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A limited number of Esperanto adverbs do not end with the regular adverbial ending (-e). Many of these function as more than just adverbs, such as hodiau "today" [noun or adverb] and ankorau "yet, still" [conjunction or adverb]. Others are part of the correlative system, and have not been repeated here.
It should be mentioned that the class of 'adverb' is not well defined in any language, and that it is sometimes difficult to say whether a word is an adverb or not. The -e suffix is restricted in Esperanto for cases that are clearly adverbial.
Adverbial roots ending in the undefined pseudo-suffix -au
The pseudo-suffix -au is not part of the root, and in theory may be replaced by other grammatical suffixes, or simply dropped, but in practice this does not occur outside poetry.[1] Not all Esperanto words ending in -au have adverbial uses; an example is the preposition anstatau 'instead of', which can only be used adverbially in the derived form anstataue (rarely anstate).
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Esperanto |
English |
notes |
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ambau |
both |
adjective and adverb |
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ankorau |
still, yet |
conjunction and adverb |
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apenau |
barely |
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baldau |
soon |
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hodiau |
today |
noun and adverb |
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hierau |
yesterday |
noun and adverb |
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kvazau |
as if |
conjunction and adverb |
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morgau |
tomorrow |
noun and adverb |
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preskau |
almost |
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Bare-root adverbs
Other adverbs occur as bare roots; the distinction between bare-root and -au adverbs is obscure. However, some of the bare-root words may be argued to be grammatical particles and not true adverbs, in which case clear adverbs may be derived by adding the ending -e.
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Esperanto |
English |
notes |
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for |
away |
cf. the derived adverb fore |
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jam |
already, yet |
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jus |
just now |
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nun |
now |
noun and adverb |
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nur |
only |
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plej |
most |
cf. the derived adverb pleje |
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pli |
more |
pronoun and adverb; cf. the derived adverb plie |
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plu |
beyond, further |
cf. the derived adverb plue |
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tre |
very |
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tro |
overly, too much |
cf. the derived adverb troe |
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tuj |
at once, immediately |
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References
- ^ "au does not belong to the root, but is only a conventional ending, and is thus as easily left off as the o in nouns." Zamenhof further wrote of the "neutral but definite ending au", that is, that -au does not define the part of speech of the root. He suggested in 1892 that it could be replaced with an apostrophe. (Kalocsay & Waringhien 1985:121.)
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