed: Mi manĝils. (The L is added for the same reason as the first example, so you don't have to use a participle.)

English: I am being eaten.
Esperanto: Mi estas manĝata. (The passive is reached by a form of "esti" and a passive participle.)
Reformed: Mi manĝat. (The final S is changed to a T to indicate passive voice.)

English: The running boy falls.
Esperanto: La knabo kuranta falas.
Reformed: La knabo kurasa falas. (An A is added to the end of the verb "kuras" to make it a participle.)

sudanglo (Voir le profil) 8 août 2011 22:37:33

The principle on which Esperanto is structured is word formation by the combination of unchanging elements, like beads on a string.

Setting aside the fact that Esperanto is some 120 years old and such a basic reform would invalidate the existing literature, and that Esperanto is designed for a practical purpose, for which stability in the language is important - how would your proposal be consistent with Esperanto's underlying stucture?

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?

acdibble (Voir le profil) 8 août 2011 22:46:14

Participles can be used as verbs.

I would be eating.
Mi manĝantus.

I would have eaten.
Mi manĝintus.

I am being eaten.
Mi manĝatas.

doubleclix (Voir le profil) 9 août 2011 02:58:19

Hi,

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

When you start looking at languages, it's immediately surprising how little grammar you need for a population to communicate with meaning. Consider that many languages don't even have tense in any form (let alone with European-style ending) and you see that you don't need a subjuntive marker at all.

Kyle

erinja (Voir le profil) 9 août 2011 09:03:15

I read your full text and I understand that this is a thought experiment rather than a genuine proposal for reform.

In that spirit, I also feel that I would need more examples to understand how the system works.

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.

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. Yes, it's very concise. But if just one letter is unclear, you have lost an important part of the meaning. In that sense, though it is inefficient to have longer words and longer verb forms, through this inefficiency you gain a degree of redundancy. The redundancy gives you the opportunity to understand the meaning of the sentence even in situations where something is spoken with a strong accent, or through a PA system of bad quality, or any of the myriad of real-life situations where we hear less-than-perfect language.

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