THE ACCUSATIVE IN INTERLINGUISTICS (1)

by Gaston Waringhien

translated by Don HARLOW

taken from Waringhien, Gaston, Lingvo kaj vivo. La Laguna: Stafeto, 1959. pp. 130-149

The existence of an accusative in Esperanto is often, for beginners or outside viewers, an object of surprise and criticism. And even for many users from Western Europe, this case is a kind of stumbling-block. So the following consideration of the problem may not seem superfluous.

I

THE ACCUSATIVE IN THE NATURAL LANGUAGES

From the viewpoint of general grammar, the accusative is a means of expressing the transformation from a subject to an object. Because, as Charles Bally well demonstrated, (2) "the noun, predestined for the function of subject, is the only sign which is determined without itself being a determinant... It is impossible to conceive of a process without some kind of substance where it takes place." But process is development, evolution, progress -- and conforms to the natural flow of thought in expressing the place of appearance of that process in the same way that it expresses its target, goal or object of concern, i.e. the object of the verb.

It can happen that some acts are presented subject-free (Pluvas; Temas pri...) or object-free (Haltu! Mi akuzas!), but in the great majority of cases clarity demands the expression both of the actor and of the actee -- and it might be said that the subject and the object form, together with the verb, the holy trinity of speech.

Consequently, because the noun is essentially thought of as a subject, it can be further used as an object only with the help of some grammatical means of recognition which shows this transformation and makes this new function precise -- i.e. with the help of a morpheme. A distinction between the two main functions in the proposition is an inevitable necessity, and in fact all languages obey it. An object- expressing morpheme really exists in all the world's languages, and we do not see how a language could do without such. But it exists in four different forms:

1) In all the ancient languages and in some of the modern ones (German, Greek, Lithuanian, Latvian, the Slavic languages) of the Indo-European family, we find an accusative, which presents a special case in the declension of nouns, adjectives and pronouns. Latin, for example, opposes lupum timeo (I fear the wolf) to lupus timet (the wolf is afraid). The ending of this case was, in the ur-tongue, -n in the singular and -ns in the plural. Outside the Indo-European family, we also find an accusative in Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Turkish, Mongol and some Bharatan (3) languages.

2) In Japanese we find an postpositional object morpheme: the object is shown by a following particle wo in the same way that the subject is shown by a following ga. For example, tegami wo kaite imasu (he is writing a letter) is placed against kakubeki tegami ga iroiro arimasu (letters that must be written are diverse). The two forms are clearly shown in the proverb ippai hito sake wo nomi ... sambai sake hito wo nomu (at the first glass, the man drinks the brandy; at the third, the brandy drinks the man). A similar situation is found in the Hindi (Urdu) and related languages.

3) In Hebrew there is a prepositional object morpheme, ordinarily used in prose before determined nouns and before proper names; a form of this preposition is 'eth. For example wajbhaqqesh laharog 'eth-Moshe ajjibhrakh Moshe (and he wished to kill Moses, and Moses fled). We find such a situation in some modern Romance languages, with the names of persons or of personified objects; compare the Spanish busco a mi criado (I am looking for my servant), amar a la patria (to love the fatherland) or the Romanian am întâlnit pe fratele tau (I met thy brother) or the Afrikaans ek het fer Jan gesé (I saw John); (4) and in the Gascon dialect similar constructions can be found. (5)

4) Finally, in the West European languages (Italian, Portuguese, French, English, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish) and in the Chinese, Annamese etc., we can determine the existence of a positional object morpheme, i.e. of a syntactic rule which forces on the object a mandatory place in the proposition, generally immediately after the verb. Because, for example, if the French un chien regarde bien un évêque means "a dog may look at a bishop" and not "a bishop may look at a dog," the cause is that the location of un évêque after the verb has a syntactic value equal to that of the Esperanto -n: in such languages, the word order itself makes up the morpheme. (6)

