A predicative noun does not introduce another participant in an event. It assigns a class, identity, office, or resulting role to a subject or object: Ŝi estas kuracisto (“She is a doctor”), Ni elektis ŝin prezidanto (“We elected her president”). This explains its most important case rule: a bare predicative noun has no accusative -n, even when it describes an accusative object.
These are still ordinary -o nouns. They can take plural -j when the referent is plural, and they can be definite when they identify a particular person or thing. What they do not do is take -n merely because they stand after a verb.
Classifying the subject
After esti and similar linking verbs such as fariĝi (“become”), resti (“remain”), and ŝajni (“seem”), a noun can say what kind of entity the subject is.
Mia fratino estas arkitekto kaj laboras en urboplana oficejo.
My sister is an architect and works in an urban-planning office.
Post multaj jaroj kiel flegisto, li fariĝis kuracisto.
After many years as a nurse, he became a doctor.
Malgraŭ la sukceso, ili restis bonaj amikoj.
Despite the success, they remained good friends.
English normally requires a/an with a singular profession or class noun. Esperanto has no indefinite article, so kuracisto is complete. Unu kuracisto would emphasize the number “one doctor,” not supply an article.
Predicative nouns agree in semantic number. A singular person is kuracisto; several people are kuracistoj. Yet a plural subject can be identified collectively as one unit when that is the intended meaning.
Lina kaj Omar estas tradukistoj, sed kune ili ankaŭ estas la redakta teamo.
Lina and Omar are translators, but together they are also the editorial team.
Here tradukistoj classifies two individuals separately, while singular la redakta teamo identifies the pair as one team. Number follows the concept named, not a mechanical agreement formula.
Class versus identity: no article or la
An articleless predicative noun normally assigns membership in a class, a profession, or a type. A noun with la identifies the referent as a particular known individual.
Karlo estas advokato.
Karlo is a lawyer.
Karlo estas la advokato, kun kiu mi parolis hieraŭ.
Karlo is the lawyer I spoke with yesterday.
The first sentence answers “What is Karlo's profession?” The second answers “Which known person is Karlo?” This is not free stylistic variation: adding la changes classification into identification.
The same difference works with things:
Tio estas ŝtono, ne peco da metalo.
That is a stone, not a piece of metal.
Tiu ĉi estas la ŝtono, kiu rompis la fenestron.
This is the stone that broke the window.
In both uses, the predicative noun remains nominative in form. The definite article has no endings of its own.
Count nouns and mass nouns remain distinct
Predicative position does not change a noun's ordinary countability. A count noun takes -j when it classifies several separate referents, while a mass noun normally remains singular and articleless when it names a substance.
Tiuj aparatoj estas iloj, ne ludiloj.
Those devices are tools, not toys.
La travidebla likvaĵo estas akvo, ne oleo.
The transparent liquid is water, not oil.
Context can coerce a mass noun into a count reading, just as in other positions: du kafoj can mean two servings of coffee. That does not make unu an indefinite article; it gives the noun a genuinely countable serving interpretation. See Generic and Specific Nouns for the broader interaction of reference and countability.
Noun predicates versus adjective predicates
Esperanto's final vowel makes the distinction unusually clear. -o names a person, thing, class, or concept; -a attributes a quality. Changing the ending can therefore change the question being answered.
Mia najbaro estas instruisto; liaj klarigoj estas tre instruaj.
My neighbor is a teacher; his explanations are very instructive.
La renkontiĝo fariĝis tradicio, sed ĝia formato restas fleksebla.
The gathering became a tradition, but its format remains flexible.
Instruisto names a member of a profession; instruaj describes the explanations. Tradicio identifies what the event became; fleksebla describes a property. English often uses the same syntactic frame “X is ...” for both, but Esperanto requires you to decide whether you are naming a class (-o) or giving a quality (-a).
The noun form is not an unanalyzable dictionary block. In instruisto, the root instru- combines with agent suffix -ist- and noun ending -o. The related forms instrui (“teach”) and instrua (“instructive”) expose that productive structure.
Predicative nouns describing an object
Some verbs assign or recognize a resulting role for their direct object: elekti (“elect”), nomi (“name/call”), deklari (“declare”), and fari (“make”). The direct object takes -n, but the bare predicative complement does not.
