Re: Case system in Esperanto (was: Poetic translation (was

Jim Henry wrote:

> I'm not sure the IE terms Nominative/accusative really fit
> Esperanto.  It seems to me that Esperanto has four "cases"
> (though I'm not sure the term quite fits):
>
> [1] no -n ending, no preposition  (true nominative or vocative)
> [2] -n ending but no preposition (accusative, more or less)
> [3] preposition but no -n ending (genitive, dative, instrumental, etc)
> [4] preposition and also -n ending (allative?)
I don't think "case" is the correct term here.  Certainly, I would
agree that E-o has four main usages, which combine a mix of
grammatical case and syntax, but I would say that we should reserve
the term "case" to mean solely a morphologicly distinct indication
of the syntactic usage.

> Also, "Mi pafis la kuglon al la viron."  would be incorrect; "al"
> already indicates motion towards, so -n wouldn't appear.  Instead
> (grammatical but slightly odd because we're shifting the object of
> "pafi"):
Yes, as many have reminded me :), I incorrectly used the accusative
in that example, as I was taking my lead from a somewhat ambiguous
Esperanto online dictionary (just to be sure).

<sigh>

It's been many years since I last made any effort to hone my Esperantic
skills; perhaps I had best do more of that to avoid these problems in the
future.

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