We see, then, that the concept of the object is a common characteristic of all human languages, but that its linguistic expression varies by country and era. In fact, in many cases, as in Europe so also in Asia, history teaches us that the inflected accusative is, little by little, substituted by another form. In Asia, comparative linguistics has demonstrated that once upon a time Chinese and Annamese possessed inflections, which still sporadically exist in archaic dialects, but that they have been used up and disappeared, leaving place to a positional or particle morpheme. In Europe, a good example is French, which from the six Latin cases in the beginning saved only two, one for the subject and another for the remaining cases. For example, the Latin nominative nullus homo became nus hom, while the accusative nullum hominem became nul home. This is the situation found in old texts like the Song of Roland:

Unques nus hom tel chevaler ne vit
(no man any longer has seen such a knight)

Soürs est Carles, que nul home ne crent
(Charles was peaceful because he feared no man).

But these inflectional remains were very irregular, and they soon disappeared (around 50 years after the writing, the copyist of the above verse was guilty of an error and wrote nuls home!), French confided to word-order alone the expression of the object function, and inversion of the object became impossible, as we will see from the modern translation of these verses:

Jamais nul homme ne vit tel chevalier...
Charles est tranquille, car il ne craint nul homme...

A similar evolution is shown by the Arabic language; in its classical form (that of the Koran), it still possessed an inflected accusative, which was transformed into a positional morpheme in several modern dialects.

But we have to point out that this evolution is not unidirectional: if a majority of the above-mentioned languages have changed an inflectional morpheme into a positional one, at least three others, Spanish, Romanian and Afrikaans, after the ruination of the Latin and Germanic declensions, have created for themselves, within certain limits, a new prepositional morpheme.

It is also a matter worthy of discussion whether this evolution was not caused simply by the phonetic elision of a weak final consonant, such as -n, more than by any spiritual tendency toward an analytic form of language. Because a priori a tendency to analysis should lead to the replacement of an inflectional morpheme by a prepositional one, in parallel with the transformation of other cases into prepositional adjects. A positional object morpheme is no more analytical than the prepositional one. In support of this hypothesis, we might point that, on the other hand, in the above mentioned second group of languages, the postpositional morpheme has everywhere resisted, probably because of the stronger phonetic makeup of its means of expression. So let's not let ourselves be influenced by the grandiose words of "konformeso a la lingvala evoluciono" (Couturat), or by "absolut modernissim paneuropan gramatica" (von Wahl), etc., to cut, without further research, the difficult question about the accusative: we must, contrariwise, carefully weigh every element of the decision.

II

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE ACCUSATIVE

From the four manners of expression of the object, we can, concerning our study, make only two groups: that which expresses the object without a phonetic morpheme, by mere position of the word in the sentence -- and that which expresses it with any phonetic morpheme; because the three forms which that morpheme can take have approximately the same advantages and disadvantages; we will have to choose between them for situational reasons (convenience, confromity to the character of the language, etc.). Contrariwise, a choice between the two groups will be decided on general principles.

In effect, to justify its claim to replace the natural languages, a planned language must be superior to them in greater facility. But a language's facility is, despite appearances, a complicated idea: it depends, of course, on the degree and type of education of the pupils in question on the one hand, and on the other hand it depends on the harmonious compensation of several elements: simplicity, clarity, flexibility, regularity, stability, harmony of sound, etc. I will here limit myself to examination of the first three:

A. Accusative and linguistic simplicity

The postulate of simplicity in the IL obviously pleads for the removal of every sort of modification to the forms of the words -- so for usage of the positional object morpheme alone. But I do not know of a planned language in use that carries this tendency to a conclusion, radically removing the accusative of all words: even Occidental preserves it in the personal pronouns and in the personal relative pronoun: noi-nos, vu-vos etc.; qui-quem.

B. Accusative and linguistic clarity

The postulate of clarity pushes in opposition toward choosing ia concrete and not merely abstract object morpheme. Really, if we observe the language that know only the latter, it will not be difficult for us to uncover sentences in which the absence of a phonetic morpheme raises ambiguity. And because this fact is too often ignored by the critics of Esperanto (or are they merely ignorant of it?), I will allow myself to insist in some detail. I will draw my examples equally from the daily and from the literary forms of the French language to show that we are not talking about twisted, extraordinarily thought-up rarities.

