Re: Poetic translation (was: ULT)
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, June 1, 1999, 5:45 |
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At 16:55 31/05/99 -0500, you wrote:
>John Cowan wrote:
>
>> I wrote:
>>
>> > > E-o prepositions govern the nominative.
>>
>> Tom Wier and others point out that prepositions signifying movement
>> take the accusative. I think, however, that "in" in "I fart in
>> your general direction" posits a direction only, not movement.
>> The methane moves, but I do not; I merely aim it.
>
>Right, but the methane is the important part. When you shoot a gun,
>the important part is where the bullet is going, not where you are.
>
>> Would "I shot the bullet at the man" demand an accusative for "the man"?
>> Doesn't sound right to me, though I am no E-ist.
>
>The example above is somewhat misleading for English speakers,
>because "at" normally indicates location, but here it clearly carries
>an idiomatic meaning of direction, so "to" or "toward" would be
>better, more literal ways of translating those sentences in Esperanto.
>
>You'd thus have to say "Mi pafis la kuglon al la viron." If you used
>the nonaccusative form, it would mean more "I shot the bullet while
>I was sitting by the man" or something like that.
>
Unhappily no! the E-o preposition "al" already has a lative meaning, so
you never use it with the accusative. So the only way to translate the
sentence is to say: "Mi pafis la kuglon al la viro." "I shot the bullet
while I was sitting by the man" would be "Mi pafis la kuglon cxe la viro"
or even "Mi pafis la kuglon sur la viro"!
Accusative and "al" are auto-exclusive. In fact, the lative meaning of the
accusative in E-o can be explained by the fact the accusative can replace a
preposition when it's unambiguous (to make sentences shorter). This use is
now nearly confined to "al" (like in "I came into the house": "Mi venis al
in la domo", which becomes: "Mi venis in la domon"), but you can find other
examples ("I arrived here on the 1st of June": "Mi alvenis cxi tie je la
unua de junio" or "Mi alvenis cxi tie la unuan de junio").
>[Tom writes, humorously amused by the *direction* this discussion
>is taking :P ]
>
>===========================================
>Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
>AIM: Deuterotom ICQ: 4315704
><
http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
>"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
>===========================================
>
>