Esperanto grammar
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Esperanto is a constructed language. It is designed to have a highly regular grammar, and as such is considered an easy language to learn.
Each part of speech has a unique suffix: nouns end with ‑o; adjectives with ‑a; present‑tense indicative verbs with ‑as, and so on.
It is possible to communicate effectively with a vocabulary of 400 to 500 "meaning words", though more exist in the language. The original vocabulary of Esperanto had around 900 meaning words, but was quickly expanded.
Reference grammars include the Plena Analiza Gramatiko (eo) (English: Complete Analytical Grammar) by Kálmán Kalocsay and Gaston Waringhien, and the Plena Manlibro de Esperanta Gramatiko (English: Complete Handbook of Esperanto Grammar) by Bertilo Wennergren.
Grammatical summary[edit]
Esperanto has an agglutinative morphology, no grammatical gender, and simple verbal and nominal inflections. Verbal suffixes indicate four moods, of which the indicative has three tenses, and are derived for several aspects, but do not agree with the grammatical person or number of their subjects. Nouns and adjectives have two cases, nominative/oblique and accusative/allative, and two numbers, singular and plural; the adjectival form of personal pronouns behaves like a genitive case. Adjectives generally agree with nouns in case and number. In addition to indicating direct objects, the accusative/allative case is used with nouns, adjectives and adverbs for showing the destination of a motion, or for replacing certain prepositions; the nominative/oblique is used in all other situations. The case system allows for a flexible word order that reflects information flow and other pragmatic concerns, as in Russian, Greek, and Latin.
Script and pronunciation[edit]
Esperanto uses the Latin alphabet with six additional letters – ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, and ŭ – and does not use the letters q, w, x, or y.
Zamenhof suggested Italian as a model for Esperanto pronunciation.
The article[edit]
Esperanto has a single definite article, la, which is invariable. It is similar to English "the".
La is used:
- For identifiable, countable objects:
- Mi trovis botelon kaj deprenis la fermilon.
- "I found a bottle and took off the lid."
- Mi trovis botelon kaj deprenis la fermilon.
- For representative individuals:
- La gepardo estas la plej rapida el la bestoj.
- "The cheetah is the fastest of the animals."
- La abeloj havas felon, sed ili ne taŭgas por karesi.
- "Bees have fur, but they're no good for petting."
- La gepardo estas la plej rapida el la bestoj.
- For adjectives used as nouns, such as ethnic adjectives used as the names of languages:
- la blua
- "the blue one"
- la angla
- "English" (i.e. "the English language")
- la blua
- For possessive pronouns, when definite:
- La mia bluas, la via ruĝas.
- "Mine is blue, yours is red".
- La mia bluas, la via ruĝas.
The article is also used for inalienable possession of body parts and kin terms, where English would use a possessive adjective:
- Ili tranĉis la manon.
- "They cut their hands." [one hand each]
The article la, like the demonstrative adjective tiu (this, that), occurs at the beginning of the noun phrase.
There is no grammatically required indefinite article: homo means either "human being" or "a human being", depending on the context, and similarly the plural homoj means "human beings" or "some human beings". The words iu and unu (or their plurals iuj and unuj) may be used somewhat like indefinite articles, but they're closer in meaning to "some" and "a certain" than to English "a". This use of unu corresponds to English "a" when the "a" indicates a specific individual.[1]
Parts of speech[edit]
The suffixes ‑o, ‑a, ‑e, and ‑i indicate that a word is a noun, adjective, adverb, and infinitive verb, respectively. Many new words can be derived simply by changing these suffixes. Derivations from the word vidi (to see) are vida (visual), vide (visually), and vido (vision).
Each root word has an inherent part of speech: nominal, adjectival, verbal, or adverbial. These must be memorized explicitly and affect the use of the part-of-speech suffixes. With an adjectival or verbal root, the nominal suffix ‑o indicates an abstraction: parolo (an act of speech, one's word) from the verbal root paroli (to speak); belo (beauty) from the adjectival root bela (beautiful); whereas with a noun, the nominal suffix simply indicates the noun. Nominal or verbal roots may likewise be modified with the adjectival suffix ‑a: reĝa (royal), from the nominal root reĝo (a king); parola (spoken). The various verbal endings mean to be [__] when added to an adjectival root: beli (to be beautiful); and with a nominal root they mean "to act as" the noun, "to use" the noun, etc., depending on the semantics of the root: reĝi (to reign). There are relatively few adverbial roots, so most words ending in -e are derived: bele (beautifully). Often with a nominal or verbal root, the English equivalent is a prepositional phrase: parole (by speech, orally); vide (by sight, visually); reĝe (like a king, royally).