The occasions in which full clarity may be attained only through a phonetic object morpheme can be classified into four categories: (7)

1) Elliptic propositions

Mr. de Talleyrand le reçut en prince
(s-ro de T. akceptis lin kiel princo -- aŭ -- kiel princon)

Je vous aime comme un frère
(mi vin amas kiel frato -- aŭ -- kiel fraton)

Il insulta le président plus violemment encore que l'orateur précédent
(li insultis la prezidanton eĉ pli krude, ol la antaŭa oratoro -- aŭ -- ol la antaŭan oratoron)

Je n'ai pas d'autre appui que vous
(mi ne havas alian apogon, ol vi -- aŭ -- ol vin)

...comme si le temps, ainsi que le vin, rendait les poésies meilleures -- J. du Bellay
(kvazaŭ la tempo, same kiel la vino, plibonigus la poeziaĵojn -- aŭ -- same kiel la vinon)

Et Virgile écoutait comme j'écoute et l'eau
Voyait passer le cygne auguste, et le bouleau
Le vent, et le rocher l'écume, et le ciel sombre
L'homme... -- V. Hugo
(Kaj Virgile aŭskultis kiel mi aŭskultas, kaj la akvo vidadis pasi la majestan cignon, kaj la betulo la venton, kaj la roko la ŝaŭmon, kaj la malluma ĉielo la homon... -- we understand at first sight: la cignon kaj la betulon, la venton kaj la rokon, la ŝaŭmon kaj la ĉielon...)

2) Object predicatives

Je trouvais ce fruit délicieux au cours de mes longues promenades
(mi trovis tiun frukton bongustan dum miaj longaj promenadoj -- aŭ -- mi trovis tiun frukton bongusta dum...)

J'estime l'Essai sur l'Homme, de Pope, le premiere des poèmes philosophiques -- Voltaire
(mi estimas la Eseon pri la Homo, de Pope, la unuan el la filozofiaj poemoj -- aŭ -- la unua el la filozofiaj poemoj)

3) Appositions

Fidèle ou non, il l'aimait
(fidela aŭ ne, li ŝin amis -- aŭ -- fidelan aŭ ne, li ŝin amis)

François-Joseph télégraphia à l'archiduc Rodolphe qu'il le recevrait, seul
(Francisko-Jozefo telegrafis al la arkiduko Rudolfo, ke li akceptos lin, sola -- aŭ -- solan)

Il aimait son fils, ce vainqueur -- V. Hugo
(li amis sian filon, tiu venkinto -- aŭ -- tiun venkinton)

Je t'aimais inconstant, qu'aurais-je fait fidèle? -- J. Racine
(mi vin amis perfida, kiom pli mi vin amus fidela! -- aŭ -- mi vin amis perfidan, kiom pli mi vin amus fidelan!)

4) Inversions

On ne savait pas alors quel poète étouffait en lui le savant
(oni tiam nesciis, kia poeto sufokas en li la scienciston -- aŭ -- kian poeton sufokas en li la sciencisto)

Il avait dans la terre une somme enfouie -- La Fontaine
(li havis monon enfositan en la tero -- aŭ -- li estis enfosinta monon en la tero)

...ce foudre ridicule,
Dont arme un bois pourri ce peuple trop crédule -- P. Corneille
(...tiu ridinda fulmo, per kiu iu putrinta ligno armas tiun tro kredeman popolon -- aŭ -- per kiu iun putrintan lignon armas tiu tro kredema popolo) (8)

If, after a quick search, I could find some many examples of ambiguity, and in a language which is generally regarded as clear and precise, how many other such could be collected from the various planned languages which have abandoned the aid of the accusative! Leaving aside the already out-of-fashion Latino sine Flexione of Peano and the still not fully hatched Interlingua of IALA, I will limit my demonstration to von Wahl's Occidental. All of my examples are taken from published texts, except for the first, which is taken from a private letter. It will easily be noted how the grammatical poverty of this language (similarity of past tense and past participle, invariance of adjective and of the relative pronoun quel, etc.) joined with von Wahl's proud claim of "absolut libertá de construction", multiply the chances of misunderstanding.

