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Chaining "clarifying" clauses

Esperanto Language Asked on August 24, 2021

(note that I don’t actually know what these clauses are called, and will change the title if necessary)

Let’s start simple, without any chaining.

Kion volas mi?

What do I want? How about making this a little more verbose?

Kio estas tio, kion volas mi?

What is that which I want? What about what you think I want?

Kio estas tio, kion pensas vi, kion volas mi?

Ah, the chaining is beginning to show. How about some more verbosity?

Kio estas tio, kion pensas vi, kio estas tio, kion volas mi?

Now this is starting to look chainable! The question is, however, whether this is actually grammatically valid or not. This is almost definitely something that would not be readily understandable by most, so this question is in terms of grammaticality only. The intent of this question is to be able to express things like the following.

What do you think that he thinks that she thinks that they think that I want?

Again, this is just for grammatical fun rather than actual communication, but if there is a more “kutima” way of expressing something like this, you may include that in your answer.

2 Answers

What you are referring to is wh-movement from an embedded clause, i.e. the extraction of a question word from a subclause and its placing to the front of the clause ("fronting"). The complementizer (ke) should not be confused with interrogative words (kion, kie, …).

In Esperanto, wh-movement does not occur as abundantly as in English and is, in comparison, rather restricted. It is often not just hard to understand, but actually ungrammatical. I am not aware of any research about wh-movement in Esperanto, so these are only some quick guesses:

  • Extraction is more likely to succeed from infinitive clauses (without ke). Compare: Kiun vi supozas, ke Georgo amas? and Kiun vi supozas Georgon ami?
  • Rooting a question word as a complement of a preposition (mostly pri or de) in the main clause is often preferred. It is also an alternative if wh-movement is not possible. Compare: Kiun vi kredas, ke Georgo scias, ke Nadja amas?, which in my opinion is ungrammatical, and Pri kiu vi kredas, ke Georgo scias, ke Nadja amas?, which is better, but not as processable as Pri kiu vi kredas, ke Georgo scias pri li/tiu, ke Nadja amas lin/tiun?
  • In Esperanto (as in English), it is possible to construct question clauses with the question words in-situ. Although such question clauses appear to be marked they are a possible way to phrase the intended question. For example: Vi kredas, ke Georgo scias, ke Nadja amas kiun?
  • There is always the possibility to make more explicit what you want to say by paraphrasing, using variables, or using more than one sentence: Por kiu x vi volas, ke Johano scios, kial Anita diris x? This is, admittedly, the language of mathematics and not comprehensible, in general, but sometimes the best way to express a question. In this case, the following phrasing seems much better: Pri kio vi volas, ke Johano scios, kial Anita diris ĝin?, another variant: Vi volas, ke Johano scios, kial Anita diris ion. Kio estas tio?
  • Some clauses that accept a complement clause can be turned into adverbial prepositional phrases: The ambiguous Ekde kiam vi supozas, ke la universo pligrandiĝas? can be turned into Ekde kiam la universo pligrandiĝas laŭ via supozo?

Answered by fliomu on August 24, 2021

Kio estas tio, kion pensas vi, kio estas tio, kion volas mi?

[...] The question is, however, whether this is actually grammatically valid or not.

Chaining sub-phrases / indirect speech is possible in Esperanto, but "(to) think(,) that <subphrase>" should be translated as "pensi, ke <subfrazo>".

Like English's "(to) think", Esperanto's "pensi, ke" can be used to express a belief or assumption. If you want to be more precise, you can use "kredi, ke" (believe) or "supozi, ke" (assume).

But I'm not really sure, how to correctly put a verb with "ke" into your sub-phrase chain. I'm sure it's possible, but maybe it requires yet more verbosity by introducing the pronoun "ĝi" to refer back to the correlative of the previous sub-phrase:

Kio estas tio, kion pensas vi, ke ĝi estas tio, kion volas mi?

or (equally grammatical) with somewhat more usual word order (subject before verb):

Kio estas tio, kion vi pensas, ke ĝi estas tio, kion mi volas?

Now to:

What do you think that he thinks that she thinks that they think that I want?

Colloquially, that would probably be:

Kion vi supozas, ke li supozas, ke ŝi supozas, ke ili supozas, ke mi volas.

More verbose:

Kion vi supozas, estas tio, kion li supozas, estas tio, kion ŝi supozas, estas tio, kion ili supozas, estas tio, kion mi volas?

Yet more verbose:

Kion vi supozas, ke ĝi estas tio, kion li supozas, ke ĝi estas tio, kion ŝi supozas, ke ĝi estas tio, kion ili supozas, ke ĝi estas tio, kion mi volas?

Answered by das-g on August 24, 2021

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