Portal:Esperanto/Grammar of the month
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[edit] /January
In Esperanto, all of the question words begin with the letters "ki:" kio = "what," kie = "where", kiam = "when," kial = "why," and so on. Not only does this allow the question words to be immediately recognizable, common suffixes allow demonstrative, indefinite, and negative words to also be clearly apparent. For example, kio shares a suffix with tio = "this/that," io = "something," and nenio = "nothing," which are all related concepts.
[edit] /February
In Esperanto, the word for "leader" or "boss" is estro. Besides being a stand-alone word, estro can also be used as a suffix. Used as lernejestro (lernejo = "school") it means "principal," and as urbestro (urbo = "city") it means "mayor."
[edit] /March
In Esperanto, there are only six major verb forms. The verbs do not change with the subject or object of the sentence, so the suffixes -as (present tense), -is (past), and -os (future) are always added to the verb's root. The other major verb forms are -i (infinitive), -u (jussive), and -us (conditional). There are no irregular or stem-changing verbs.
[edit] /April
In Esperanto, numbers can be compounded or derived to form larger numbers or related concepts. For example, dudek = "twenty" is made from the words du = "two" and dek = "ten." Likewise, dek du = "twelve" is created from the same numbers, but the different order results in a different number. Also, numbers can be combined with other suffixes to form derivatives: tria = "third" (the adjective suffix -a has been added) and trie = "thirdly" (with the adverb suffix -e instead).
[edit] /May
In order to simplify the amount of vocabulary which needs to be learned, Esperanto uses certain affixes, one of them being the simple prefix "mal-", which creates sets of opposites: bona = "good" and malbona = "bad", dekstra = "right" and maldekstra = "left"...
[edit] /June
The nominal (noun) suffix is "-o", so thus viro = man. We can make this into an adjective (describing word) by adding "-a": vira = manly or masculine.
[edit] /July
In Esperanto, a word may be made plural by simply adding "-j" to the end: domo = house, domoj = houses. (Note: In Esperanto, the letter "j" sounds like an English "y", so domoj is pronounced: "DOH-moy".)
[edit] /August
To make a word female, simply add the suffix "-ino" to the root: patro = "father", patrino = "mother".
[edit] /September
Verbs (action words) are very simple to form in Esperanto: the infinitive (basic verb form) is the root + "-i". For example iri = "to go". To form the present tense, switch the "-i" to "-as": mi iras = "I go" or "I am going" (mi = "I"). The same can be done for past and future tenses: mi iris = "I went" and mi iros = "I will go".
[edit] /October
In Esperanto adverbs (words that describe actions) are formed by changing the "-a" of an adjective to an "-e": rapida = "quick, fast", rapide = "quickly" La ĉevalo kuras rapide. = "The horse runs quickly."
[edit] /November
In Esperanto, the direct object of a sentence is marked by adding "-n" to the end of a noun or adjective: la feliĉa infano = "the happy child" La patrino kisis la feliĉan infanon = "The mother kissed the happy child." The direct object ending is also used after plural nouns and adjectives: La kato pelis la timajn musojn = "The cat chased the frightened mice."
[edit] /December
In Esperanto, there is no grammatical gender. There is only one definite article: la = "the," which never changes, regardless of affixes on the noun it modifies. Also, there is no indefinite article, so kato = "cat" or kato = "a cat," depending on the context.