1) Ellipses

Noi conosse altri scientistes quam sr M.
(ni konas aliajn sciencistojn, ol s-ro M. -- aŭ -- ol s-ron M. -- aŭ -- kiel s-ron M.)

Li témpore passat, H. esset passabilmen patetic
(la tempo pasis, H. estis ne malmulte emociema -- aŭ -- la pasintan tempon, H. estis...)

2) Object predicatives

Il conosse anc tro mult detalies por posser vider li coses integri
(li scias ankaŭ tro multajn detalojn, por povi vidi la aferojn integrajn -- aŭ -- integraj)

3) Appositions

...pictura, quel monstrat li combatte ye Worcester, por li scotes tam sinistri...
(pentraĵo, kiu montris la batalon ĉe W., por la skotoj tiel timigan -- aŭ -- timigaj)

li númere del conoscillant electronos, queles emisse li disperset radiation prendet per atom, es quasi egal a...
(la nombro de la kunoscilantaj elektronoj, kiuj elsendas la disan radiadon prenitan po unu atomo, estas kvazaŭ egala al... -- aŭ -- prenitaj po unu atomo -- aŭ -- prenita po unu atomo...) (9)

Lu poc quo restat in mi memorie yo prova fixar ci, forsan tre disparat e incoherent, sovente retornant a anteriori témpores o ja antecipante posteriori evenimentes
(la malmulton, kiu restas en mia memoro, mi provas fiksi ĉi tie, eble tre misharmonia kaj nekohera, ofte revenanta al antaŭaj tempoj aŭ jam anticipante postajn okazaĵojn -- aŭ -- misharmonian kaj nekoheran -- aŭ -- misharmonie kaj nekohere)

4) Inversions

Senior R.-O. abusa li idé que just Latin es international
(s-ro R.-O. trouzas la ideon, ke nur la latina estas internacia -- aŭ -- s-ron R.-O. trompas la ideo, ke...) (10)

Occidental, quel clar subtene li heredat classic-cultural base de Europa, es li natural lingue commun del cultivat Occidente
(was the author thinking: "Occidental, kiu klare subtenas la hereditan klasik-kulturan bazon de Eŭropo" -- or -- "Occidental, kiun klare subtenas la heredita klasikkultura bazo de Eŭropo"? Please lay your bets)

Multiplying the examples would be boring; only one more final one, borrowed from the author himself of this language project:

SENTENTIE DE SAADI

Un pantere amnestiat
mult mutones condemnat

-- a tiny masterwork, which has more meanings than it is thick: six, if I am counting correctly:

1. Unu pantero amnestiis multajn ŝafojn kondamnitajn;
2. Unu pantero amnestiita multajn ŝafojn kondamnis;
3. Unu panteron amnestiis multaj ŝafoj kondamnitaj;
4. Unu panteron amnestiitan multaj ŝafoj kondamnis;
5. Unu pantero amnestiis (,) multaj ŝafoj kondamnis;
6. Unu pantero amnestiita (,) multaj ŝafoj kondamnitaj.

Are more examples needed to prove that cleverly advertisable simplicity can be acquired only at the expense of clarity?

