about Esperanto Vocabulary Trees

Atoms

A word is a sequence of one or more atoms, which are the basic undivisible building blocks of the language. Atoms are categorized according to a set of atom categories (main category plus sub category). The atom categories are written as main category – sub category. Sub category general is used in many cases. There are

• roots are atoms which convey a basic concept, and can form word in combinations with prefixes, suffixes and endings (or in case of compund words, in combination with other roots)

• atomic words are atoms which also in themselves are words such as for example conjuntions (kaj [and], ced [but] etc).

• suffixes are atoms which follow a root in the words

• prefixes are atoms which precede a root in the words

• endings are one- or two letter atoms which indicate word class, time of verb, plural and accusative case

Examples:

• li consists of a single atom (of category atomic word – general)

• katido consists of three atoms kat, id and o

  • kat (category root – general) : cat

  • id (category suffix – general) : pertains to offspring of animals]

  • o (category ending – noun, ie. an ending which signifies that the word is a (singular) noun)

• malbela consists of the three atoms mal, bel and a

  • mal (category prefix – general) : a negator which negates the root atom in the word]

  • bel (category root – general) : beauty

  • a (category ending – adjective, ie. an ending which signifies that the word is an adjective)

SEMANTICS

The semantics-field of the atom shows the meaning of the atom. This meaning is indicative since e.g. English does not have same bulding-block structure as Esperanto. Use only letters, besides comma and parenthesis. For atoms which do not have any translation, such as endings, use semantics such as (noun), (plural), (past time) etc i.e. in parenthesis.

INDEPENDENCE

Atoms which in themselves are words, such as kaj are flagged as independent. They should normally belong to the category atomic word – general.

PRESEDENCE

The presedence indicates the normal ordering of atoms in a word. Root atoms always have presedence 0, while non-root atoms have presedence 1-9. An atom with higher presedence number will figure further away from the root atom. The substantive ending o has lower presedence than the plurality atom j, but higher presedence than the suffix id. The word katidoj (kat_id_o_j kittens) illustrates this.