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adjective or adverb

de sudanglo, 21 de juny de 2014

Missatges: 10

Llengua: English

sudanglo (Mostra el perfil) 21 de juny de 2014 10.06.48

This is a passage from a Esperanto translation (prob. pre-war). How many of the participles do you feel would be better as adjectives rather than adverbs, and why?

Enirante la arbareton, li renkontis malgrandan flavan hundon, kiu, aperinte de nenie, ŝajne volis atenci lin, sed ĝi baldaŭ retiriĝis, kriante, kiam ĝin trafis bone alcelita ŝtono.

Finfine, li trovis sin en la ĉambro de Della. Li sentis sin varma, ĝenata, kaj kun la samaj emocioj kiajn li spertus, se li estus ĵus deirinta de tramo, evitinte la konduktoron, kaj ne paginte la veturprezon.

nornen (Mostra el perfil) 21 de juny de 2014 12.29.59

None. All adverbial particles refer to the subject of their enclosing phrases, as expected.

EldanarLambetur (Mostra el perfil) 21 de juny de 2014 18.18.52

I find the last two adverbial participles interesting ("evitinte" and "paginte" ). Whilst all uses of the adverbial participles seem to be grammatically correct, they feel like they aren't hitting the intended meaning.

The author is trying to suggest a hypothetical scenario (using the -us mood) in which the character had both not paid for a ticket and alighted from the vehicle (avoiding the conductor in the process).

The hypothetical alighting is introduced with "estus" and "deiranta". However, the avoidance of the conductor, and the lack of payment, are adverbial participles, therefore they relate directly to the subject ("li" ) and are not related to "estus", and are therefore not hypothetical, but really having occurred.

Yet, the alighting, the lack of payment, and the avoidance of the conductor should ALL be hypothetical, which they would be if they all were adjectival participles (making them relate to the "estus", just like "deirinta" ).

So I'd say that those two should be adjectival!

Kirilo81 (Mostra el perfil) 21 de juny de 2014 19.40.28

No, also the two last ones are fine with -e. It's a bad wording that one says "adverbial participles relate to the subject", in fact -as they are adverbs- they relate to the verb and share its subject. The participles itself express only a relative temporal relation, but no mood (unless you use the useless and kontraŭfundamentaj -unt-/-ut-); the modal nuances they get from their relating verb (in this case estus).

EldanarLambetur (Mostra el perfil) 21 de juny de 2014 20.39.09

Perhaps in using "relate" I oversimplified; I was trying to avoid linguistics jargon. I'll give an example instead:

The adverbial participles seem to act slightly differently to basic adverbs (possibly due to the fact that they kinda introduce another whole implicit phrase), e.g.
  • alveninte hejme unue, li estus kuirinta se li estus pli bona edzo
Translation: having arrived at home first, he would have cooked if he were a better husband.

Notice how the arriving has actually happened; therefore it is not subject to the conditional mood (thus, outside of the influence of "estus" ).

We're implicitly saying the 2 phrases: "he arrived home first" and "he would have cooked if he were a better husband". Both have the same subject, but different verb and thus independent mood.

Unlike below for example, where the adverb ("bone" ) is indeed about an action in the conditional mood:
  • Li estus kuirinta pli bone se li estus bona edzo
Translation: he would have cooked better if he were a good husband

sudanglo (Mostra el perfil) 22 de juny de 2014 11.30.51

None. All adverbial particles refer to the subject of their enclosing phrases, as expected.
There is no grammatical error. Formally, all the adverbial participles are correct. It is a question of nuance.

An adverb can express a circumstance eg Survoje al la stacidomo, mi renkontis ..., or it can qualify a verb (express the manner of the action) eg Li parolis bone.

However if one wants to describe a noun/pronoun the adjective is appropriate.

I would have been tempted to write hundon, kiu, aperinta de nenie, ŝajne volis atenci lin, though obviously if one wished to present the appearance of the dog from nowhere as a circumstance, then aperinte is to be preferred. [Aperinte does not qualify the manner of wanting (voli)].

Edit: here's an example from la Faraono - kaj mi haltigis nian sinjorinon, kiu krianta elkuris en la ĝardenon.... In this case would you prefer kriante?

Kirilo81 (Mostra el perfil) 22 de juny de 2014 13.18.28

EldanarLambetur:
  • alveninte hejme unue, li estus kuirinta se li estus pli bona edzo
Translation: having arrived at home first, he would have cooked if he were a better husband.

Notice how the arriving has actually happened; therefore it is not subject to the conditional mood (thus, outside of the influence of "estus" ).
For me the interpretation is not obvious, without context it is for me unclear whether the arrival is real or not, so it could be also something like this:
  • Alveninte hejme unue, li kuirus*, se li estus pli bona edzo. Sed li ja eĉ ne revenis el la drinkejo.
Anyhow, this would not work at all with the adjectival participle.

*Not "estus kuirinta", or was he cooking before he became a bad husband? This example with a wrong temporal relation shows how dangerous are mindless calques like the past conditional, which is foreign to the system of Esperanto.

@sudanglo

I often stumble over adverbs where I would use an adjective, in my impression E-o simply tends to prefer the adverb in case of doubt. In my textbooks I learned to use the adjectival particple when there is an attributive relation (la lampo, pendanta de la plafono, estas difektita) and the adverbial participle in the other cases.
The sentence from La Faraono would sound more natural with kriante for me.

nornen (Mostra el perfil) 23 de juny de 2014 15.22.36

sudanglo:Edit: here's an example from la Faraono - kaj mi haltigis nian sinjorinon, kiu krianta elkuris en la ĝardenon.... In this case would you prefer kriante?
Is this example even grammatical? Can relative pronouns take attributes? "La persono, kiu ?kolera elkuris"? ("kolera" being an attribute not a predicate noun)

I would have expected and used in this case a predicate noun over the subject, which in Esperanto takes the e-ending: "kriante".

Edit: Does Esperanto allow for personal pronouns to have attributes? Is this sentence grammatical: "Vi stulta ne komprenas ĉi tion."? Or do you need to use an apposition in this case: "Vi stultulo ne komprenas ĉi tion."?

sudanglo (Mostra el perfil) 24 de juny de 2014 10.16.33

Does Esperanto allow for personal pronouns to have attributes? Is this sentence grammatical: "Vi stulta ne komprenas ĉi tion
This sentence sounds strange, granted.

But in the Tekstaro, you will find quite a few hits for sentences like Vi sola konos la sekreton.

And the quote from La Faraono is not an isolated case of an adjectival participle after kiu, Here's another from la Fundamenta Krestomatio kiu, atendita kun granda senpacienco, estis and a further one from La Faraono argilon, kiu bruligita brilas kiel vitro.

To my mind this last example definitely sounds better than kiu bruligite brilas.

And of course there is nothing controversial in a sentence like li trovis ĝin bona. You can argue that this is a different sort of attribution, but unarguably the adjective is qualifying the pronoun.

sudanglo (Mostra el perfil) 24 de juny de 2014 10.29.37

mindless calques like the past conditional
We are never going to agree about this, Kirilo. I rest my case on the numerous examples in the Tekstaro of estus -inta and 50 years of being an Esperantist.

For me, there will always be a valid and useful distinction between mi preferus kafon and mi estus preferinta kafon.

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