BASIC GRAMMAR OF ESPERANTO

A. Alphabet

(The letters which are followed by the " ^ " actually have circumflexes as accents: as there is no ASCII equivalent this is one of the manners in which the accented letters are represented in computer wordprocessing screens and on bulletin board "electronic mail" systems. The tilde following the second " u " indicates that this letter is also accented, though with an upside down, rounded circumflex (a "breve" accent). The most common methods used in ASCII documents is to indicate the accented letter with either: " ^ " [before or after the letter]; " x " [after the letter]; " < " [before or after the letter], or the following solution proposed by Zamenhof himself).

**(Remark (of Zamenhof's): Presses which do not possess the accented letters can use instead of them: ch, gh, hh, jh, sh, and u.

B. Rules

1) There is no INDEFINITE ARTICLE; there is only a DEFINITE ARTICLE (la), alike for both sexes, all cases and numbers.

Remark: The use of the article is the same as in the other languages. People who find a difficulty in the use of the article need not at first use it at all.

2) SUBSTANTIVES (nouns, pronouns) have the termination " -o ". To form the plural the termination " -j" is added. There are only two cases: NOMINATIVE (subject) and ACCUSATIVE (object); the latter is obtained from the nominative by the addition of the termination " -n ". The rest of the cases are expressed by the aid of prepositions (the genitive by "de", the dative by "al", the ablative by "per" or other prepositions according to sense).

3) The ADJECTIVE ends in " -a ". Case and number as with the substantive. The COMPARATIVE is made by means of the word "pli", the SUPERLATIVE by the word "plej"; with the comparative the conjunction "ol" is used.

4) The cardinal NUMERALS (they are not declined) are: "unu, du, tri, kvar, kvin, ses, sep, ok, nau, dek, cent, mil". The tens and hundreds are formed simple junction of the numerals. To mark the ordinal numbers the termination of the adjective is added to: the multiple, the suffix "-obl"; the fractional, "-on"; for the distributive, the word "po". Substantival and adverbial numerals can also be used.

5) Personal PRONOUNS: "mi, vi, li, shi, ghi (referring to things or animals), si, ni, vi, ili"; the possessive pronouns are formed by the addition of the adjectival termination. Declension is as with the substantives.

6) The VERB undergoes no changes with regard to person or number. Forms of the verb: time being (present) takes the termination "-as"; time having been (past) takes "-is"; time about to be (future) takes "-os". The CONDITIONAL mood uses the termination "-us"; the IMPERATIVE uses "-u". The indefinite (INFINITIVE) mood uses "-i". PARTICIPLES (with an adjectival or adverbial sense): active present: "-ant"; active past: "-int"; active future: "-ont"; passive present: "-at"; passive past: "-it"; passive future: "-ot". All the forms of the passive are formed by the aid of a corresponding form of the verb "esti" (to be" and a passive participle of the required verb; the preposition with the passive is "de".

7) ADVERBS end in " -e ", degrees of comparison as with adjectives.

8) All the PREPOSITIONS require the NOMINATIVE case.

9) Every word is pronounced as it is written.

10) The ACCENT is always on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable.

11) COMPOUND WORDS are formed by simple junction of the words (the chief word stands at the end); the grammatical terminations are also regarded as independent words.

12) When another NEGATIVE word is present the word "ne" is left out.

13) In order to show DIRECTION words take the termination of the accusative case.

14) Each PREPOSITION has a definite and constant meaning: but if we have to use some preposition and the direct sense does not indicate to us what special preposition we are to take, then we use the preposition "je", which has no meaning of its own. Instead of the preposition "je" the accusative without a preposition can also be used.

15) The so-called FOREIGN WORDS, that is, those which the majority of languages have taken from one source, are used in the language Esperanto without change, merely obtaining the spelling of the latter; but with different words from one root it is better to use unchanged only the fundamental word and to form the rest from this latter in accordance with the rules of the Esperanto language.

16) The FINAL VOWEL of the substantive and of the article (la) can be dropped and be replaced by an apostrophe.

(From the First Edition of the "Fundamenta Krestomatio")

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