Verda Drako- Esperanto Club Notes and English-Esperanto Course

1). Compound Tenses

As stated many times already Esperanto avoids, whenever possible, compound tenses and uses the simple tense. There are occasions, however, when for precision a compound tense is needed. e.g. there is a difference in meaning between :

Perfect tense : I have written (the action is now completed) and Imperfect tense: I was writing (at some time in the past I was still engaged in the activity).

Normally in Esperanto both are translated by mi skribis.

The compound tense in Esperanto involves the use of a participle and an auxilliary verb. Note, however, that the auxilliary verb is always the verb 'to be' (not, as in English, sometimes 'to have').

The auxilliary can be present, past or future as can the participle and this gives us nine possibilities:

Present participle (-ing/ -anta):

Past participle (-en or -ed/ -inta)

Future Participle (about to/ -onta)

It should be remembered that the participles are partially adjectival and so must agree with the subject through the verb esti. Therefore for plural subjects they take a -j ending e.g. ni estas skribontaj (we are about to write)

2). The Passive Tenses

Compound verbs are not commonly used in Esperanto and the passive forms even less so. It is usually better to use oni or an -i^g- form.

However they do exist for when their use is simply unavoidable. Their forms are the same as the active compound tenses above but using the passive participles (ending in -ta rather than -nta).

Present Passive Participle (being ..en/ -ata)

Past Passive Participle (been ..en/ -ita)

Future Passive Participle (about to be ..en/ -ota)

It is worth noting that the passive form and an -i^g- form although often used for the same purpose are not in fact identical e.g.

La pordo estas fermata de Maria (The door is being closed by Mary)

La pordo fermi^gas (The door is closing)

Thus the passive usually implies an action performed by someone or something, the -i^g- form an action which happens on its own.

More affixes

3). -^cj- and -nj-

These are used to turn Proper Names into Familiar names - -^cj- for males and -nj- for females.

e.g. William in English can be familiarized as Willie, Will, Bill or Billy.

In Esperanto the last few letters of the name are cut and replaced by -^cj-

e.g. Vilhelmo (William); Vilhel^cjo (Willie); Vilhe^cjo (Will); Vil^cjo (Billy); Vi^cjo (Bill)

The whole business is personal and the above is just one possible interpretation (taken from Cox's Esperanto Grammar and Commentary)

A similar procedure occurs for feminine names e.g.Margareto might become Marganjo (Maggie)

Sometimes the familiar of pet name can be longer than the original e.g. Johano (John) might become Johan^cjo (Johnnie).

This process is also applied to close family titles e.g

or to pets : kato cat kanjo pussy

4). -a^c-, fi-

These affixes are used for unpleasant words.

a^c has the meaning of badness or of low quality. e.g.

As an independent word aˆca means rotten or wretched.

Fi- is a prefix which gives the meaning of poor morals or depravity.

vorto (word) fivorto (foul word, swear word); rakonto (story) firakonto (dirty story)

As an independent word Fi! is an interjection meaning Shame on you!

LEGU KAJ KOMPRENU!

You are now so advanced (we hope!) that we can take the final step. Instead of receiving the new words before the passage, we will read the passage and try and understand it as one would in normal reading or speech i.e. if any words are not known we must work out their sense from the context. The new word list is still given, however, afterwards as a check.

La Dinosaûroj

^Gia cerbo estis malgranda sed la bestego bone funkciis. ^Ciujn tagojn, kiel siaj prauloj dum milionoj da jaroj, ^gi veki^gis, ekstaris kaj malrapide, tre malrapide, iris- preskaû rampis al sia plej ^satata loko. Tie ^gi kašis dum kelkaj horoj sur sia ^stonlito sub la varmiganta suno. Kiam la sango estis sufi^ce varma, ^gi ekstaris denove kaj tiam konstatis ke ^gi malsatis. La bestego levis la grandan kapon kaj zorge flaris la aeron. Jen!- malantaû tiu grandega roko- nutra^jo. ^Ci foje nia heroo kuregis tre rapide kaj baldaû atingis sian celon. Kvankam la predo estis tiel granda kiel nuntempa bovo, unu frapo per la vosto de la bestego faligis ^gin kaj kiam la dentegoj mordis tiam........

Unu tagon e^c la malgranda cerbeto de la stultulo komprenas, ke io malkutima okazas. Trovi^gas du sunoj en la ^cielo kaj unu pliheli^gadas. Baldaû pluvegas sed ne per akveroj sed per lumstrioj kaj poste aerolitoj. Subite bruega eksplodo, la tero skui^gas tiel forte ke e^c la grandega besto renversi^gas. La ^cielo malheli^gas, la temperaturo falegas kaj ekne^gas- ne per bela blanka ne^go sed per nigra kotokovrita ne^go. Nia besto estas baldaû sub kovrilo de tiu a^ca malvarma sterko. La cerbo de Tyranosaurus Rex ne ankoraû funkciis je tiu malalta temperaturo sed e^c se ^gi povus, certe ^gi ne konstatas ke kometo ^jus frapis la teron kaj la epoko de la dinosaûroj estis finita.

New Words :

to crawl	ramp/-i		explosion	eksplod/-o
to feed	nutr/-i	E : nutrition	head	kap/-o	E/L: per capita
to fell, make fall	falig/-i		hero	hero/-o
to function	funkci/-i		manure, fertilizer	sterk/-o
to knock, strike	frap/-i		meteor	aerolit/-o	'air stone'
to knock down, upset	renvers/-i		mud	kot/-o
to lie down, recline	ku^s/-i	E : cushion	prey	pred/-o	E : predator
to raise	lev/-i	E : levitate	rock	rok/-o
to realise	konstat/-i		stone	^ston/-o
to shake (tr)	sku/-i		tail	vost/-o
comet	komet/-o		temperature	temperatur/-o
dinosaur	dinosaûr/-o		stupid	stult/-a
epoch	epok/-o

mi estAs skribAnta	I am writing	Present continuous
mi estIs skribAnta	I was writing	Imperfect
mi estOs skribAnta	I shall be writing	Future continuous

mi estAs skribInta	I am (finished writing)- I have written	Perfect
mi estIs skribInta	I was (finished writing)-I had written	Pluperfect
mi estOs skribInta	I shall have written	Future Perfect

mi estAs skribOnta	I am about to write
mi estIs skribOnta	I was about to write	Future in the Past
mi estOs skribOnta	I shall be about to write

^gi estAS skribATA	It is being written
^gi estIS skribATA	It was being written
^gi estOS skribATA	It will be being written

^gi estAS skribITA	It has been written
^gi estIS skribITA	It had been written
^gi estOS skribITA	It shall have been written

^gi estAS skribOTA	It is about to be written
^gi estIS skribOTA	It was about to be written
^gi estOS skribOTA	It will be about to be written

patro	father	pa^cjo	daddy
patrino	mother	panjo	mummy
avino	grandmother	avinjo	grannie

domo	house	doma^co	hovel)
skribi	to write	skriba^ci	to scribble
infano	a child	infana^co	a brat