Usuario:Dolichocephalus/Actualmente traduzco2

El Esperanto es un idioma planeado. Su estructura lógica lo hace bastante más fácil de aprender que la mayoría de los idiomas, incluso para hablantes de idiomas no europeos, aunque algunas características pueden ser más o menos dificultosas para hablantes de distintos idiomas. La gramática es bastante regular, las partes de la oración tienen terminaciones distintivas (-o para sustantivos, -a para adjetivos, etc-) y las reglas de formación de palabras son lo suficientemente claras como para poder crear fácilmente nuevas palabras, permitiéndole a los hablantes expresarse de manera clara y precisa sin la necesidad de manejar un gran vocabulario. El ente regulador oficial del Esperanto es la Academia de Esperanto y existen libros de gramática tales como el Plena Manlibro de Esperanta Gramatiko (Manual Completo de la Gramática del Esperanto).

Aspectos generales

El Esperanto tiene una morfología aglutinante, inflexiones verbales y nominales bastante simples y no tiene género gramatical. Los verbos se flexionan en cuatro modos: el imperativo, infinitivo, jusivo e indicativo, teniendo este último tres tiempos que se derivan en varios aspectos, además no concuerdan con la persona o el número gramatical del sujeto Los sustantivos y adjetivos tienen dos casos: ‘’nominativo/oblicuo’’ y ‘’acusativo/alativo’’ y dos números: ‘’singular’’ y ‘’plural’’; los pronombres demostrativos y personales tienen caso genitivo. Los adjetivos normalmente concuerdan con los sustantivos en caso y número Además de indicar el objeto directo, el caso acusativo/alativo se usa con sustantivos, adjetivos y adverbios para mostrar la dirección de un movimiento, o para reemplazar ciertas preposiciones; el caso nominativo/oblicuo se usa en el resto de los casos. El sistema de casos permite un orden de palabras bastante flexible que refleja el flujo informativo y otros elementos pragmáticos como en el ruso, griego y latín.

Escritura y pronunciación

La escritura se inspiró en el alfabeto checo, pero con diacríticos circunflejos, en lugar de háčeks en las letras ‘’ĉ, ŝ’’; Y las formas occidentalizadas ĝ, ĵ en lugar de las eslavas dž, ž; y ĥ en vez de ch La letra ŭ existe también en el alfabeto bielorruso Łacinka. (vea también Ortografía del esperanto) Las consonantes son similares a las polacas y en especial a las bielorrusas, excepto en la falta de palatización: Las vocales también son las mismas que en el bielorruso con excepción de algunos diptongos tales como oǔ. (vea también Fonología del esperanto) El italiano y el croata se sugieren como modelos para la pronunciación

El artículo

El Esperanto posee un único artículo definido, la, el cual es invariable. Equivale a “el", “la”, “los”, "las” en español ‘’(y similar al ‘’the’’ en inglés)

La se usa:

En objetos identificables y contables:

Mi trovis botelon kaj deprenis la fermilon. (Encontré una botella y saqué el sello.).

Para individuos representativos:

La gepardo estas la plej rapida de la bestoj. (El guepardo es el más rápido de los animales)

La abeloj havas felon, sed ili ne taŭgas por karesi (Las abejas tienen pelo suave, pero no conviene acariciarlas).

Para adjetivos usados como sustantivos, como en el caso de los nombres de idiomas:

la blua (el azul)

la angla (el [idioma] inglés)

Para pronombres posesivos, cuando son definidos

la mia bluas, la via ruĝas (el mío es azul, el tuyo es rojo)

El artículo también se usa cuando se trata de una posesión inalienable, como las partes del cuerpo (en español se utiliza de una manera similar)

ili tranĉis la manon (ellos se cortaron la mano [cada uno la propia])

El artículo la, como el adjetivo demostrativo tiu (ese, aquel), casi siempre se emplea al principio de algún sintagma nominal, aunque esto no sea prescrito en la gramática; también hay excepciones en la poesía.

No hay artículo indefinido. Por ejemplo, homo puede significar ya sea "ser humano" o "un ser humano", dependiendo del contexto, y de la misma forma su plural homoj significa "seres humanos" o "unos seres humanos". Las palabras iu y unu (y sus respectivos plurales iuj y unuj) pueden ser usados de una manera similar a un artículo indefinido, pero su significado se asemeja más a “algún” o “cierto (individuo)” que al artículo “un” en español.

