Al la enhavo

......ouch.....

de Novico Dektri, 2006-julio-26

Mesaĝoj: 8

Lingvo: English

Novico Dektri (Montri la profilon) 2006-julio-26 05:26:45

I can't believe it. Just when I thought Esperanto was sinking in, they spring this on me:

Participles
A participle is a word that presents an action as a property or state of something: writing, beaten, closed, etc. In English there are two types of participles: present participles, which are usually formed with the ending -ing (e.g. writing, doing, seeing), and past participles, which are usually formed with the endings -en or -ed (e.g. given, closed, written). In Esperanto, there are six types of participles.

Active Participles Passive Participles
-ant- -at- happening now
-int- -it- already happened
-ont- -ot- will happen
(Note the similarity to the present, past, and future tense endings -as, -is, -os.)

Active Participles
The active participles describe the state of the person or thing doing the action:
skribanta - writing
skribinta - written
skribonta - going to write
skribanta knabo - a boy who is writing
skribinta knabo - a boy who wrote

Mi estis skribanta. - I was writing.
Ili estos skribantaj. - They will be writing.
Ŝi estis skribonta. - She was going to write.

With the -o ending, we present the person who performs the action:
skribanto - writer (one who writes, or is writing now)
skribinto - one who wrote
skribonto - one who is going to write

Participles can also be used as adverbs:
Skribante li pensis pri ŝi. - While writing, he thought about her.

Passive participles
The passive participles express a quality of the thing, which is affected by the action:
skribata - being written
skribita - been written
skribota - going to be written
skribata letero - a letter which is being written
skribita letero - a letter which has been written

La letero estas skribata de mi. - The letter is being written by me.
La letero estis skribata de ŝi. - The letter was being written by her.
La letero estis skribita de li. - The letter was written by him.

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I can't even memorize all the combinations, nevertheless attempt to use them in sentences! Coping strategies, anyone?

oren (Montri la profilon) 2006-julio-27 15:34:39

Yeah, you also gotta realize that the participles, while very important to know well, don't actually find as much use as an English speaker would suspect.

We are used to saying "I am running, I was running, and I will be running." Don't use participles in such instances (unless you're writing poetry or something). The majority of Esperantists will say "Mi kuras, mi kuros, mi kuris," and it would be very rare to hear "Mi estas kuranta... " etc.

This past weekend I attended a four-day congress in esperanto, and the one time i ran into participles wasnt even using it as a participle: "Zamenhof, kreinto de Esperanto" (krei = to create; kreinto = one-who-did-create)

oren (Montri la profilon) 2006-julio-27 15:37:46

Also, for adjective use (i.e. the writing boy), you can interchange participle use and correlatives.

Example:

"La skribanta knabo" could be
"La knabo, kiu skribas"

"La skribita papero" could be
"La papero, kiun skribigis"

Rao (Montri la profilon) 2006-julio-27 17:08:07

oren:"La skribita papero" could be
"La papero, kiun skribigis"
Mmmm... mi pensas, ke vi akcidente fusxetis tion. lango.gif

Klarigante:

La skribita papero =
La papero, kiun iu skribis (ne "skribigis")

Same kiel

La bakita kuko =
La kuko, kiun iu bakis (ne "bakigis")

k.t.p.

Cxu klarigite? okulumo.gif

orthohawk (Montri la profilon) 2006-julio-28 04:05:20

Rao:
oren:"La skribita papero" could be
"La papero, kiun skribigis"
Mmmm... mi pensas, ke vi akcidente fusxetis tion. lango.gif

Klarigante:

La skribita papero =
La papero, kiun iu skribis (ne "skribigis")

Same kiel

La bakita kuko =
La kuko, kiun iu bakis (ne "bakigis")

k.t.p.

Cxu klarigite? okulumo.gif
__::::::::::::::::::::
As oren said above, it's very rare that in Esperanto the participles are used to create compound tenses, and as stated, we tend to use them much more often that other languages (other than the Celtic ones). It's better to think of them as derivitive words just like words constructed with the prefixes and suffixes: learn "-inta-" as meaning "having Verb-ed" and "into-" as "one who Verb-ed" etc, and you'll be amazed how easy they become. In time you'll learn to think of them as "ordinary" nouns and adjectives and adverbs. And speaking of adverbs, if you're an adverb freak like me (if you can express a thought with an adverb, I do it) you'll love Esperanto ridulo.gif.

Oh, and speaking of adverbs and participles, in older literature, if you see a construction: "ne X-ante/inte" you can translate it as "without Verb-ing" and you'll do fine. This confused me to no end until I learned Russian, which has the same construction.......well sort of. they have a separate ending for "adverbial participles," but that's a whole other can of worms ridulo.gif
dimo
Iowa City, Iowa

Novico Dektri (Montri la profilon) 2006-julio-29 05:31:00

Well, I'm going to be confused for a while longer, but I think I have a bit of a better handle on it, now.

So, let me get this straight:

La mangxita kuko = The cake which was eaten
La kuko estis mangxita de la knabo = The cake was eaten by the boy.

Novico Dektri (Montri la profilon) 2006-julio-29 16:51:01

Is that correct?

orthohawk (Montri la profilon) 2006-aŭgusto-02 19:47:51

Novico Dektri:Is that correct?
Yes, you're on the right track!

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