The Sixteen Rules of Esperanto GrammarThe Sixteen Rules of Esperanto Grammar
Author's note: The use of the article is as in other languages. People for whom use of the article offers difficulties [e.g. speakers of Russian, Chinese, etc.]may at first elect not to use it at all.
EXAMPLE
libro = book, a book
la libro = the book
The main difference between the use of the definite article in
Esperanto and in English is that in Esperanto the article, with
a singular noun, may be used to indicate an entire class.
EXAMPLE
la leono estas danĝera besto = lions are dangerous animals
EXAMPLE
La hundo persekutis la katojn de la knaboj al la domo per bojado
= The dog chased the boys' cats to the house by barking.
EXAMPLES
La bruna hundo persekutas la nigrajn katojn
= The brown dog is chasing the black cats.
La bruna hundo estas pli granda ol la nigraj katoj
= The brown dog is larger than the black cats.
Sed la homo estas la plej granda el ĉiuj
= But the human being is the largest of all.
EXAMPLES
Mil naŭcent naŭdek kvin = 1995.
La kvina trono = The fifth throne.
Duobla eraro = A double error.
Tri kvaronoj = Three quarters.
Duopo = A pair.
Mi donis al ili po tri pomojn
= I gave them three apples each.
The particle po causes many problems for beginning
speakers of Esperanto, particularly those whose native
language is English. First, there is a tendency to
put it in the wrong place:
EXAMPLE
*Mi rapidis cent kilometrojn po horo
= I was speeding along at a hundred kilometers an hour.
is wrong. po means at the rate of and, like the '@' sign in
English, should be placed as follows:
EXAMPLE
Mi rapidis po cent kilometrojn en horo
= I was speeding along at a hundred kilometers an hour.
Second, since the objects of prepositions generally don't
take the -n ending in Esperanto, there's a tendency to assume
that in a sentence like the example above the -n on the object
shouldn't be there:
EXAMPLE
*Mi donis al ili po tri pomoj
= I gave them three apples each.
Remember that po always takes as its object a numeral; any
associated noun takes whatever it would have if the po
weren't there at all.
EXAMPLES
Mi amas vin = I love you.
Mia hundo amas vian katon = My dog loves your cat.
Mi razas min kaj vi razas vin
= I shave myself and you shave yourself.
Sed la hispana barbisto razas sin
= But the Spanish barber shaves himself.
Oni diras, ke li amas ŝin
= It is said (people say) that he loves her.
Zamenhof also proposed a second-person-singular pronoun ci
[English thou]. It is occasionally used in poetry for effect,
and in the word cidiri -- to speak to someone in an intimate
fashion.
Some Esperanto speakers feel the need for a non-gender-specific
singular pronoun to refer in the third person to human beings.
Zamenhof recommended that the word ĝi simply be used for this.
A few Esperanto speakers, however, primarily native speakers of
English, feel uncomfortable with this usage and have come up with
a new pronoun ri ("he/she"). It is rarely used and you are not
likely to encounter it. liŝi, ŝili and ŝli have also been used
experimentally in this way. You won't encounter them, either.
Some other Esperanto speakers would prefer to have a specifically
female third-person plural pronoun. The word iŝi has been used
for this. Again, you very likely will never encounter it.
EXAMPLES
Mi amas vin = I love you.
Mi amis vin
= I loved you (but don't any longer, or it's irrelevant to what's happening now).
Mi amos vin
= I shall love you (but haven't started yet, or it's irrelevant to what's happening now).
Se vi gajnus la loterion, mi amus vin
= If you were to win the lottery, I would love you (but that's not likely).
Mi deziras, ke vi amu min; do amu min!
= I want you to love me; so love me!
Koni lin estas ami lin
= To know him is to love him.
