Re: Esperanto question (A different one! :)

At 08:49 19/09/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Xezhd=EAnev!
>
>I was just reading some emails in regards to the nonexistence of an=
 'around'
>preposition in regards to 'around the room'.. and I was wondering..
>
>
>For those of you (if there are any of you out on the mailing list) who=
 speak
>Esperanto [fluenty], when you encounter things like:
>
>de la
>en la
>
>Do you abbreviate/combine, as how Spanish, Italian, and French does?=20
>
>Like for example..
>
>de + la =3D da?
>en + la =3D aun?
>
>Just wondering if something happens like that.. like if fluent speakers use
>that as a type of slang.
>
>Also, for words that begin in vowels, do you remove the vowel? Example:
>
>(I'm making up this word.. I don't really know Esperanto that well)
>
>la + akron
>l'akron
>
>Do things like this happen, or are they specifically discouraged in the
>'moral' laws of using Esperanto?=20
>
        On the contrary, there is a rule about elision in Esperanto. It's
the 16th and last rule describing the grammar of the language. This rule
says that it's possible to remove the vowel of the article 'la' and the 'o'
of nouns when wanted. It's most used in poetry but you can use it when you
want, if you feel that the sound is better (not only when there is a vowel
after). For instance, I nearly never use 'de la' but I elide the article to
say 'de l'' (an apostrophe marks the disparition of the vowel). I also often
elide the 'o' of a noun when it ends a sentence and when it's easy to say
and to understand. Finally, we use the expression 'dank' al' (thanks to)
always with elision (in fact, it seems to some people that it is a grammar
mistake as we can't elide the ending vowel of an adverb, but many
grammarians say that in fact this expression is due to the understantement
of 'estas' (it is))
        As you can see, there are no 'moral laws' against elision in
Esperanto. On the contrary, Esperanto has only 16 rules and elision is one
of them. You can notice the importance that Zamenhof gave to elision!

>For example, in Zadri, the pronoun 'we' has two forms: we inclusive, and we
>exclusive:
>dai, rai
>and all present tense (indicative mood) verbs end in -ai, and to prevent=
 the
>rather awkward sounding repetion of sounds as found in daitanlai or
raidaxkai..=20
>I've allowed for the -ai to be dropped in the pronoun for this pronoun, and
>this verb:
>
>d'tanlai, r'daxkai.
>
>Does anyone to anything similar in their respective languages?
>
>In conclusion,
>~Arek  -  zadar@wco.com
>
>"The pessimist stomps and curses the wind. The optimist whines, but keeps
>saying how everything can be better. The realist adjusts the sails and
>doesn't complain."
>        - Kyle Voiles
>
>....Zephyr in the sky at night, I wonder: do my tears of mourning sink
>beneath the sun?....
>
>
                                                Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

homepage: http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepage/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html