Questions tagged [word-formation]
Use it for questions about how words are created from affixes and roots.
14 questions
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What are the differences between malfacilo, malfacileco, and malfacilaĵo?
I'm having a hard time understanding the difference among malfacilo, malfacileco, and malfacilaĵo. I suppose they all mean difficulty, but what's the difference?
For example, should This project is ...
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Is word formation of Esperanto not accurate?
We know that Esperanto has two ways to create a word: Using a root word and adding suffixes, or borrowing a word from other languages and reforming it. However, I doubt that the former method could ...
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Can words be "derived" on the fly?
I recently starting learning Esperanto, and I am enjoying it so far. (I am enrolled in the Duolingo course.) The Wikipedia page for Esperanto says:
Esperanto words are mostly derived by stringing ...
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Why Esperanto uses "j" in the plural instead of "s"?
Is there any historical reason for this?
Does any language use j to indicate the plural?
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Why are there differences between nation names in Esperanto? / Kial estas diferencoj inter nomoj de nacioj en Esperanto?
English: Hello. Why does one translate frenchmen, Italians, Germans and Poles to "Francoj", "Italoj", "Germanoj" and "Poloj"; but translates other nations as Iranians and Americans to "Irananoj" (Iran+...
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How many roots exists in common usage and officially compared to other languages?
In the Unua Libro, Zamenhof presented some 900 roots that can be used to form a wide variety of Esperanto words. As far as I know, in later conferences new lists of words were added to the official ...
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Why "foj" is repeated in "fojfoje"?
The word fojfoje has a repetition of the root foj. Why and how does this alter the meaning of the word, compared to the word foje?
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Do Esperanto lexemes have base types or are there neutral roots?
English:
I read in an article some time ago that people had let go of the idea that Esperanto words have a root that is free of word type, believing instead that there is a 'default' word type (a ...
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Converting verbs to nouns
Suppose I have a verb, for example kunfandiĝi (hopefully something like to merge), but I want a noun describing a process of that word (in this case, to merge would in English become merging).
Is ...
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"far"="fare de", "per"="pere de", ĉu oni povus apliki ĉi tiun regulon al aliaj vortoj?
far="fare de", per="pere de", do ĉu oni povus apliki ĉi tiun regulon al aliaj vortoj. Ekz. dir = "dire de", aŭ eĉ leg = "lege de", la libro leg mi estas bona., la vortoj dir li estas malĝustaj.
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Does every root have an assigned primary use?
This may be important for example for the affix -iĝ-, which has two somewhat different main uses depending on whether it's derived from a verbal or nonverbal root (further dividing between adjectives, ...
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Word construction with an adjective
It seems to me that sometimes one uses a root that is really an adjective in building a word, but if the pronunciation is hard, it seemed to me that PMEG states I should put in o. Example found in ...
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Should we create new words with "oŭ"?
This sound is very rare, I only know poŭpo and toŭfuo. Because of that, it is probably hard to pronounce for some speakers. Yet, oŭ can be useful if we need to create a new word that sounds very ...
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Is there a rule for when not to turn an adjective into a verb?
Examples:
Mi estas malsata = Mi malsatas
Tio estus bona = Tio bonus
Are there rules about when this is not allowed? Or can any adjective be turned into a verb at any time?
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