Partes de la oración y terminación de palabras

Los sufijos gramaticales –o, –a, –e e –i indican que una palabra es un sustantivo, un adjetivo, un adverbio y un verbo en infinitivo respectivamente. Muchas palabras pueden derivarse mediante un simple intercambio de sufijos, de manera similar al sufijo –mente que se agrega a los adjetivos en femenino del español. De vidi (ver), se obtiene vida (visual), vide (visualmente) y vido (visión) Cada palabra raíz posee una función en la oración inherente El sufijo nominal –o junto con una raíz nominal podría considerarse como redundante, si se tiene una raíz adjetival o verbal junto con el sufijo nominal se indica una abstracción parolo (un acto discursivo) a partir de la raíz verbal paroli (hablar); belo (belleza) de la raíz adjetival bela (bello/a) De la misma manera, el sufijo adjetival –a es redundante con una raíz adjetival, pero no con raíces nominales o verbales: reĝa (regio/real), de la raíz nominal reĝo (un rey); parola (oral/discursivo). Las terminaciones verbales, si se las agrega a una raíz adjetival, significan “ser”. beli (ser bello/a); y con una raíz nominal significa “actuar como el sustantivo”. reĝi (reinar) Existen relativamente pocas raíces adverbiales, por lo que la mayoría de las palabras terminadas en –e son derivadas bele (bellamente, de manera bella) El equivalente en español para una raíz nominal o verbal con una terminación adverbial es un sintagma preposicional: parole (mediante el habla, oralmente); vide (visualmente, mediante la visión); reĝe (como un rey, regiamente).

El sufijo -j luego de los sufijos adjetivales o nominales -o o -a forma el plural. El objeto directo toma el sufijo de caso acusativo -n, el cual se inserta luego de cualquier sufijo plural (La secuencia resultante -ojn suena como en español boina y -ajn como vaina.) Los adjetivos son concordantes con los sustantivos, es decir, adquieren el sufijo plural si los sustantivos que determinan son plurales y el sufijo acusativo si el sustantivo está en caso acusativo. Compare bona tago; bonaj tagoj; bonan tagon; bonajn tagojn (buen día/buenos días). Esta característica permite un orden libre de adjetivo-sustantivo y sustantivo-adjetivo, incluso si dos sintagmas son adyacentes en cláusulas tipo sujeto objeto verbo o verbo sujeto objeto:

la knabino feliĉan knabon kisis (la niña besó a un niño feliz)

la knabino feliĉa knabon kisis (la niña feliz besó a un niño).

La concordancia esclarece la sintáxis de otras maneras. Los adjetivos toman la forma plural cuando determinan más de un sustantivo, incluso si todos esos sustantivos son singulares.

ruĝaj domo kaj aŭto (una casa y auto rojos)

ruĝa domo kaj aŭto (una casa roja y un auto).

Un complemento predicativo no lleva sufijo acusativo.

mi farbis la pordon ruĝan (Pinté la puerta (que era) roja)

mi farbis la pordon ruĝa (Pinté roja la puerta (que era antes de otro color)).

Las raices en esperanto pertenecen inherentemente a una categoría gramatical, la que hay que tener en cuenta al momento de derivar las palabras. Por ejemplo brosi (cepillar) está basada en una raíz nominal, mientras que kombi (peinar) se basa en una raíz verbal. Si se cambia al sufijo gramatical -o, el significado que es aparentemente similar, cambia, y se obtiene: broso (un cepillo, el nombre de una herramienta) y kombo (una peinada, la acción de peinar). La nominalización de una raíz inherentemente verbal (mediante el sufijo -o) como kombi simplemente crea el nombre de la acción kombo (la acción de peinar). Para el instrumento, se usa el sufijo -ilo que define instrumentos a partir de raices verbales: kombilo (un peine). Por otro lado, el cambio de una raíz verbal broso (un cepillo) a un verbo da como resultado la acción asociada a ese sustantivo, brosi (cepillar). Para definir la acción se emplea el sufijo -ado y se obtiene brosado (una cepillada). De manera similar, la abstracción de una raíz nominal exige el sufijo -eco, como en infaneco (niñez), a partir de infano (niño/a), pero la abstracción de una raíz adjetival o verbal simplemente exige el sufijo -o: belo (belleza) de bela (bello/a). Aunque la forma redundante beleco es ampliamente usada y aceptada.