It's probably worth noting that the Esperanto time-sense is
slightly different from that of English. If something as shown
in the present tense (-as), it is assumed to be happening, and
of interest, at the moment the sentence is expressed; if it is
shown in the past tense (-is), it is assumed to be either
completed or no longer of interest. If it is shown in the future
(-os), it is assumed to be either not yet begun or not yet of
interest. (This view of time and completion carries over into
the participles as well.) So in a few cases when in English
something might be expressed as having happened in the past,
in Esperanto it would be shown in the present, assuming that
it is still going on and still of interest.
EXAMPLE
Mi loĝas ĉi-tie jam kvin jarojn
= I have been living here for five years already.
For examples of how participles are formed, see the affixes
page. Participles are more accurately adjectives formed from
action roots than parts of the verb -- a situation somewwhat
different from that in English.
I use the term "command mood" instead of the more common
"imperative mood" to translate Zamenhof's modo ordona, since -u
covers a much wider range of uses than the traditional Western
imperative; in fact, it takes on many of the jobs ordinarily done
by the subjunctive (which does not exist as a separate entity in
Esperanto -- for which generations of Latin students may give
thanks!). Kalocsay and Waringhien refer to this form, in the
Plena Analiza Gramatiko, as the "volitive mood."
The Bulgarian Esperantologist Atanas Atanasov denies the existence
of passive verb forms in Esperanto -- and I find myself agreeing
with him. Use of the participial suffixes may be better understood
if you consider them as means of transforming verbs into
adjectives, not as parts of speech in themselves. The Western
passive voice is shown, as Zamenhof says, by coupling the verb
esti = "to be" with the "passive participles"; but these are not
really compound verb forms, merely the copula linked with an
adjective.
EXAMPLES
La sandviĉo estis manĝata
= The sandwich was (in a state of being) eaten.
La sandviĉo estas manĝita
= The sandwich is (in a state of having been) eaten.
La sandviĉo estis manĝita
= The sandwich was (in a state of having been) eaten.
La sandviĉo estos manĝota
= The sandwich will be (in a state of) going to be eaten.
Use of such forms is rare in Esperanto -- even rarer than it is
in English, where Strunk & White advise against them. Ordinary
passives can easily be converted into ordinary active sentences
in Esperanto, sometimes with the inversion that the -n ending
permits, and the pronoun oni makes translation of even agentless
passives as active very easy. William Auld, in his 100-page epic
poem La Infana Raso, doesn't use the passive once. Bureaucratese
is rare in Esperanto.
EXAMPLES
La katon persekutis la hundo
= The cat was chased by the dog.
Oni pafis la hundon
= The dog was shot.
EXAMPLES
La kato rapide kuris
= The cat ran fast.
La hundo pli rapide kuris ol la kato
= The dog ran faster than the cat.
Sed la gepardo plej rapide kuris el ĉiuj
= But the cheetah ran fastest of all.
EXAMPLES
La libroj de la knabo
= The boy's books (the books of the boy).
Mi faris tion por vi
= I did that for you.
Floroj kreskas ĉirkaŭ mia domo
= Flowers grow around my house.
Prepositions of location may also take objects with the -n ending
to show motion to that location; this follows from rule 13.
EXAMPLES
La muso kuris sub la tablo
= The mouse ran (around) under the table.
La muso kuris sub la tablon
= The mouse ran (to) under the table.
While the particles anstataŭ (instead of) and krom (besides, in
addition to) are generally classified (by analogy with their
equivalents in Western languages) as prepositions, their behavior
is more like that of coördinating conjunctions such as kiel.
So many Esperanto speakers will add the -n ending to the objects
of these "prepositions" when they coordinate with another word
that has an -n ending.
EXAMPLES
Mi amis ŝin anstataŭ li
= It was I, not he, who loved her.
Mi amis ŝin anstataŭ lin
= I loved her, not him.
This should make immediate sense. If it doesn't, go here.
When accenting a noun with an elided -o, the accent always falls
where it would if the -o were still there. For elision, see rule 16.
Depending upon the sound produced when the two words are put
together, the speaker may wish to insert a vowel between the
two. If this is done, the vowel should be an o if the leading
word is an object, or an i if the leading word is an action.