It will probably be argued in opposition that, if those sentences are really ambiguous, nevertheless the context allows them to be understood without error. That is often true, but not always; and, it must be confessed, first, there always exists the risk that this context will be lacking or will itself not be precise enough to avoid any confusion; second, there exist especially important texts -- philosophical, legal, scientific -- for which subtlety of thought absolutely demands that even the most improbably doubt must be systematically eliminated; third, if in our old languages, to whose idea-chains and word- links we have become accustomed from birth, we can quite safely guess the correct reply, in a planned language, which is and for a long time will remain nobody's parent language, and which unconsciously everybody will more or less model after his own, the chances of correctly guessing the meaning intended by the author or speaker will be considerably fewer; fourth, these chances are reduced even further by the fact that for the sake of simplicity planned languages shed several grammatical tools which from time to time can help in the natural languages toward the clarification of confusion (e.g. gender agreement of the adjective in French, the third-person -s in the English present-tense verbs, etc.). I will quote only three typical examples of this greater uncertainty of understanding in planned languages, consequently of a greater poverty of their grammar:

Ido's main specialist, M. de Beaufront, once crowned one of this articles with the following boomerang title: La linguo supleanta Ido -- which means not only "the substitute language Ido", but also, oy weh! "the language replacing Ido"!

In an Idist propaganda meeting, in 1911, a German orator declared: Gramatiko donis a ni la logiko! (because, faithfully to his mother tongue, he accented the object by inversion); the translator, who was a French-speaking Belgian, naively translated, in the spirit of his own language: La grammaire nous a donné la logique! (grammar has given us logic).

In an Occidental propaganda pamphlet, I read the sentence: Li max bon comprension del nature del lingua monstra Occidental. How might it be possible that the ordinary Frenchman or Englishman would not immediately translate: "The best understanding of the nature of language shows Occidental"? (11)

It might be answered to me that these sentences are errors by the authors, and that we might indeed express ourselves very clearly without using the accusative but putting the adjective in front in the first sentence and giving up on inversion in the two following. I totally agree, but why then did the good authors who wrote them not do so? Just because they did not realize the possibilities of confusion. And if they, with their entire experience and talent, were not conscious of it, what is to prove to us that tomorrow others will not err in the same way? Inevitably, this will be, without cessation, the case as long as conversation is carried on between people whose thoughts are formed in divergent language systems.

C. Accusative and linguistic flexibility

We have seen, in several of the above examples, that the use of inversions in an accusative-free language always carries with it the risk of misunderstandings. Really, despite von Wahl's assertion, the two qualities, extreme poverty of grammar and absolute freedom of sentence construction, cannot peacefully coexist. I do know that von Wahl tried to deliver at least one proof of this assertion of his: two pages translated from Gogol. But although he carefully chose his text and brought great care to the translation, the result is truly discouraging. Just read through the following sentences:

Jace e extende se li grandi Mediterran mare e de tri divers láteres regarda a it li ardent costes de Africa con fin palmes, li Syrian calvi desertes e li denspopulat, tut disfossat per li mare rive de Europa... Dissipat ha su liber colonies li gayi Grecia. Formica in li Mediterran mare insules... Prestressas, jun e gracil, con sibalayat bucles, inspirat ha plongeat su nigri ocules... Ye glorie, glorie sitia, oh hom! In li storm del inracontat gayitá, asurdat del son de ferre, vola sur li cludet scudes del guerrifer legiones!... Ad oriente directed su humid de delicie bell ocules anc Grecia... Un povri village, apoyat al denudat collines, rar, inegalmen adombrat per exsiccat figuieros... Comensat revar li antiqui Egypte ornat per hieroglyfes, abassante plu su pyramides... (12)

Kuŝas kaj etendiĝas la granda Mediteranea maro kaj de tri diversaj flankoj ĝin alrigardas la ardaj bordoj de Afriko kun delikataj palmoj, la Siriaj kalvaj dezertoj kaj la bordoj de Eŭropo, dense loĝataj, tute distranĉitaj de la maro... Dissemis siajn liberajn koloniojn la gaja Grekio. Svarmas en la Mediteranea maro insuloj... Pastrinoj, junaj kaj graciaj, kun disbalaitaj bukloj, inspire dronigis siajn nigrajn okulojn... Gloron, gloron soifu, ho homo! En la tempesto de l' nerakontata gajeco, surdigita de l' sono de fero, flugu sur la kuntenatajn ŝildojn de l' militportaj legioj!... Al oriento siajn belajn okulojn, humidajn de ĝuo, turnas ankaŭ Grekio... Iu malriĉa vilaĝo, apogita al nudigitaj montetoj, maldense, neegale ombrata de sekiĝintaj figarboj... Komencas revi la antikva Egipto, ornaimita de hieroglifoj, plu malaltigante siajn piramidojn..."