Additionally, most verbs are inherently transitive or intransitive. Transitivity is changed with the suffixes -igi (the transitivizer/causative) and -iĝi (the intransitivizer/middle voice):

akvo bolas je cent gradoj (water boils at 100 degrees)

ni boligas la akvon (we boil the water).

Transitivity is covert in Esperanto. That is, it is not apparent from the shape of the verb, and must simply be memorized.

A limited number of basic adverbs do not end with -e, but with an indefinite part-of-speech ending -aŭ. (Not all words ending in -aŭ are adverbs.) Most of the adverbs ending in -aŭ are used as other parts of speech as well, such as hodiaŭ "today" [noun or adverb] or ankoraŭ "yet, still" [conjunction or adverb], and people would find it difficult to use the adverbial suffix -e only when these words function as adverbs. About a dozen other adverbs are bare roots, such as nun "now", tro "too, too much", not counting the adverbs among the correlatives. (See special Esperanto adverbs).

The other parts of speech occur as bare roots, without a special suffix. They are the pronouns (mi "I"), prepositions (al "to"), conjunctions (kaj "and"), interjections (ho "oh"), and numerals (du "two"). (The final -i found on pronouns is not, strictly speaking, a suffix.) There are also several "grammatical particles" which don't fit neatly into any part of speech, and which must generally precede the words they modify, such as ne (not), ankaŭ (also), nur (only), eĉ (even).

Pronombres

There are three types of pronouns in Esperanto: personal (vi "you"), demonstrative (tio "that", iu "someone"), and relative/interrogative (kio "what"). Unlike nouns, pronouns take three cases: nominative/oblique, accusative, and genitive.

Pronombres personales

The Esperanto personal pronoun system is similar to that of English, but with the addition of the reflexive pronoun of the Romance languages.

		singular	plural
first person		mi (I)	ni (we)
second person		vi (you)
third person	masculine	li (he)	ili (they)
	feminine	ŝi (she)
	epicene	ĝi (it, s/he)
indefinite		oni (one, "they")
reflexive		si (self)

Personal pronouns take the accusative suffix -n like nouns do: min (me), lin (him), ŝin (her). Possessive adjectives are formed with the adjectival suffix -a: mia (my), ĝia (its), nia (our). These agree with their noun like any other adjective: ni salutis liajn amikojn (we greeted his friends). Esperanto does not have separate forms for the possessive pronouns; this sense is generally (though not always) indicated with the definite article: la mia (mine).

The reflexive pronoun is used, in non-subject phrases only, to refer to back to the subject, usually only in the third and indefinite persons,

li lavis sin "he washed" (himself)

ili lavis sin "they washed" (themselves or each other)

li lavis lin "he washed him" (someone else)

li manĝis sian panon "he ate his bread" (his own bread)

li manĝis lian panon "he ate his bread" (someone else's bread).

The indefinite pronoun is used when making general statements, and is often used where English would have the subject it with a passive verb,

oni diras, ke ... "they say that ..." or "it's said that ..."

Zamenhof created an informal second-person singular pronoun ci (thou), and capitalized the formal singular pronoun Vi, following usage in most European languages, but these forms are rarely seen today.

Ĝi is used principally with animals and objects. Zamenhof also prescribed it to be the epicene (gender-neutral) third-person singular pronoun, for use when the sex of an individual is unknown, or to refer to an epicene noun such as persono (person). However, it is generally only used for children,

La infano ploras, ĉar ĝi volas manĝi "the child is crying, because it wants to eat".

When speaking of adults or people in general, it is much more common for the demonstrative adjective and pronoun tiu (that one) to be used in such situations.

