The Rise of An Ablative-Like Case from the Adverbial Termination in Esperanto

In Esperanto each major part of speech takes a different grammatical ending in order to indicate just that: the part of speech. There are special endings for nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. These form an imperative function of the language and are merely a subset of a rich system of agglutination. Of these four endings--or perhaps, root-modifiers--it seems that the adverb was perceived as the least important and commonly used in Esperanto's early days, and is still perceived as the least useful by most beginners (including myself, until very recently). Indeed, the adverbial "-e" termination certainly is the simplest by the bare definition of the language's hailed "16 rules". Unlike nouns or adjectives which use agglutination of additional suffixes to indicate number and the accusative case, and unlike verbs which use a more inflectional system to indicate tense, mood, etc., the adverbial termination takes no additional modifications. So, from a literal point of view, yes, the adverbs are the simplest part of speech in Esperanto. And, up until the 1950s, this was probably true in practice. Now, however, it is safe to say that the adverb is the least understood and probably second or third most complex piece of the international language.

Since the 1950s, the adverb in Esperanto has taken on a role similar to (I believe) the ablative case. If I am correct, the ablative case is a case used in certain very conservative languages (Latin, Slavic languages) which indicates an "agent, instrument, or location" (dictionary definition). So words and phrases like "by means of", "to", and "for" are represented with the ablative declension of nouns. In Esperanto the adverbial "-e" termination is filling a somewhat similar role in conversational speech. The word with the "-e" ending still is, of course, an adverb, but the substitution of the "-e" ending for the -o ending (the ending for nouns. Grammatical endings can be freely replaced in Esperanto to form different forms of the same root for different purposes: e.g. varmo - warmth, varma - warm, varme - warmly, etc.) replaces whatever ablative-like preposition would be used before the noun. I'm pretty bad at explaining this, so an example will probably do way better than me. This is an excellent example I got from some french guy. Take the sentence, "I will take a train to the Esperanto congress." In formal Esperanto this translates to: "Mi iros per trajno al la kongreso de Esperanto." (literally: "I will go by means of a train to the congress of Esperanto.") Since Esperanto has always had free word compounding, it would be very common to see "kongreso de Esperanto" shortened to "Esperantkongreso" (literally: Esperanto congress). Regardless, this is pretty much how this sentence would have been formed at the turn of the last century by the experienced Esperantist. Now, at the turn of this century, it would be fair to expect the experienced Esperantist to say something like "Mi alesperantkongresos trajne." (very, very literally: "I will to-the-Esperanto-congress trainly"). Aside from the obvious increase in the tendency to compound words, two things are evident. First, there is the tendency to shorten the standard "iri al destination" (to go to wherever) to using the destination with a verbal ending and the preposition "al" as a prefix. And second, there is the replacement of "per trajno" (by means of the train) with "trajne" ("trainly"). The first change is kind of cool, but the second one is what I've been talking about. The change from "per trajno" to "trajne" replaces the -o (noun) ending with an -e (adverb) ending, and it drops the preposition "per" (by means of). In effect, the adverb ending is kind of assuming the role of the preposition, and acting like an ablative case (but not entirely, since the word is technically no longer a noun. But "trajne" can still be validly replaced by "per trajno"). The most common instance of this dropping of a preposition in favor of the adverb ending is in relation to time. Let take the example of "Mi aĉetas florojn en la somero" (literally: I buy flowers in the summer.) During the infancy of Esperanto (if one no longer considers it an infant) this would be common usage, and indeed, to the English speaker this makes sense because we literally say the same thing in English. Current experienced speakers of Esperanto would not often use this form however. They would probably say or write "Mi aĉetas florojn somere." (very literally: I buy flowers summerly.) Again, the more compact form with the adverb ending is favored, with "somere" and its adverb ending replacing the preposition "en" in "en la somero" (the article "la" is also dropped because "somere" is not a noun). "En" is a preposition of location (temporal and physical), and its role is assumed by the adverb ending again. In the preceeding example, it would probably be more appropriate to use the preposition "dum" (during) instead of "en". But regardless, the adverb ending could and would most often still replace "dum". The replacement of prepositions of time, location, "agent", "instrument", etc. by some kind of modification to the noun is characteristic of the ablative case, and in a liberal sense, is what I believe is happening in Esperanto with the "-e" ending.

I have provided only 2 examples to prove a reletively radical point to the reader, and I am certain that he/she is not satified with my evidence unless she/he is an experienced Esperantist. Nevertheless, I ask the reader to take what I say without additional evidence (assuming they have droned their way through all of this boring junk far enough to actually read this) in a leap of faith, and trust that if I had the time or desire, I could devise at least 10 times as many examples to illustrate my point as the number presented here.