Lesson 4:
Nouns

The Article

The Definite Article

The definite article in Esperanto is la; this is approximately equivalent to the English "the". The use of the word varies from barely at all by many asian esperantists to much more than in English by speakers of the romance languages in Europe.

Mi legis la libron.

I read the book.

Lack of an Article

The definite article is the only article in Esperanto, thus the indefinite articles, such as "a", "an", and "some", are not translated into Esperanto.

Mi legis libron.

I read a book.

The Inflections of Nouns

Introduction

The singular nominative form of every noun in Esperanto ends in -o.

La planto, la libro, la vivo

The plant, the book, life

Number

Nouns in Esperanto may be either singular or plural. In order to a make a singular noun plural, add a -j.

La planto, la plantoj

The plant, the plants

Case

There are two nominal cases in Esperanto: nominative and accusative. The nominative is the subject of the verb. The accusative is the direct object of the verb. In order to make a nominative noun accusative, add a -n.

Johano amas Timĉjon. Johanon amas Timĉjo.

John loves Timmy. Timmy loves John.

Elision

What and When

The a in la and the final -o in a singular nominative noun may be omitted for reasons of rhythm and meter. The omitted letter is replaced by an ' For nouns, the stress still falls on the same syllable as it would if the letter were not omitted. L' joins to a nearby word in pronunication.

L' amik'

(lah-MEEK)

The friend