Otros pronombres

The demonstrative and relative pronouns form part of the correlative system, and are described in that article. The pronouns are the forms ending in -o (simple pronouns) and -u (adjectival pronouns). Their accusative case is formed in -n, but the genitive case ends in -es, which is the same for singular and plural and does not take accusative marking. Compare the nominative phases lia domo (his house) and ties domo (that one's house, those ones' house) with the plural liaj domoj (his houses) and ties domoj (that one's houses, those ones' houses), and with the accusative genitive lian domon and ties domon.

Preposiciones

Although Esperanto word order is fairly free, prepositions must come at the beginning of a noun phrase. Whereas in languages such as German, prepositions may require a noun to be in various cases (accusative, dative, etc.), in Esperanto all prepositions govern the nominative: por Johano (for John). The only "exception" is when a preposition is replaced by the accusative.

Prepositions should be used with a definite meaning. When no one preposition is clearly correct, the indefinite preposition je should be used,

ili iros je la tria de majo (they'll go on the third of May: the "on" isn't literally true).

Alternatively, the accusative may be used without a preposition,

ili iros la trian de majo.

Note that although la trian (the third) is in the accusative, de majo (of May) is still a prepositional phrase, and so the noun majo remains in the nominative case.

A frequent use of the accusative is in place of al (to) to indicate the direction or goal of motion (allative case). It is especially common when there would otherwise be a double preposition,

la kato ĉasis la muson en la domo (the cat chased the mouse in [inside of] the house)

la kato ĉasis la muson en la domon (the cat chased the mouse into the house).

The accusative/allative may stand in for other prepositions as well, especially when they have vague meanings that don't add much to the clause. Adverbs, with or without the case suffix, are frequently used in place of prepositional phrases,

li iris al sia hejmo (he went to his home)

li iris hejmen (he went home)

Occasionally a new preposition is coined. As a bare root may indicate a preposition or interjection, removing the grammatical suffix from another part of speech can be used to derive a preposition or interjection. For example, from fari (to do, to make) we get the preposition far (done by), a more precise substitute for de (of, by, from).

Verbos

All verbs have regular inflections. Three tenses together form what is called the indicative mood. The other moods are the infinitive, conditional, and jussive. No aspectual distinctions are required by the grammar, but derivational expressions of Aktionsart are common.

Verbs do not change form according to their subject. I am, we are, and he is are simply mi estas, ni estas, and li estas, respectively. Impersonal subjects are not used: pluvas (it is raining); estas muso en la domo (there's a mouse in the house).

El paradigma verbal

The tenses have characteristic vowels. A indicates the present tense, i the past, and o the future.

	Indicative	Active participle	Passive participle	Infinitive	Jussive	Conditional
Past	-is	-inta	-ita	-i	-u	-us
Present	-as	-anta	-ata
Future	-os	-onta	-ota

The verbal forms may be illustrated with the root esper- (hope):

esperi (to hope)

esperas (hopes, is hoping)

esperis (hoped, was hoping)

esperos (shall hope, will hope)

esperu (hope!)

esperus (were to hope, would hope)

A verb can be made emphatic with the particle ja (indeed): mi ja esperas (I do hope), mi ja esperis (I did hope).

Modo

The conditional mood is used for such expressions as se mi povus, mi irus (if I could, I would go) and se mi estus vi, mi irus (if I were you, I'd go).

The jussive mood, called the volitive in Esperanto, is used for wishing and requesting, and serves as the imperative. It covers some of the uses of the subjunctive in European languages,

Iru! (Go!)

Mi petis, ke li venu. (I asked him to come.)

Li parolu. (Let him speak.)

Ni iru. (Let's go.)

Benu tiun domaĉon (Bless this mess.)

Mia filino belu! (May my daughter be beautiful!)

Aspecto

Although verbal aspect is not grammatically required in Esperanto, the Slavic aspectual system survives in two Aktionsart affixes, perfective (often inceptive) ek- and imperfective -adi. Compare,

Tiu ĉi ekinteresis min kaj montris al mi, ke ... (This caught my interest and showed me that ...)

and

Tiu ĉi interesis min (This interested me).

Various prepositions may also be used as Aktionsart prefixes, such as el (out of), used to indicate that an action is performed to completion or at least to a considerable degree. In,

Germanan kaj francan lingvojn mi ellernadis en infaneco (I learned French and German in childhood),

the verb el-lern-ad-is is past tense (-is), on-going/imperfective (-ad-), and performed to significant completion (el-). Such distinctions are notoriously difficult to render in English, but perhaps a circumlocution may help: In childhood, I spent time soaking up German and French. Here spend time —ing corresponds roughly to -adi, and the up of soak up [originally also a preposition] conveys some of the meaning of el-.

