



Produced by William W. Patterson, Carlo Traverso, Charles
Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. We
thank the Case Western Reserve University Library
Preservation Department that has given us the image files
with which the present e-book has been prepared.










TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

The Esperanto alphabet contains 28 characters. These are the
characters of English, but with "q", "w", "x", and "y" removed, and
six diacritical letters added. The diacritical letters are "c",
"g", "h", "j" and "s" with circumflexes (or "hats", as Esperantists
fondly call them), and "u" with a breve. Zamenhof himself suggested
that where the diacritical letters caused difficulty, one could
instead use "ch", "gh", "hh", "jh", "sh" and "u". A plain ASCII
file is one such place; there are no ASCII codes for Esperanto's
special letters.

However, there are two problems with Zamenhof's "h-method". There
is no difference between "u" and "u" with a breve, and there is no
way to determine (without prior knowledge of the word(s) involved,
and sometimes a bit of context) whether an "h" following one of
those other five letters is really the second half of a diacritical
pair, or just an "h" that happened to find itself next to one of
them. Consequently other, unambiguous, methods have been used over
the years. One is the "x-method", which uses the digraphs "cx",
"gx", "hx", "jx", "sx" and "ux" to represent the special letters.
There is no ambiguity because the letter "x" is not an Esperanto
letter, and each diacritical letter has a unique transliteration.
This is the method used in this Project Gutenberg e-text.








                               A COMPLETE
                          GRAMMAR OF ESPERANTO

                       THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

                                  WITH
              GRADED EXERCISES FOR READING AND TRANSLATION
                    TOGETHER WITH FULL VOCABULARIES

                                   BY
                       IVY KELLERMAN, A.M., Ph.D.

     MEMBER OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE AND CHAIRMAN OF EXAMINATIONS
         FOR THE ESPERANTO ASSOCIATION OF NORTH AMERICA, MEMBER
              OF THE INTERNATIONAL "LINGVA KOMITATO"


                   *       *       *       *       *


                                   TO

                           DR. L. L. ZAMENHOF

                             THE AUTHOR OF
                               ESPERANTO


                   *       *       *       *       *


                                PREFACE.

This volume has been prepared to meet a twofold need. An adequate
presentation of the International Language has become an imperative
necessity. Such presentation, including full and accurate grammatical
explanations, suitably graded reading lessons, and similarly graded
material for translation from English, has not heretofore been
accessible within the compass of a single volume, or in fact within the
compass of any two or three volumes.

The combination of grammar and reader here offered is therefore
unique. It is to furnish not merely an introduction to Esperanto, or
a superficial acquaintance with it, but a genuine understanding of
the language and mastery of its use without recourse to additional
textbooks, readers, etc. In other words, this one volume affords
as complete a knowledge of Esperanto as several years' study of a
grammar and various readers will accomplish for any national language.
Inflection, word-formation and syntax are presented clearly and
concisely, yet with a degree of completeness and in a systematic order
that constitute a new feature. Other points worthy of note are the
following:

The reasons for syntactical usages are given, instead of mere statements
that such usages exist. For example, clauses of purpose and of result
are really explained, instead of being dismissed with the unsatisfactory
remark that "the imperative follows 'por ke,'" or the "use of 'tiel...
ke' and 'tia... ke' must be distinguished from that of 'tiel... kiel'
and 'tia... kia,'" etc., with but little intimation of when and why
"por ke", "tiel... ke" and "tia... ke" are likely to occur.

Affixes are not mentioned until some familiarity with the general
character of the language is assured, as well as the possession of
a fair vocabulary. They are introduced gradually, with adequate
explanation and illustration. Of importance in connection with
word-formation is an element distinctly new--the explanation and
classification of compound words. Such words, like affixes, are
withheld until the use of simple words is familiar.

Another new feature is the gradual introduction of correlative words in
their logical order, and in their proper grammatical categories, before
they are called "correlatives," or tabulated. The tabulation finally
presented is a real classification, with regard to the meaning and
grammatical character of the words, not merely an arbitrary alphabetical
arrangement. The use of primary adverbs precedes the explanation of
adverb derivation; prepositions, especially "de", "da", "je", etc.,
receive careful attention, also the verb system, and the differentiation
of words whose English equivalents are ambiguous.

A general characteristic of obvious advantage is that almost without
exception new forms and constructions are illustrated by means of
words or roots already familiar. Likewise, the new words or roots of
each lesson recur at least once in the next lesson, and usually in
some lesson thereafter as well. Each reading exercise gives not only a
thorough application of the grammatical principles of the lesson, but a
review of those in the preceding lesson, and no use is made of words or
constructions not yet explained. The comparative ease of the language,
and the lack of necessity for reciting paradigms, permit the reading
exercises to be long enough for the student to feel that he has really
mastered something. These exercises are further unique, in that each