Esperanto Impersonal Sentences: oni, pluvas, estas varme

Esperanto has no dummy subject. English props up it is raining with a meaningless it; Esperanto leaves the slot empty, and Pluvas is the whole sentence.

No dummy subject

Ĝi is a real pronoun for a thing already mentioned. Put it in a weather sentence and your listener looks for the thing that is raining:

• Pluvas. - It is raining.
• Ĝi pluvas. - Wrong: there is no it to point at.

The empty slot is not a gap to fill. It is the pattern, and every sentence on this page uses it.

The weather verbs

Four weather verbs share their roots with nouns you know, and in the weather sense they have no subject:

They take every tense like any verb:

• Pluvis la tutan tagon. - It rained all day.
• Morgaŭ neĝos. - It will snow tomorrow.

Not every weather sentence is subjectless. The wind is a thing, so it is the subject: La vento blovas, the wind is blowing.

1234

1. 1Estas varme.
2. 2Pluvas.
3. 3Neĝas.
4. 4Blovas vento.

Estas varme (it is hot), pluvas (it is raining), neĝas (it is snowing), blovas vento (the wind is blowing).

Estas plus -e

An adjective needs a noun to describe. When estas has no noun subject, the word after it takes the adverb ending -e:

Three shapes take the -e:

Add a person with al to say how it feels to them:

• Estas varme al mi. - I feel hot.
• Estis malfacile al ŝi. - She found it hard.

12

1. 1Estas varme al li.
2. 2Estas malvarme al ŝi.

Estas varme al li (he feels hot), estas malvarme al ŝi (she feels cold).

The adverbs article has the -a or -e rule in full.

Oni: you, one, they, people

Oni is people in general, or someone it does not matter to name. English needs four words for its one job:

It is a third-person pronoun, so it takes si and sia:

• Oni devas zorgi pri sia sano. - One must look after one's health.

Oni or iu?

Iu is one particular person you cannot name. Oni leaves the person out of the picture:

Oni can be one unknown person too, as at the door: the difference is where the attention goes, so the scale shows a tendency, not a rule.

• Iu prenis mian libron. - Somebody took my book. (Who was it?)
• Oni diras, ke la libro estas bona. - People say the book is good.

Oni instead of the passive

Where English uses a passive because the doer does not matter, Esperanto very often uses oni and an ordinary verb:

Both columns are correct. The oni version is lighter and the more everyday one; the passive puts the thing acted on first. The passive article has the participles.

One-word impersonal verbs

Esperanto turns adjectives into verbs as freely as anything else. So beside estas necese (from necesa) sits necesas, one word with no subject:

Estas necese, ke vi venu and Necesas, ke vi venu mean the same, and both are correct; the one-word form is shorter. Temas always takes pri. And these verbs can take a subject when there is one: Gravas nur la rezulto, only the result matters.

Ŝajnas, ke: a clause as subject

A whole ke-clause can do the subject's job, so the verb needs nothing else:

Okazi also takes an ordinary subject: Kio okazis?, what happened?

The person after al

Some verbs put the thing in the subject slot and reach the person with al, the reverse of English:

• La libro plaĉas al mi. - I like the book. (The book pleases me.)
• Al mi mankas tempo. - I am short of time.
• Ŝajnas al mi, ke li pravas. - It seems to me that he is right.

Mi mankas tempon is wrong: manki never takes an object. The transitivity article has the full set.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Say today's weather with no subject: Pluvas, Estas malvarme.
2. Rewrite three English it is sentences with necesas, eblas or ŝajnas, ke.
3. Then read the passive for when to use it anyway.

See also

• Adverbs - the -a or -e rule behind estas varme.
• The passive - the participles oni saves you from.
• Transitivity - plaĉi, manki and the verbs that never take an object.
• Personal pronouns - oni among the pronouns.
• Subordinate clauses - the ke-clauses these verbs hang off.