The participles (see below) may also be used for aspectual distinctions.

La copula

The verb esti (to be) is both the copula and the existential ("there is") verb. As a copula linking two noun phrases, it does not cause either to take the accusative case. Therefore, unlike the situation with other verbs, word order with esti can be semantically important: compare hundoj estas personoj (dogs are people) and personoj estas hundoj (people are dogs).

It is becoming increasingly common to replace esti-plus-adjective with a verb: la ĉielo estas blua or la ĉielo bluas (the sky is blue). This is a stylistic rather than grammatical change in the language, as the more economical verbal forms were always found in poetry.

Participios

Participles are verbal derivatives. In Esperanto, they retain the tense of the verb in their vowel. They may be active (performing an action) or passive (receiving an action).

Participios adjetivales

The basic principle of the participles may be illustrated with the verb fali (to fall). Picture Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff. Before gravity kicks in (after all, this is a cartoon), he is falonta (about to fall). As he drops, he is falanta (falling). After he impacts the desert floor, he is falinta (fallen).

Active and passive pairs can be illustrated with the transitive verb haki (to chop). Picture a woodsman approaching a tree with an axe, intending to chop it down. He is hakonta (about to chop) and the tree is hakota (about to be chopped). While swinging the axe, he is hakanta (chopping) and the tree hakata (being chopped). After the tree has fallen, he is hakinta (having chopped) and the tree hakita (chopped).

Tiempos compuestos

Compound tenses are formed with the adjectival participles plus esti (to be) as the auxiliary verb,

• Present progressive: mi estas kaptanta (I am catching [something]), mi estas kaptata (I am being caught)
• Present perfect: mi estas kaptinta (I have caught [something]), mi estas kaptita (I have been caught)
• Present predictive: mi estas kaptonta (I am going to/about to catch), mi estas kaptota (I am going to be/about to be caught)

These are not used as often as their English equivalents. For "I am going to the store", you would normally use the simple present mi iras in Esperanto.

The tense and mood of esti can be changed in these compound tenses,

mi estis kaptinta (I had caught)

mi estus kaptonta (I would be about to catch)

mi estos kaptanta (I will be catching).

The option of replacing esti + adjective with a verb holds for adjectival participles, with the verbal suffix reflecting the tense of the auxiliary,

mi estas kaptinta or mi kaptintas (I have caught)

mi estis kaptinta or mi kaptintis (I had caught).

Adjectival participles agree with nouns, as any other adjectives do,

ili ŝparis la arbojn hakotajn (they spared the trees that were to be chopped down).

Participios nominales

Participles may be turned into adverbs or nouns by replacing the adjectival suffix -a with -e or -o. This means that, in Esperanto, some nouns may be inflected for tense.

A nominal participle indicates one who participates in the action specified by the verbal root. For example, esperinto is a "hoper" (past tense), or one who had been hoping. (In the early years of the language, such forms were assumed to be masculine, but that is no longer the case.)

Participios adverbiales

Adverbial participles are used with subjectless clauses,

Kaptinte la pilkon, li ekkuris golen (Having caught the ball, he ran for the goal).

Participios condicionales y sin tiempo (no oficial)

Occasionally, the participle paradigm will be extended to include conditional participles, with the vowel u (-unt-, -ut-). If, for example, in our tree-chopping example, the woodsman found that the tree had been spiked and so couldn't be cut down after all, he would be hakunta and the tree hakuta. (These don't translate well into English.)

This can also be illustrated with the verb prezidi (to preside). Just after the recount of the 2000 US presidential election,

• then-president Bill Clinton was still prezidanto (current president) of the United States,
• president-elect George W. Bush was declared prezidonto (president-to-be),
• the previous president George H. W. Bush was a prezidinto (former president), and
• the contending candidate Al Gore was prezidunto (would-be president – that is, if the recount had gone differently).

Note that this example is somewhat artificial, since the customary word for 'president' is the tense-neutral word prezidento, which is officially a separate root, not a derivative of the verb prezidi.

