Esperanto · Chapter 10 · Lesson 14 · Grammar primer
Word order, emphasis and style
The accusative freed your word order; this is what to do with the freedom. What fronting a word signals, where ne wants to sit, and the habits of good Esperanto prose.
The short version
ankaŭ, nur and eĉ attach to what follows them
This is the single most common place English speakers write something they did not mean. Mi ankaŭ legis la libron says I read it too, alongside other people. Mi legis ankaŭ la libron says I read the book as well as other things. English lets also drift around the sentence and leaves stress to fix the meaning; Esperanto puts the meaning in the position, so park the word directly in front of the thing you are including.
Mi legis ankaŭ la libron.
Free word order is a tool, not a default
Neutral Esperanto is subject, verb, object, the same as English: mi legis la libron. Moving something out of that order is emphasis, so la libron mi legis means the book is what I read, as opposed to whatever else was on the table. Scramble every sentence and you are shouting on every line, which emphasises nothing. Ne sits immediately in front of whatever it denies, and negatives never stack: mi nenion vidis, one per clause.
La libron mi legis.
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