Re: Poetic translation (was: ULT)

Jim Henry wrote:

> > IIRC, this is one of those classic exceptions to the rules.  When you mean
> > "into", which is what that would be here (by default; you can have either
> > directionality or location, and this would have to be directionality), you
> > use the accusative, much as in Latin, German, etc.
>
> Not so much an exception as another rule.
Well, I meant that in the context of what exactly Zamenhof was trying
to accomplish when he created Esperanto.  It was paraded around
that Esperanto is entirely regular and simple, which were supposed
to be among the main reasons people should (or could) learn it.  As
any more detailed examination of the language would reveal, however,
the language is riddled with "relexes" of European grammatical systems.
Why make the accusative have a double duty, meaning both the case
of the direct object, and also carrying an allative sense?  Why not just
make the latter overtly marked as a separate case? At any rate, it was
just one of the several apparent inconsistencies in Zamenhof's and other
Esperantists' conception of what the language was supposed to be
accomplishing, rather than an exception to a grammatical rule,  per se.

(None of which should imply that I think it's a *bad* language... just it's
not perfect in achieving its stated goal; nor, I think, should we expect it
to be)

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
AIM: Deuterotom ICQ: 4315704
<http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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