The conditional forms are nonce words, but their regular derivation ensures they are readily understood, even if rarely needed. No European language has conditional participles; in English, words like prezidunto must be expressed periphrastically.

Likewise, some Esperantists have proposed a tenseless partiple, though only for active-participle role. The element -ento is not officially a participle or even a separate morpheme, but it is very common and is sometimes regarded as a suffix. It frequently occurs in words for occupations where one would not wish to specify tense, such as prezidento or studento (student). Since there is often a verb derived from the same Latin root, in these cases prezidi (to preside) and studi (to study), this -ento has occasionally been proposed as a tense-neutral active participle by analogy with the temporal participles -anto, -into, -onto.

However, even if the participial paradigm were to be extended in this way, it would be asymmetric in that there can be no direct passive counterpart to *-ento because the expected -eto already exists as the diminutive suffix. The nearest equivalent is the middle voice suffix -iĝi, which is commonly used as a generic passive. Unlike the active case, where a few new nouns like prezidento were sufficient to avoid making the language overly specific, a need for a neutral passive participle was felt in the verbs. For example, there was heated debate for several decades as to whether "I was born in 19xx" should be mi estis naskita (I had been born) or mi estis naskata (literally 'I was being born'), with the French and Germans generally holding opposite opinions deriving from usage in their native languages. Today, people sidestep the issue with the temporally neutral mi naskiĝis (I was born).

Negativo

A statement is made negative by using ne or one of the negative (neni-) correlatives. Only one negative word is allowed per clause:

Mi ne faris ion ajn. I didn't do anything.

*Mi ne faris nenion ajn (I didn't do nothing) is considered nonsensical.

The word ne comes before the word it negates, with the default position being before the verb:

Mi ne skribis tion (I didn't write that)

Ne mi skribis tion (It wasn't me who wrote that)

Mi skribis ne tion (It wasn't that that I wrote)

The latter will frequently be reordered as ne tion mi skribis depending on the flow of information.

Interrogación

Main article: Interrogatives in Esperanto

"Wh" questions are asked with one of the interrogative/relative (ki-) correlatives. They are commonly placed at the beginning of the sentence, but different word orders are allowed for stress:

Li scias, kion vi faris (He knows what you did.)

Kion vi faris? (What did you do?)

Vi faris kion? (You did what?)

Yes/no questions are marked with the conjunction ĉu (whether):

Mi ne scias, ĉu li venos (I don't know whether he'll come)

Ĉu li venos? (Will he come?)

Such questions can be answered jes (yes) or ne (no) in the European fashion of aligning with the polarity of the answer, or ĝuste (correct) or malĝuste (incorrect) in the Japanese fashion of aligning with the polarity of the question:

Ĉu vi ne iris? (Did you not go?)

— Ne, mi ne iris (No, I didn't go); — Jes, mi iris (Yes, I went)

— Ĝuste, mi ne iris (Correct, I didn't go); — Malĝuste, mi iris (No, I did go)

Note that Esperanto questions may have the same word order as statements.

Conjunciones

Basic Esperanto conjunctions are kaj (both/and), aŭ (either/or), nek (neither/nor), se (if), ĉu (whether/or), sed (but), anstataŭ (instead of), krom (besides, in addition to), kiel (like, as), ke (that). Like prepositions, they precede the phrase or clause they modify:

Mi vidis kaj lin kaj lian amikon (I saw both him and his friend)

Estis nek hele nek agrable (it was neither clear [sunny] nor pleasant)

ĉu pro kaprico, ĉu pro natura lingvo-evoluo (whether by whim, or by natural language development)

Li volus, ke ni iru (he would like us to go)

However, unlike prepositions, they allow the accusative case, as in the following example from Don Harlow:

Li traktis min kiel princon (He treated me like a prince: that is, as he would treat a prince)

Li traktis min kiel princo (He treated me like a prince: that is, as a prince would treat me)

Interjecciones

Since interjections have no part-of-speech suffix, they may be derived from bare affixes or roots: ek! (get going!), from the perfective prefix; um (um, er), from the indefinite/undefined suffix; fek! (shit!), from feki (to defecate).

