Esperanto/Lesson 9

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Advanced derivation

We have seen in lesson 4 that new words can be derived by changing the ending of a word and that words can be put together in a compound word. In lesson 6 we have seen that compounds can also be created by tacking on a preposition to a word. Here we will learn yet another way of deriving new words.

Words can also be derived by tacking on a part-of-speech ending or even a suffix to an entire phrase, usually to construction like "en la domo" or "sur la tablo". This is, however, not limited to those: Occasionally entire sentences are even used, such as "Kiel vi fartas?". When this is done, any article in the phrase is normally dropped. Usually, the part-of-speech endings are dropped from words in the middle of the phrase, unless this sounds awkward or would be unclear. The endings of ordinal numbers and possessive pronouns are never dropped. Examples are:

Examples
Base phrase	Meaning	Derived word	Meaning	Audio
en la domo	in the house	endome	in the house
sur la tablo	on the table	surtabla	'... that is on the table'
multaj flankoj	many sides	multflanke	on many sides
kvar anguloj	four angles	kvarangulo by tacking on -o	tetragon, quadrilateral
du sencoj	two meanings	dusenca	ambiguous (with two possibilities)
pluraj sencoj	multiple meanings	plursenca	ambiguous (with multiple possibilities)
pluraj lingvoj	multiple languages	plurlingva	multilingual
la kapo al la tero	the head to the ground	kapaltere	(done) with the head to the ground
sama lando	same country	samlandano	compatriot
alia mondo	different world	alimondulo	someone from another world (figuratively)
Kiel vi fartas?	How are you?	kielvifartasulo	someone who doesn't get passed saying basic phrases in Esperanto
duba senco	dubious meaning	dubasenca	with a dubious meaning
magra kvalito	low (meager) quality	magrakvalite	of a meager quality
povi pagi	(to) can pay	pagipova note that order of the words has to be changed here	able to pay
mia opinio	my opinion	miaopinie	in my opinion
via hejmo	your home	viahejme	at your home/place
unua rango	first rank/grade	unuaranga	first-grade
dua klaso	second class	duaklase	in second class

The new word may then also get affixes tacked on to it:

Examples
Base phrase	Derived word	Meaning	Audio
dubasenca	dubasencaĵo	something dubious
surseĝa	surseĝulo	someone sitting on a chair
dulingva	dulingveco	bilingualism

Occasionally, part-of-speech ending are also added to verbs in the imperative (-u).

Examples
Base phrase	Derived word	Meaning	Audio
vivu!	vivui	to call 'live!', to acclaim, to applaud
savu!	savuo	a call for rescue
helpu!	helpui	to call for help

Exercises

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