Does this not give immediately the impression that a new, animating, unifying spirit is circulating through that formerly fractured text? The words have reclothed themselves in their endings, again linked themselves to each other in flexible articulations -- a reborn skeleton, again clothed in flesh and nourished with flowing blood.

Even the most talented authors cannot perform miracles. We have just seen how von Wahl drew himself from his text by artifice; how, then, using his entire cleverness, would he have treated the following sentences, in which the Esperanto translators have effortlessly and elegantly reproduced the rhythm and meaning of the original?

Vian popolon ne plagu! -- The Bible (In Occidental: vor popul ples ne tribular! "people" would seem to be the subject).

Brunan, grasan, viglan, sankta Pakomo estus ŝin aminta -- A. France (In Occidental the adjectives would relate to Pakomo, or would be understood as adverbs).

Popol' rigardas iri, palegajn de teruro,
Nudpiede, la kaptitojn... -- V. Hugo
(In Occidental, "palegajn" would relate to "popolo").

...Ili paŝis,
Tenante la armilon ĉe l' brak', la frunton alta,
Seriozaj kaj stoikaj... -- V. Hugo
(In Occidental, seriozaj kaj stoikaj would relate to frunton).

Ĉu la fadenojn de la vivo, teksitajn por vi en la transa vivo, mi ne povas tiel facile disŝiri, kiel ĉi tiun? -- Schiller (In Occidental we would not know whether teksitajn relates to fadenojn or to vivo nor whether ĉi tiun is to be related to mi or to fadenojn, i.e. whether it is nominative or accusative).

Let's go even further: could the following original sentences be translated into Occidental, simultaneously preserving both rhythm and clarity?

Eternon mi balbutas, senlimon, ho Mistero! --K. Kalocsay

La bruston peza vivo senkompata
Jen premas plata, senespere plata... --K. Kalocsay

Disajn tra l' mond', fermitajn en landniĉoj,
dum batas nin je ĉi tragika hor'
la sanga mar' de l' praaj superstiĉoj,
fidela, fratoj, restu nia kor'! --G. E. Maŭra

Envolvitajn en littukoj, makulitaj de sango kaj puso, kaŝitajn en litkovriloj, ni vidas mizerajn homajn korpojn preterpasi sur portiloj, ĉebrake subtenatajn de studentoj... --A. Muzzioli (14)

Of course, we are talking here about literary works... But who was it who wrote, and rightly: "Language is necessary, not only for writing postcards and private conversation, but also for daily speech and rhetoric, politics and literature, prose and poetry, science and art..."? Wasn't it an eminant supporter of Occidental, Mr. A. Z. Ramstedt? (15) Who declared, and rightly: "Those who limit the service of an International Language to conversation about business matters and to commercial correspondance can ignore linguistic flexibility and prefer rigidity; but to faithfully translate all sorts of works, written in all kinds of languages, the International Language must possess as great a suppleness and flexibility as possible so that it will lose no amount of clarity..."? Wasn't it the author himself of Ido, M. Couturat, in his historic critique of planned languages? Furthermore, all competent interlinguists agree on this point: let us listen to one more opinion, from a well-known linguist and Esperantist, Dr. W. E. Collinson: (16) "The general question about the usage of an accusative is intimately linked with that of word-order. Experience has shown how valuable an elastic word-order is as an aid to the speaker and writer. An irreducible minimum of inflection is not too heavy a payment to make for a privilege which makes it possible for the author to give more relief to his main ideas and attain more satisfactory rhythm-effects."

We may, then, unhesitatingly conclude that the International Language must satisfy the demands of artistic, philosophical or diplomatic language as much as those of daily speech. And it cannot do this without in some way characterizing the object, as, in the above-quoted work, Couturat himself confessed: "Either the International Language will have an accusative, or it will not have freedom of word-order!"