The meanings of part-of-speech affixes depend on the inherent part of speech of the root they are applied to. For example, brosi (to brush) is based on a nominal root (and therefore listed in modern dictionaries under the entry broso), whereas kombi (to comb) is based on a verbal root (and therefore listed under kombi). Change the suffix to -o, and the similar meanings of brosi and kombi diverge: broso is a brush, the name of an instrument, whereas kombo is a combing, the name of an action. That is, changing verbal kombi (to comb) to a noun simply creates the name for the action; for the name of the tool, the suffix -ilo is used, which derives words for instruments from verbal roots: kombilo (a comb). On the other hand, changing the nominal root broso (a brush) to a verb gives the action associated with that noun, brosi (to brush). For the name of the action, the suffix -ado will change a derived verb back to a noun: brosado (a brushing). Similarly, an abstraction of a nominal root (changing it to an adjective and then back to a noun) requires the suffix -eco, as in infaneco (childhood), but an abstraction of an adjectival or verbal root merely requires the nominal -o: belo (beauty). Nevertheless, redundantly affixed forms such as beleco are acceptable and widely used.
A limited number of basic adverbs do not end with -e, but with an undefined part-of-speech ending -aŭ. Not all words ending in -aŭ are adverbs, and most of the adverbs that end in -aŭ have other functions, such as hodiaŭ "today" [noun or adverb] or ankoraŭ "yet, still" [conjunction or adverb]. 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.)
Other parts of speech occur as bare roots, without special suffixes. These are the prepositions (al "to"), conjunctions (kaj "and"), interjections (ho "oh"), numerals (du "two"), and pronouns (mi "I"—The final -i found on pronouns is not a suffix, but part of the root). There are also several grammatical "particles" that fit neatly into no category, and which must generally precede the words they modify, such as ne (not), ankaŭ (also), nur (only), eĉ (even).
Nouns and adjectives[edit]
A suffix -j following the noun or adjective suffixes -o or -a makes a word plural. Without this suffix, a countable noun is understood to be singular. Direct objects take an accusative case suffix -n, which goes after any plural suffix. (The resulting sequence -ojn rhymes with English coin, and -ajn rhymes with fine.)
Adjectives agree with nouns. That is, they are plural if the nouns that they modify are plural, and accusative if the nouns that they modify are accusative. Compare bona tago; bonaj tagoj; bonan tagon; bonajn tagojn (good day/days). This requirement allows for free word orders of adjective-noun and noun-adjective, even when two noun phrases are adjacent in subject–object–verb or verb–subject–object clauses:
- la knabino feliĉan knabon kisis (the girl kissed a happy boy)
- la knabino feliĉa knabon kisis (the happy girl kissed a boy).
Agreement clarifies the syntax in other ways also. Adjectives take the plural suffix when they modify more than one noun, even if those nouns are all singular:
- ruĝaj domo kaj aŭto (a red house and [a red] car)
- ruĝa domo kaj aŭto (a red house and a car).
A predicative adjective does not take the accusative case suffix even when the noun that it modifies does:
- mi farbis la pordon ruĝan (I painted the red door)
- mi farbis la pordon ruĝa (I painted the door red).
Pronouns[edit]
There are three types of pronouns in Esperanto: personal (vi "you"), demonstrative (tio "that", iu "someone"), and relative/interrogative (kio "what"). According to the fifth rule[2] of the Fundamento de Esperanto:
5. The personal pronouns are: mi, "I"; vi, "thou", "you"; li, "he"; ŝi, "she"; ĝi, "it"; si, "self"; ni, "we"; ili, "they"; oni, "one", "people", (French "on").
— L. L. Zamenhof, Fundamento de Esperanto (1905)
Personal pronouns[edit]
The Esperanto personal pronoun system is similar to that of English, but with the addition of a reflexive pronoun.
| singular | plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| first person | mi (I) | ni (we) | |
| second person | vi (you)
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