Esperanto ASAP- Chapter 3(1)
1). Introduction
The learning of verbs is an absolute pain in most foreign languages - form after form, regular and irregular. Esperanto wins by miles here (or since Esperanto is an international language perhaps I should say by kilometres!). There is one set of simple rules and all (repeat all) verbs obey it.
Esperanto words are made up of two parts- the root which conveys the meaning and the various extras (affixes and grammatical endings) which are added to it to modify the meaning. In this course in the text (and also in the vocabularies) we will use the slash symbol / to separate the root from the rest of the word
e.g.ek/vid/i. The root is vid/-, ek- is a prefix and -i a grammatical ending. Of course in normal written Esperanto the word would simply be ekvidi and so this is the form used in the exercises. I also use the symbol /- to represent the root when I don't wish to keep repeating it.
To illustrate we will chose five typical verbs.
2). Infinitive
In English we can recognize the infinitive as it follows the preposition 'to' e.g. to write, to have etc. In Esperanto we simply add the grammatical ending -i to the root.
Thus :
skrib/-i (to write); kant/-i (to sing); port/-i (to carry) etc.
3). Present Tense
In Esperanto we add the grammatical ending -as to the root. Thus the complete present tenses of skribi and kanti are :
Thus we only have to learn the personal pronouns- the root and ending are fixed. These are:-
The second person in Esperanto can, as in English, be singular or plural. There is an antiquated singular form ci (thou) but this is only used in translations of the Bible etc.
Notice that all verbs including the verb esti (to be) are regular. Now compare the Esperanto version with other major languages.
Thus, apart from the personal pronouns, we have to learn : English three forms (am, is, are); French six (suis, es, est, sommes, êtes, sont) and German four (bin, bist, ist, sind) but in Esperanto only one (estas). The same applies to every irregular verb and in every tense!!
To complicate matters English has three different present tenses! e.g. I carry, I am carrying and I do carry. As always Esperanto is so much simpler. All present tenses are translated by the -as ending. Thus mi portas = I carry or I am carrying or I do carry. There are times when it might be necessary to distinguish between the slight difference in meaning between I carry (as a general rule) and I am carrying (at this precise moment). Esperanto has available a compound tense to cope with this (See Chapter 17) but as a safe rule always use the simple form whenever possible
4). Past Tense
The advantages of Esperanto become even more apparent with the past tense. Think of all the various species of past tenses in English (and the position is just as bad in French and German) :
I carried, I did carry, I was carrying, I used to carry, I have carried and I had carried.
In Esperanto all of these may be translated by the simple past mi portis. (Compare port/-as (Present) and port/-is (Past). Again if we need to make a distinction between I was carrying (the imperfect tense- an action still not completed at the past time in question) and I have carried (the perfect tense - an action already completed) we could use the compound tenses already mentioned. However it is more common just to add a simple word to differentiate e.g. jam (already) implies the perfect tense - Mi jam portis (I have already carried) or kutime (usually) implies the imperfect- Mi kutime portis (I usually was carrying).
5).Future Tense
This is rather more simple with only two forms in English e.g. I shall have or I am going to have. Both are translated using the simple ending -os in Esperanto e.g. mi havos (I shall have, I am going to have), vi kantos (You will sing, You are going to sing)
6). Questions
In English we ask a question which expects a yes/no answer by a simple inversion e.g. You (do) sing. Do you sing? ('Sing you' is, of course, not used!) He is writing. Is he writing? She has carried. Has she carried?
In Esperanto, however, word order is much more flexible as is appropriate for an international language. Therefore a change in word order is not sufficient for our purpose. In written Spanish there is a sensible indication that a question is to follow in that an inverted question mark (¿) is used as a marker. Esperanto does something rather similar by using a marker word ˆcu. This means a question follows and the usual word order is maintained. This is somewhat similar to the French Est-ce que...?
7). Negatives
In Esperanto we use the word ne to produce a negative. It should immediately precede the word it negates e.g.
Ni estos (We shall be); Ni ne estos (We shall not be); ^cu ni ne estos? (Shall we not be?).
If we were to write Ne mi estos then we would change the emphasis. Now it is the 'mi' which is negated and the meaning is 'It will not be I'. A subtle but distinct change in meaning. ( Of course in the vernacular we would more commonly say 'It won't be me')
8). Imperative Mood
This is the command form and in English we simply drop the pronoun e.g. Go! Shut up! Write! In Esperanto we add the ending -u to the root. Iru! Silentu! Skribu!
In addition to the above form which is directly addressed to someone i.e. the second person form (the 'you' form), there are forms for the first and third persons. These are more requests and suggestions rather than direct commands. In English they are translated by a let form e.g. let us go, let them come, let me sing. In Esperanto the -u form is still used but with the pronoun i.e. ni iru, ili venu and mi kantu.
9). Conditional Mood
There is one final mood. It has no sense of time because it represents something which may or may not even happen. It is sometimes known as the subjunctive and frequently follows if (Se). Esperanto we have final verb ending -us.e.g.
Se mi estus ri^ca, mi a^cetus palacon (If I were rich, I would buy a palace ( but I'm not and probably never will be))
(Don't worry about the non-verbal parts of this sentence yet).
The conditional is also sometimes used- as in English- for extreme politeness e.g.
^Cu vi dirus al mi kioma estas la horo, mi petas? (Would you tell me the time, please?)