Formación de palabras

Main article: Esperanto word formation

Esperanto derivational morphology uses a large number of lexical and grammatical affixes (prefixes and suffixes). These, along with compounding, decrease the memory load of the language, as they allow for the expansion of a relatively small number of basic roots into a large vocabulary. For example, the Esperanto root vid- (see) regularly corresponds to several dozen English words: see (saw, seen), sight, blind, vision, visual, visible, nonvisual, invisible, unsightly, glance, view, vista, panorama, observant etc., though there are also separate Esperanto roots for a couple of these concepts.

Números

Numerales

The cardinal numerals are:

nul (zero)

unu (one)

du (two)

tri (three)

kvar (four)

kvin (five)

ses (six)

sep (seven)

ok (eight)

naŭ (nine)

dek (ten)

cent (one hundred)

mil (one thousand)

These are grammatically numerals, not nouns, and as such do not take the accusative case suffix. However, unu (and only unu) is sometimes used adjectivally or demonstratively, meaning "a certain", and in such cases it may take the plural affix -j, just as the demonstrative pronoun tiu does:

unuj homoj

"certain people";

ili kuris unuj post la aliaj

"they ran some after others".

In such use unu is irregular in that it doesn't take the accusative affix -n in the singular, but does in the plural:

ian unu ideon

"some particular idea",

but

unuj objektoj venis en unujn manojn, aliaj en aliajn manojn

"some objects come into certain hands, others into other hands".

Additionally, when counting off, the final u of unu may be dropped, as if it were a part-of-speech suffix:

Un'! Du! Tri! Kvar!

Números elevados

As in other languages, there are several systems for numbers above a million. A billion in the US and Russia is different from a billion in France and Germany (10⁹ vs. 10¹² respectively; that is, a thousand million vs. a million million), and Esperanto biliono is likewise ambiguous. However, there is an additional unambiguous system:

10⁶: miliono

10⁹: miliardo (or mil milionoj)

10¹²: duiliono

10¹⁵: duiliardo (or mil duilionoj)

10¹⁸: triiliono

10²¹: triiliardo (or mil triilionoj)

etc.

Note that these are not numerals but nouns, and behave as such.

An additional unambiguous system is provided by the international set of metric prefixes, and occasionally the nonce numerals meg (miliono) and gig (miliardo) are derived from them.

Números compuestos y Derivativos

Numerals are written together as one word when their values are multiplied, and separately when their values are added (dudek 20, dek du 12, dudek du 22). Ordinals are formed with the adjectival suffix -a, quantities with the nominal suffix -o, multiples with -obl-, fractions with -on-, collectives with -op-, and repetitions with the root -foj-.

sescent sepdek kvin (675)

tria (third [as in first, second, third])

trie (thirdly)

dudeko (a score)

duobla (double)

kvarono (one fourth, a quarter)

duope (by twos)

dufoje (twice)

The particle po is used to mark distributive numbers, that is, the idea of distributing a certain number of items to each member of a group. Consequently the logogram @ is not used (except in email addresses, of course),

mi donis al ili po tri pomojn or pomojn mi donis al ili po tri (I gave them three apples each).

Note that particle po forms a phrase with the numeral tri and is not a preposition for the noun phrase tri pomojn, so it does not prevent a grammatical object from taking the accusative case.

Comparaciones

Comparisons are made with the adverbial correlatives tiel ... kiel (as ... as), the adverbial roots pli (more) and plej (most), the antonym prefix mal-, and the preposition ol (than):

mi skribas tiel bone kiel vi (I write as well as you)

tiu estas pli bona ol tiu (this one is better than that one)

tio estas la plej bona (that's the best)

la mia estas malpli multekosta ol la via (mine is less expensive than yours)

Implied comparisons are made with tre (very) and tro (too [much]).

Phrases like "The more people, the smaller the portions" and "All the better!" are translated using ju and des in place of "the":

Ju pli da homoj, des malpli grandaj la porcioj (The more people, the smaller the portions)

Des pli bone! (All the better!)

