Esperanto · Chapter 17 · Lesson 14 · Grammar primer
La parolanto: participles as people
When a participle becomes a noun: -anto, -into and -onto as people who carry a tense, komencanto vs lernanto vs instruisto, and the venonta semajno time phrases everybody needs.
The short version
The winner is venkinto, because it is over
Esperanto has no word for speaker or winner. It builds them, and the built version carries a tense English nouns cannot: parolanto is speaking now, parolinto has spoken, parolonto is about to. So the man on the podium with the medal is the venkinto, because venkanto is the one currently in the lead, which is what a commentator says halfway through a race. The same trap sits in mortinto, the deceased, against mortanto, somebody still dying.
La venkinto ricevis la premion.
la venonta semajno, and the lasta trap
The participle adjectives supply the time phrases you need every week: la venonta semajno is next week, la pasinta jaro is last year, and they agree like any adjective, including when the noun is doing time-measure duty. The trap is lasta, which English speakers grab for last week and which means final in a series: la lasta semajno de la jaro is the year's last week, not the week just gone. English uses last for both and gives no warning at all.
Mi vidos vin la venontan semajnon.
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