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Re: Ethnologue

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Sunday, February 9, 2003, 21:05
En réponse à Jean-François Colson <bn130627@...>:

> > Esperanto has a genitive indeed, but only for 5 words: > - ies, genitive of iu; > - kies, genitive of kiu; > - ties, genitive of tiu; > - cies, genitive of ciu; > - nenies, genitive of neniu. >
True, but is it worth mentioning that Esperanto has a genitive for only five words? :))
> Err... Isn't "Zamenhofa" the genitive of "Zamenhof"?
As much as "Parisian" is the genitive of "Paris". -a marks adjectives. So "Zamenhofa" is an adjective derived from the noun "Zamenhof" (you can translate it as "Zamenhofian". Some languages do have an adjectival form instead of a genitive, but in the case of Esperanto the two things have a slightly different meaning. "La Zamenhofa
> lingvouzo" is the same than "La lingvouzo DE Zamenhof". >
Not really. "la Zamenhofa lingvouzo" means "the use of the language as Zamenhof did" while "la lingvouzo de Zamenhof" means "Zamenhof's use of the language". Only the second is a proper possession. The first refers to the use of the language of anyone, but in a Zamenhofian fashion. The difference is small but meaningful. Christophe. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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Jean-François Colson <bn130627@...>