Aspectos no-indoeuropeos

Although Esperanto is overwhelmingly Romance, Slavic, and Germanic in origin, with a bit of Classical Greek, there are, arguably, elements of the grammar which are not found in these language families. Most noticeably, Esperanto has no ablaut (internal inflection of its roots), something which is nearly universal in the Indo-European languages. Examples of ablaut in English are mouse vs. mice for nouns, less vs. least for adjectives, and run vs. ran for verbs. However, European languages also have many words without ablaut, such as cat vs. cats, fewer vs. fewest, and walk vs. walked. (This is the so-called strong-weak dichotomy.) Indeed, for many European languages the majority of words inflect without ablaut; Esperanto merely extends this tendency. The closest Esperanto comes to ablaut is in a few sets of related root words such as pli, plu, plej (more, more, most), tre, tro (very, too much), and the verbal morphemes -as, -anta, -ata; -is, -inta, -ita; and -os, -onta, -ota.

Sometimes the part-of-speech endings are given as another example of non-European grammar, but they are similar in their essentials to the more complex system of Russian, which has separate sets of suffixes for nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. At first Esperanto may appear to stand out in having a suffix for the nominative-singular inflection of nouns, but this is parallel to the feminine and neuter nouns of Russian and Latin; as a rule, bare noun roots only occur in those languages when masculine in gender. Although it is not the source of the Esperanto system, Icelandic is an example of a European language with a general nominative-singular suffix.

Other arguably non-Indo-European features are derived through regular analogic extension of standard European grammatical structures. For example, the nominal-adjectival paradigm is taken from Greek: Esperanto nominative singular muso (mouse) vs. Greek mousa, nominative plural musoj vs. Greek mousai, and accusative singular muson vs. Greek mousan. However, Esperanto does not have a separate portmanteau accusative plural suffix like Greek mous-ās; rather, it compounds the accusative and plural suffixes for this use: mus-o-j-n. It has been claimed that this system is similar to Hungarian and Turkish grammar in its mechanics; however, those languages do not have the grammatical singular-plural distinction that Esperanto and the Indo-European languages do.

A more clearly non-Indo-European feature is the future participle. Many European languages have three tenses, past, present, and future, but only two participles, past and present. Esperanto extends this system to a pair of future participles, -onta and -ota, which are transparently related both to the future verbal tense -os and to the other participles (-anta, -ata; -inta, -ita, which reflect the vowels of the present and past verbal tenses -as, -is). Occasionally this system has been extended further, with nonce conditional participles -unta and -uta derived from the conditional mood in -us.

In none of these cases were the non-Indoeuropean elements of Esperanto grammar taken from other language families such as Semitic, Fenno-Ugric, or Turkic. Rather, they were derived through internal extensions of existing European grammatical structures.

Texto de muestra

The paternoster, from the first Esperanto publication in 1887, illustrates many of the grammatical points presented above, and should be readable without translation,

Patro nia, kiu estas en la ĉieloj,

sanktigata estu via nomo.

Venu via regno,

fariĝu via volo,

kiel en la ĉielo, kaj sur la tero.

Panon nian ĉiutagan donu al ni hodiaǔ.

Kaj pardonu al ni niajn ŝuldojn,

kiel ankaǔ ni pardonas al niaj ŝuldantoj.

Kaj ne konduku nin en tenton,

sed liberigu nin de la malbono.

(Ĉar via estas la regno kaj la potenco

kaj la gloro eterne.

Amen.)

(A slightly different version.)

The morphologically complex words (see Esperanto word formation) are,

sanktigata
sankt	-ig	-at	-a
holy	causative	passive participle	adjective
"made holy"

fariĝu
far	-iĝ	-u
do	middle voice	jussive
"be done"

ĉiutagan
ĉiu	-tag	-a	-n
every	day	adjective	accusative
"daily"

ŝuldantoj
ŝuld	-ant	-o	-j
owe	active participle	noun	plural
"debtors"

liberigu nin
liber	-ig	-u	ni	-n
free	causative	jussive	we	accusative
"free us"

la malbono
la	mal	-bon	-o
generic article	antonym	good	noun
"evil"

Enlaces externos

A fairly good overview of Esperanto's grammar and word-building system can be gained by viewing "The Sixteen Rules of Esperanto", "The Esperanto Correlatives" and "Word Building With Esperanto Affixes"

Also see Jiri Hana's Master thesis overview of Esperanto:

"Esperanto Grammar"