Barry Savage responds to Bruce R. Gilson's complaints about the  Esperanto "-N" ending:  BRG: > I think the disagreement I have with others on the  accusative is of a different sort from the disagreement on  adjective-noun agreement.  I feel that the latter gains you  nothing, while I accept that the former gives a bit of  flexibility, although I feel at the cost of a harder language  to learn, so I just think it isn't worth it. <  I found this statement interesting because it contains so many  opinions which are completely oposite to my own.  Let me extract  these opinions so that I can refer to them one by one.  (1) the accusative does provide some flexibilty (2) having (1) results in a harder to learn language (3) the cost of (2) outweighs the benefit of (1) (4) adjective-noun agreement provides nothing (5) having (4) results in a harder to learn language (6) the cost of (5) CLEARLY outweighs the nul benefits of (4)  I trust that I have fairly stated BRG's opinion with these six  points.  If I have not it was not intentional.  I partly agree with (2).  For me it was difficult always to use  the accusative properly during my initial period of learning and  using Esperanto.  I suspect however that this difficulty came from  the fact that my native languages (English and French) do not have  an accusative of declension (save for a few pronouns) but rather  one of position.  However I suspect that people whose native  languages do have an accusative of declension would not find  Esperanto's accusative to be difficult.  Adjective-noun agreeement  is required in French and o probably for this reason I had no  problem with this aspect of Esperanto though I suspect that a  monoligual English speaking person might.  In short then I  disagree with (5).  The moral of all of this is these two features are difficult only  for some people but not all.  If these two features were removed  from Esperanto it might make Esperanto more easy for an English  speaker but might make Esperanto harder for speakers of another  language.  For example if Esperanto were an SVO language with an  accusative of position then it might be harder for a Japanese or  Korean which are not only SOV languages but in fact have  accusative markers (i.e. post positions).   Therefore if one makes or implies statements such as (2) and/or  (5) one must also qualify the statements by indicating for whom  the learning is harder.  I agree with (1) but I feel that it is too much of an  understatement.  The flexibilty gained is significant in my  opinion.  I disagree with (3).  The difficulty that I had was minor but if  it had been even ten times more difficult I would still have said  that the benefits clearly and significantly outweigh the costs.  I am I suppose most seriously in disagreement with (4).  There are  at least three distinct and important benefits provided by noun-  adjective agreement.  Firstly (and this in conjunction with the  accusative) a great deal of flexibilty is provided.  The value of  this flexibility is most seen in poetry.  I believe that BRG  (based on some previous comments) does not value an auxlang's  poetic potential as much as I but I believe that an auxlang must  be capable of expressing fully all human though and feelings in  the same way as as natlangs do. For this reason alone Esperanto's  flexibilty is of paramount important.  Secondly (4) provides great clarity especially in the spoken  language.  This is important when people of different linguistic  backgrounds and therefore possibly different accents attempt to  communicate.   Thirdly (4) provides a compact precision of expression  unattainable in many natlangs.  For example  rugxa kaj blua auxto ... a car that is red and blue rugxa kaj blua auxtoj ... a red car and a blue car rugxa kaj bluaj auxtoj ... a red car and blue cars rugxaj kaj bluaj auxtoj ... red cars and blue cars                              (or red and blue cars)  For me therefore the benefits of (4) CLEARLY outweigh the nul  costs.  In fairness however not everybody would have nul costs  for (4).  Still I believe that the difficulties are likely quite  small (as (1) was for me) and the benefits would be clearly worth  even a large cost.  Therefore I also disagree with (6).  It is important however to remembers that the above are merely  my opinions offered in opposition to the opinions of BRG.  My  opinions of and by themselves are no better or worst no more  valid or invalid than those of BRG. But my opinions are more or  less shared by Esperantists over the last 108 plus years.  Esperantists who have come from multiple linguistic backgrounds  and who have used Esperanto to express every nuance of their  collective thoughts and experience.  Simply observation of this  fact should lead one to at least ask ... "Say, there must be  something good about these two features after all!"    ------------------------------------------------------   | en songxo princinon mi vidis                       |    | kun vangoj malsekaj de ploro        Barry Savage   |    | sub arbo, sub verda ni sidis      bsavage /c`e/ nuri.net |   | tenante nin kore cxe koro                          |   ------------------------------------------------------