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Esperanto’s grammar is much the same, overall, as most European languages, but greatly simplified. That is, it has the same parts of speech that perform the same tasks in sentences in much the same way, but irregularities have been omitted, for the most part. The table below lists the various parts of speech, the endings each can have, and what those endings mean. Click on the name of the part of speech for more details.
| Part | Endings | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| noun | −o | nominative singular, used as subject of a sentence or object of a preposition |
| −oj | nominative plural, used as subject of a sentence or object of a preposition | |
| −on | accusative singular, used as object of a verb, and has some other functions as well | |
| −ojn | accusative plural, used as object of a verb, and has some other functions as well | |
| pronoun | (none) | nominative, as for a noun |
| −n | accusative, as for a noun | |
| (as for adjective) | shows possession | |
| adjective | −a | ending corresponds to the ending of the noun modified |
| −aj | ||
| −an | ||
| −ajn | ||
| adverb | −e | ordinary adverb |
| −en | adverb of place, modified to show movement toward that place | |
| verb | −i | infinitive |
| −is | past tense | |
| −as | present tense | |
| −os | future tense | |
| −us | conditional mood | |
| −u | imperative/volative mood | |
| −int− | past active participle | |
| −ant− | present active participle | |
| −ont− | future active participle | |
| −it− | past passive participle | |
| −at− | present passive participle | |
| −ot− | future passive participle | |
| correlative | (various) | (detailed separately) |
| particle | (none) | various sub-parts of speech |
The hyphen at the end of a participle ending indicates that the word requires one of the noun, adjective, or adverb endings, depending on context.
The big gotcha! |
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| This feature of Esperanto grammar is the single hardest one for speakers of English to get used to. Once you get past this, the rest is easy. |
English has this feature, after a fashion, but we see it only in pronouns, not in nouns. Notice that we have pairs of pronouns with the same meanings, differing only in the places they are used in sentences: I/me, we/us, he/him, she/her, they/them, and who/whom (and formerly thou/thee, ye/you, and it/him). The first word of each pair is used when the word is the subject of a sentence, and the second when it is the object of a verb or preposition.
Esperanto has this distinction, not only for pronouns, but for nouns and some correlatives as well. For both, the difference is in the addition of the −n ending on the word.
I’ll illustrate this with a simple sentence:
«Mia edzino havas hundon, kiu enterigas ostojn en nia lito.» “My wife has a dog who buries bones in our bed.” Let’s take this apart one word at a time.
| mia | “my”, from mi (I), with an adjective ending to make it possessive. |
| edzino | “wife”, ends with −o, because it’s the subject of the sentence. |
| havas | “has”, a verb in the present tense. |
| hundon | “a dog”, ends with −n, because it’s the direct object of the verb. |
| kiu | “which”, has no −n, because it’s the subject of the subordinate clause. |
| enterigas | “buries”, the verb in the subordinate clause. |
| ostojn | “bones”, ends with −j because it’s plural, then with −n because it’s the direct object in the subordinate clause. |
| en | “in”, a preposition |
| nia | “our”, possessive of ni (we). |
| lito | “bed”, has no −n, because objects of prepositions are usually in the nominative case. |
Other uses of the accusative:
Questions or suggestions? Please write, and I’ll get back to you.
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