Purists might also wish to put in an n if the trailing word is
an action acting on the leading word, but this is not mandatory.
EXAMPLES
ŝipo (ship) + veturi (travel)
= ŝip(o)veturo (a journey by ship).
ami (to love) + plena (full)
= am(o)plena (full of love)
pagi (to pay) + povi (to be able)
= pag(i)pova (able to pay)
nenio (nothing) + fari (to do)
= neni(o[n])fara (doing nothing)
EXAMPLES
Mi ne faris tion
= I didn't do that.
Mi neniam faris tion
= I never did that.
The n ending is used to show the destination of a motion or the
direct recipient of an action. To show the accusative (direct
object) case is only one of its uses.
EXAMPLES
La reĝino iris Londonon
= The queen went to London.
La kato saltis sur la tablon
= The cat jumped onto the table.
When an action and a movement occur in the same expression and
confusion is otherwise unavoidable, the n ending is used only for
the action, while the preposition al is used for the movement.
EXAMPLES
Mi ĵetis la katon sur la tablon
= I threw the cat onto the table. (preposition does away with any confusion)
Mi sendis al li la leteron
= I sent him the letter. (Mi sendis lin la leteron would be confusing)
EXAMPLES
Li vetas je la ĉevaloj
= He bets on the horses.
Mi alvenos je la oka horo
= I'll arrive at eight o'clock (the eighth hour).
Li vizitos nin je lundo
= He'll visit us on Monday.
Li lundon vizitos nin
= He'll visit us on Monday.
Since this rule gives us permission to use the -n ending instead
of the preposition je, some Esperanto speakers also assume that it
permits us to use the preposition je instead of the -n ending.
This is a convenience when we encounter a word (such as a proper
name) which doesn't lend itself well to taking a regular Esperanto
ending.
EXAMPLES
Mi ja konas Glazunovski-on
= I do know Glazunovski.
Mi ja konas je Glazunovski
= I do know Glazunovski.
An honorific can also be used to get around this problem.
EXAMPLE
Mi ja konas sinjoron Glazunovski
= I do know Mr. Glazunovski.
EXAMPLES
lakso = diarrhoea
konstipo = constipation <-- borrowed
mallakso = constipation <-- internally created
bona = good
mava = bad <-- borrowed
malbona = bad <-- internally created
komputi = to compute
komputero = computer <-- borrowed
komputilo = computer <-- internally created
arbo = tree
forsto = forest <-- borrowed
arbaro = forest <-- internally created
ami = to love
hati = to hate <-- borrowed
malami = to hate <-- internally created
dis = in various directions (prefix)
separi = to separate <-- borrowed
disigi = to separate <-- internally created
There has been much dialectic about this topic during the history
of Esperanto. For two good polemical accounts (from opposite
sides) see Claude Piron's La Bona Lingvo (The Good Language) and
Fernando de Diego's Pri Esperanta Tradukarto (On the Art of
Translation in Esperanto). What Zamenhof means by "the majority
of languages" is no longer as clear as it was a hundred years ago.
EXAMPLES
L' espero, l' obstino kaj la pacienco...
= Hope, stubbornness and patience...
Ho, mia kor', ne batu maltrankvile...
= Oh, my heart, do not beat nervously...
N.B. The noun ending may be elided only if it does not have a
plural or accusative ending attached to it!
Speakers of Esperanto often brag that their language has been freed from the chains of word order. This is an exaggeration. Rule 8, for instance, implies that nouns are sometimes linked together by prepositions, and the very name preposition indicates that its noun object must follow the preposition, as in English (though not Japanese, where postpositions are used, and the object of the postposition must precede the postposition). Similarly, Esperanto adverbs, which can modify a variety of different types of words, should always precede the word they modify; this is particularly important for such words as ne, ankaŭ, nur, eĉ and one or two other particles usually (and perhaps incorrectly) described as adverbs which can be associated with nouns as well as the usual verbs, adjectives and other adverbs.