III

WHY ESPERANTO HAS AN ACCUSATIVE

This then has been a summary of the various reasons for and against the establishment of an inflected (18) accusative. Faced with such a situation, what has been the attitude of the interlinguists? At first sight, it seems that the same evolution which we showed above for the natural languages might be noted among them: Volapük (1880), that quasi-Latin of planned languages, still knew 5 cases; Esperanto (1887), like Medieval French, reduced them to two, a nominative and an accusative; Ido (1907) made the latter case non-obligatory; Occidental (1922) did away with it, except for the personal pronouns.

But this pleasing perspective is incorrect: as early as 1868 Pirro, in his Universal Glott, as early as 1889 J. Lott in his Mundolingue, as early as 1903 Peano in his Latino sine Flexione abandoned every sort of inflected accusative, even more completely than Occidental; and, on the other hand, O. Jespersen, as late as 1928, in his Novial, not only preserved the non-obligatory inflected accusative of Ido (later changed to a prepositional object-morpheme), but even created a new case, a genitive in -n. (17)

Even for Esperanto, the question is not as simple as it is imagined by many of our opponents, who naively -- and distastefully -- attribute the preservation of an inflected accusative in Esperanto to the Slavic background of its author. I have already pointed out that in the primitive form of the language, shown to us by the fragment quoted in the Letter to Borovko, and two years before the appearance of Volapük, there is no accusative: compare the two lines:

La tot' homoze in familje
Konunigare so debá!

with the translation "la tuta homaro en familion kununuigi sin devas".

In a later form of the same language, which we find in texts from 1881-1882, the inflected accusative is in full testing: in 8 of the 9 pieces, the accusative ending -l is added only to the pronouns. In one single piece, a translation from Schiller's The Robbers, this accusative is also tested with the nouns.

These facts prove that, if Zamenhof introduced the inflected accusative into the definitive form of his language, he did so after many tests and nine years of consideration. Another fact shows the importance which he later attributed to the existence of this case; although in his reform project of 1894, under the influence and financial pressure of Trompeter, he gave it up, later on, when during the Ido crisis he worked out a reform project to create agreement between the Delegation and the Esperantists, despite Ostwald's demand that the accusative should disappear, he agreed to make it non-obligatory only for the place and time adjects, but stubbornly preserved it "for the more necessary occasions", i.e. to show the object. (19) He certainly had, for such persistence in the same opinion, reasons worthy of consideration, reasons which it is possible to guess.

In truth, the choice on the part of the various creators of International Languages has depended mainly on the way they conceived of the language and on the purpose at which they aimed it.

For those who, following the way pointed out as early as 1904 with great clarity of thought by André Blondel, (20) want the International Language to be as similar as possible to the Romance languages, for von Wahl just as for the fathers of IALA, (21) the question of an inflected accusative can arise only for the pronouns: for nouns and adjectives there can't even be a momentary hesitation.

But for those who, considering the global scale of application of an International Language, do not want to slavishly link it to a certain type of narrow language family, but demand for this common tool of all mankind a greater autonomy, a greater freedom in the choice of its materials, then the question of an accusative for the nouns remains open to discussion.

It is true that, in eight out of ten cases, the European languages place the object after the verb so that, in a planned language, the accusative and the positional morpheme have the same function and uselessly duplicate each other. The temptation is great to declare the accusative redundant and get rid of it.

But out of those ten there remain two cases for which the accusative alone would save the clarity of meaning. (22) It can even be said that in a planned language this percentage might be higher, because, on account of the inevitable heterogeneity of its users, an international language will give non-Europeans chances of misunderstanding where European languages are capable of stepping past that stumbling-block.

The question is, in the end, whether a language which aspires to become truly international, i.e. become the means of perfect understanding between speakers of natural languages of the most various language systems, can leave in itself room for hesitation, doubt, vagueness? Does it have the right to count on the guessing-ability of its users, in other words to allow the possibilities for error? The answer is, in my opinion, obvious in itself.

