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ITA-ATA

© David Poulson

UNCOMFORTABLE OVER-PRECISION

During the discussion of a recent Esperanto Topic article a question was raised about the use of past participles in Esperanto. After some thought I decided that I would take the opportunity to deal with this issue at length because, it appeared for a while to be a very important matter to the Esperanto movement. (Well, at least to some of it!)

It seemed that even the most proficient users of the language just could not agree exactly when and where the "estas -ata" combination should be used, and where the "estas -ita" form was most appropriate. Since Esperanto was (and is) described as a logical language and since its grammar is claimed to be both easy to learn and completely consistent, it seems very curious that people could not agree over this one area of usage.

Well it is very curious and I think that it's worth a few hundred words of discussion to try to figure out - not a definitive answer to this controversial question- but how come such a problem occurred in the first place. (Here, I might add, it isn't the only problem of this kind to be found in Esperanto. The whole issue of transitive and intransitive verbs, for example, is a real can of worms which I am definitely not going to open.)

Let me first say a word of apology to any readers who are making their first visit to this Topic. I have now written 35 articles and have not until now found it necessary to explore a grammatical issue. So if this particular article seems to you incomprehensible, please ignore it for the time being and begin to find out more about Esperanto right here, at the beginning of the series, instead.

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/espe...

And for those of you still with me, let me hand over for a moment to Montagu Butler, the author of one of the best textbooks on Esperanto ever written (see below for details) who very sensibly summarises and disposes of what he described as a:

STORM IN A TEA-CUP

Peter was born (the telephone was installed) in 1962. Estis -ata-ita?

For many years controversy has raged over this question. On both sides equally, eminent Esperantists have written thousands of pages, with no sign of reaching agreement. One side appeals to frequent usage: the other to logic and the Fundamento, and to Zamenhof's words: "En la lingvo Internacia oni devas obei sole nur la logikon." ("In the international language only logic must be obeyed.")

The copyright of the article ITA-ATA in Esperanto is owned by David Poulson. Permission to republish ITA-ATA in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.