But the claim still contains much truth. There are two basic forms of word order that are much freer in Esperanto than in English. The first of these is the order of a noun and its adjective modifiers. An adjective in English must be placed before the noun it modifies (with the occasional exception, as when you are trying of a "pseudo-archaic" atmosphere). An adjective in Esperanto may be placed before or after the noun it modifies, and can even be separated from it by other words, if this will not cause any ambiguity; as an example, while the object of a preposition must follow the preposition, in Esperanto as in English, adjectives modifying that object may even be placed before the preposition, as in the following translation from the poetry of Matthew Arnold:
...where the word nuba ("cloudy") is placed before the preposition for reasons of scansion. This degree of freedom (some may call it "license") is usually exercised only in poetry, of course.
The other, and more important, occasion in which word order is freer in Esperanto than in English has to do with the order of subject, object and verb. In English, in almost every situation subject must precede verb which then precedes the direct object. In Esperanto all six possible permutations of these elements are permissible and used:
The first of these is the most commonly used (and pedestrian) word order in Esperanto, probably because it is the standard word-order in the languages spoken natively by most Esperantists. On the other hand, the fourth is probably the second most popular, despite the fact that it is standard word-order in almost no ethnic language in the world, probably because of the ability it gives to emphasize the direct object. The second and sixth are not terribly widely used, despite the fact that they are used as standard word orders by several different languages (Latin, German, Japanese in the first case, all the Celtic languages in the second).
Is there any value in this ability to vary word order? English, after all, does very well without it. Well, perhaps not so well -- one of the major reasons for the current preoccupation with a journalistic, Hemingwayesque style of writing in which sentences are short and choppy, and contain relatively few modifiers, is that it is very hard in modern English to write sentences that are both complex and easy to follow; it can be done, but it requires much care and effort. The job is considerably easier in Esperanto. I suspect that it is no coincidence that the accusative case disappeared from the Western vernaculars during a period of low literacy and little literature.
When you speak Esperanto, feel free to vary your word order as you see fit, where the rules permit.
A problem that often arises for speakers of English (and some other languages) is the case in which two related verbs, one transitive and one intransitive, have identical forms in English. Two common examples are "to burn" and "to drown". Both of these verbs can be both intransitive and transitive. The meanings, of course, are somewhat different:
In Esperanto, a verb in its basic form refers to one and only one action -- a transitive one or an intransitive one. You can convert the one to the other with the suffixes -IG (intransitive->transitive) and -IĜ (transitive-> intransitive) (see the affixes page). In the above examples we have:
The problem arises when learning the words through the medium of English; it is often difficult to remember whether the word that means "to drown" means "to die of suffocation in liquid" or "to kill by suffocating in liquid". When you encounter such words, it is best to remember their meanings -- not their English language equivalents.
In Esperanto, for subordinate clauses beginning with ke ("that") and ĉu ("whether") the tense of the verb in the subordinate clause is independent of the main clause: it will always be the tense as seen by the subject of the main clause, whatever time frame that happens to be in:
For reasons I have never figured out, the same simple rule is not followed for subordinate clauses that begin with one of the correlatives; most Esperantists use a progression of tenses like those in Western languages for these.
Still, this is not a rule, and as far as I know you are free (and will find it a lot easier) to follow the simple rule: "Use the real tense" as with ke and ĉu.
What does this mean? That he wined me and dined me? Or that he ordered my head lopped off? Well, all us native English-speakers know that the first is correct -- because the entire expression is basically an idiom, its meaning more or less free of the meanings of the words contained. Unfortunately, the meaning may be less clear to the non-native speaker.
In Esperanto, this sort of sentence is easily handled. In the first case
where the -N on the end shows that the noun coordinates with "min". On the other hand, if we should (for some reason) wish to express the second case, we can use
where the lack of a final -N shows that the noun coordinates with "li".
An earlier example was given in rule 8 for the words anstataŭ and krom.
Don Harlow <donh@donh.best.vwh.net>