And if the price to be paid seems high to us, let's add, to ease our regrets, to the other platform on the scales, the consideration of the tremendous, confessed by all, desirability of fully free word-order. This is enough to justify Zamenhof.

There remains only for exploration whether this accusative is to be used in all events, or only where it is necessary to avoid ambiguity. This latter formula was chosen by Couturat for Ido and Jespersen for Novial. It is very attractive, because it preserves at the same time the advantages of the accusative and in large part avoids the charge that it piles on the sentence. But the fact that Zamenhof, in his very trustworthy language instinct, never stopped for this formula, raises some doubt about its real value. What, then, are the merits of such a solution?

It's obviously simpler. Easier? No, because to recognize that the object stands ahead of the verb, you have to know what an object is; ditto for the object predicative, etc. At least safer? Despite appearances, I think not: the speaker or the author, not used to using this case, because he doesn't use it in seven or eight out of ten occurrences, takes the risk of very often forgetting that precisely in this inversion, in this ellipsis, it is exceptionally mandatory. And the listener or reader, when he notices the lack of an accusative in one dubious case, will never correctly know whether this absence is the result of intention or of inattention. One well-known linguist once humorously wrote: "That the accusative ending is not some kind of luxury is best shown by the fact that all the reformers who critically damn Esperanto for it have preserved the accusative in their own language projects despite everything, but in such a way that they have either limited it to the pronouns or privided the accusative ending with special restrictions, in the style well-known from the stop-alarm in railway cars: To be used only for real danger. Unauthorized use will be punished." (23) And exactly the same occurs with the non-obligatory accusative as with the stop-alarm: it is usually not at all useful, because the danger is recognized only after the catastrophe.

I have to mention a final argument in favor of the mandatory use of the accusative, i.e. the congruence with Esperanto's structure itself. But this is another subject which I will touch in another article.

***

We can then conclude, after detailed study, that, if Esperanto has an obligatory accusative, this does not derive from I don't know what kind of lack of knowledge on the part of its author; this does not lower it to the level of "a barbaric jargon," as non-serious pamphleteers would have us believe, or of "a grotesque arbitrariness" (grotesk Willkür), as von Wahl once named it in a regrettable burst of anger. We all know that in human affairs it is very rare to have the choice between good an evile: in the usual way of the world, human wisdom only serves to choose the lesser of two evils. Neither Zamenhof nor the Esperantists have ever hidden from themselves the disadvantages of the obligatory accusative; but they have always recognized that this is the inevitable compensation for very real and very appreciable advantages.

But these advantages are perceptible only for a certain degree of solidness in thought and delicacy in style; they become obvious only in texts which aim to express and not just to babble. And the same thing is true of other matters of great linguistic value: they are noticed only when we view from a higher level than that of soap-opera phrases. The interlinguistic discussions are chock-full of observations, criticisms, proposals etc. with respect to phonetics and morphology, i.e. to the façade of speech; about syntax, about stylistics, i.e. about its internals -- no report! We always have in our mouths the words of Western culture, of modern civilization -- and we would truly have it believed that this culture or civilization lies complete in the form of this or that suffix, in the choice between ending or particle conjugation! The time has really come to give more seriousness to these superficial, and too often passionate, polemics, and to treat the language questions without partisanship and with consideration to the high and noble uses which the International Language must, before everything else, serve. (24) It has been sufficiently demonstrated, and will always be demonstrated with equal facility, that propaganda pamphlets can be written, amusing anecdotes told, orvulgarizing articles can be translated without the help of an accusative, of adjective agreement, of subtle subjunctions, etc. It would be another matter if we were speaking of the translation of the Bible or of the Odyssey, of the Inferno or of Faust, of Madách's Man's Tragedy or of Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz, of the Sanskrit Bhagavad-Gita or of the Finnish Seven Brothers... But, it is worth confessing, only Esperanto has proved itself great enough to catch sight of such high perspectives ...

Footnotes