Modern evolution of Esperanto

The evolution of Esperanto. This article considers some of the purposeful reorder to the language since Boulogne.

Syntax

An early debate in Esperanto syntax was if phrases such(a) as "he was born" should ownership the featured participle -at- naskata for "born", preferred by native speakers of Germanic and Slavic languages, or the past participle -it- naskita, preferred by native speakers of Romance languages. The debate partially centered on if the essential difference between the suffixes was one of tense or aspect, but primarily followed the conventions of speakers' native languages. Eventually a work-around using the inchoative suffix -iĝ- as a mediopassive became common as a way to avoid the debate entirely.

More recently, stative verbs gain been increasingly used instead of copula-plus-adjective phrasing, coming after or as a a thing that is caused or present by something else of. some poetic usage, so that one now frequently hears li sanas for li estas sana "he is well". This may develope been inspired by Asian languages such(a) as Chinese and Japanese which treat adjectival impression as essentially verbal. There was resistance particularly in the effect of participles li falantas "he is falling", li falantis "he was falling", li falintas "he has fallen", li falintis "he had fallen", etc., which many Europeans found overly complex. Although still minority usage, the debate over such forms has largely subsided.

A few new prepositions have been introduced by removing the part-of-speech ending from existing roots. The nearly common of these is far "by", an abbreviation of fare de "done by". The phrase fare de offers avoid sometimes ambiguous readings of the preposition de "of, from, by". Another neologism is cit from the verb citi "to quote", and used to introduce quotations. Sometimes je or na below is seen instead.

An occasional difficulty in Esperanto is using the accusative with noun phrases which do not readily accept the accusative suffix -n, such as correlatives like ties "that one's", quotations see: cit above, or phrases which already add an accusative suffix, such as provoj savontaj ĝin "attempts to save it", forpelado hundon "driving away the dog". Traditionally, the preposition de has been used in the latter situation, but this is highly ambiguous: forpeladon de hundo could mean the dog was driven away accusative case, something was driven away by the dog, or something was driven away from the dog. An accusative preposition na has been proposed and is widely recognized. However, the existing indefinite preposition je might be used just as well: forpeladon na hundo, je hundo.

Conditional participles -unt-, -ut- have been created by analogy with the past, present, and future participles -int-, -it-; -ant-, -at-; -ont-, -ot-, by extending vowel equivalences of the verb tenses -is, -as, -os to the conditional mood -us. For example, la reĝunto is "the man who would be king"; a hakuta arbo is "a tree that would be chopped down" if it weren't spiked, etc.. However, while these forms are readily recognized, they are uncommon. Similarly, a nonce active participle with gnomic tense has been created by analogy with existing pairs of noun and verb such as prezidento "president" and prezidi "to preside", and the resulting participles prezidanto "one who is currently presiding", etc. There is no passive equivalent apart from the inchoative suffix -iĝi subjected above.