La komitato elektis ŝin prezidanto.
The committee elected her president.
La infanoj nomis la hundon Fulmo, ĉar ĝi kuris tre rapide.
The children named the dog Fulmo because it ran very fast.
La sperto faris lin pli pacienca homo.
The experience made him a more patient person.
In elektis ŝin prezidanto, ŝin is the person affected by the election and therefore the object. Prezidanto states the role she receives. In nomis la hundon Fulmo, la hundon is the object, while the proper name Fulmo identifies what the dog was called.
This is genuinely difficult for English speakers because word order makes prezidanto feel like another object. Test the meaning: the committee did not elect two things, “her” and “a president.” It elected her to be president.
Bare complements and kiel phrases are not identical
The alternative kiel construction can carry case according to its implied comparison, and case can disambiguate whose role is meant.
Mi elektis lin kiel prezidanton.
I elected him as president — I chose him to fill that office.
Mi elektis lin kiel prezidanto.
As president, I elected him — I was acting in my role as president.
In the first sentence, prezidanton aligns with the person elected: “as one elects a president.” In the second, nominative prezidanto describes the subject mi: “acting as president.” For the first meaning, the bare form Mi elektis lin prezidanto is often clearer and avoids this ambiguity.
This kiel pattern is an accepted, established construction, but it should not be generalized into a claim that bare object predicates take -n. They do not. The case belongs to the internal interpretation of the kiel phrase.
The larger case system is developed under Predicative Complements and the Accusative.
Negative and interrogative contexts
Negation does not change the form of the predicate noun, and questions do not trigger accusative marking.
Ŝi ne estas mia estro; ni estas kolegoj.
She is not my boss; we are colleagues.
— Ĉu vi ankoraŭ estas studento? — Ne, mi nun estas instruisto.
— Are you still a student? — No, I am now a teacher.
Possessives such as mia are adjective-like determiners and agree with the noun they modify: mia estro, miaj estroj. They do not act as an English indefinite article.
Common Mistakes
Adding accusative after esti
❌ Ŝi estas kuraciston.
Incorrect: kuracisto is a subject complement, not a direct object.
✅ Ŝi estas kuracisto.
She is a doctor.
Copying the English indefinite article with unu
❌ Mia patro estas unu inĝeniero.
Incorrect in the neutral profession meaning: unu stresses one engineer.
✅ Mia patro estas inĝeniero.
My father is an engineer.
Giving the object predicate accusative case
❌ Ili elektis ŝin prezidanton.
Incorrect as a bare object-predicate construction: only ŝin is the object.
✅ Ili elektis ŝin prezidanto.
They elected her president.
Forgetting semantic plural
❌ Marta kaj Leo estas kuracisto.
Incorrect if each is a doctor: the class has two members here.
✅ Marta kaj Leo estas kuracistoj.
Marta and Leo are doctors.
Confusing class with known identity
❌ Karlo estas la advokato.
Wrong for the intended neutral statement of profession; this means he is the particular known lawyer.
✅ Karlo estas advokato.
Karlo is a lawyer.
Key Takeaways
- A predicative noun names a class, identity, role, or result rather than a second object.
- Use no indefinite article for neutral class membership: Ŝi estas kuracisto.
- Use la when identifying a particular known referent: Ŝi estas la kuracisto.
- A bare object predicate has no -n: Ili elektis ŝin prezidanto.
- Plural marking follows meaning: several individual doctors are kuracistoj, but several people can collectively be teamo.
Related Topics
- Esti: To BeA2 — A complete reference to esti for identity, properties, location, existence, impersonal conditions, participial auxiliaries, and productive derivatives.
- Generic and Specific NounsA1 — How bare nouns, plurals, and la distinguish whole kinds from particular identifiable referents.
- AppositionA1 — How a second noun phrase renames the same referent, matches its case, and differs from an identifying name or predicate complement.
- Predicative Complements and the AccusativeB1 — Distinguish Esperanto predicative complements from accusative objects and attributive modifiers, especially in clauses that describe an object.
- Attributive and Predicative AdjectivesA2 — Distinguish adjectives inside noun phrases from adjectives that assert a subject's or object's state, and choose agreement endings accordingly.