The Fundamento de Esperanto was published in 1905 and contains a graded Ekzercaro, or exercise collection. This page examines one very short public-domain sentence from §7. Its wording has the compact, fable-like quality of an early exercise, but its grammar—generic reference, al, volitive -u, negation, and object -n—remains foundational and fully productive.
The excerpt below follows the official Akademio de Esperanto web edition. It is deliberately short: the goal is not to reproduce the exercise collection, but to learn how to read a historical model without treating every stylistic choice as the only modern possibility.
The complete excerpt
Al leono ne donu la manon.
Al leono ne donu la manon.
Do not give your hand to a lion.
The sentence is a warning. Its unusual feature for English speakers is that the recipient phrase comes first, while the unexpressed addressee remains the subject and the direct object comes last.
First identify the finite verb
The finite verb is donu, segmented as don-u. The ending -u is the volitive ending. In this independent clause it expresses a prohibition once combined with ne. Its modern uses are developed in the volitive for commands.
The understood subject is vi: the warning addresses the reader or listener. Esperanto commonly omits vi with a direct command when the addressee is obvious.
Ne tuŝu la varman metalon.
Do not touch the hot metal.
Bonvolu ne lasi vian sakon sen atento.
Please do not leave your bag unattended.
The first imitation is a direct negative volitive. The second embeds a negative infinitive after polite bonvolu. Both are modern and neutral; register and relationship determine which tone is appropriate.
English calls this an imperative, but Esperanto -u has a wider range. It also appears with an explicit third-person or first-person subject:
La gastoj atendu en la vestiblo, kaj ni komencu je la naŭa.
Let the guests wait in the lobby, and let us begin at nine.
The form therefore encodes wanted action rather than a special second-person conjugation.
Ne stands immediately before the command
Ne precedes donu and negates the requested action: the addressee is instructed not to give. It does not negate the existence of the lion or the hand.
Ne sendu la dokumenton antaŭ ol mi kontrolos ĝin.
Do not send the document before I check it.
Moving ne changes what is contrasted. Donu ne la originalon, sed kopion means “Give not the original but a copy”: giving remains requested, while only the object is corrected. In the Fundamento sentence, verb negation rejects the entire giving event.
Al leono: recipient first, but no accusative
Al marks the recipient or goal of doni. Leono therefore has no accusative ending: ordinary prepositions govern an unmarked complement.
Al nova volontulo ni donis la ŝlosilon de la oficejo.
We gave the office key to a new volunteer.
The neutral alternative Ni donis la ŝlosilon al nova volontulo expresses the same roles. Fronting al nova volontulo makes the recipient the frame or contrastive topic. Likewise, the historical excerpt begins with the dangerous recipient: “as for a lion...”
English word order often identifies recipient and object, as in give a child the book. Esperanto marks them overtly:
- al leono — recipient, introduced by al;
- la manon — thing given, marked with object -n.
Because al already marks its role, adding -n to leono would be wrong here. The word order can change without exchanging those functions.
La mapon donu al la ŝoforo, sed la biletojn donu al mi.
Give the map to the driver, but give the tickets to me.
This imitation fronts direct objects for contrast. The endings, not position alone, keep each role clear.
Generic leono: one representative member of a class
The bare singular leono is generic: it evokes any representative lion, not one lion already known to the reader. Esperanto has no indefinite article, so context distinguishes “a lion” from generic “the lion as a kind.”
Leono estas forta besto, sed ĝi ne estas la plej granda felisedo.
A lion is a strong animal, but it is not the largest felid.
Ne alproksimiĝu al sovaĝa besto, kiu gardas siajn idojn.
Do not approach a wild animal that is guarding its young.
Modern Esperanto can also use a plural generic: Leonoj estas danĝeraj sovaĝaj bestoj. Singular and plural package the class differently; neither requires English-style a or generic the. The historical singular suits a maxim-like warning by presenting one imagined encounter.
If a particular lion had already been mentioned, al la leono would point back to that identifiable animal. The absence of la is meaningful, not incomplete grammar.
La manon: a definite body part and a direct object
Manon is man-o-n: root + noun ending + accusative. It is what the addressee must not give, so it is the direct object of donu.
The article la treats the relevant hand as contextually identifiable. Older and proverbial formulations often use a definite body part where English uses a possessive. Modern Esperanto also permits an explicit possessive when the owner needs emphasis or when clarity benefits:
Ne metu vian manon inter la pordon kaj la kadron.
Do not put your hand between the door and the frame.
This does not make la manon obsolete. Compare ordinary Li levis la manon “He raised his hand,” where the subject supplies the obvious owner. Vian manon is more explicit and can be contrastive.
The object ending must remain even though the object comes after the verb. Esperanto case is not replaced by fixed English order.
Al nekonato ne donu vian pasvorton.
Do not give your password to a stranger.
That modern digital warning imitates every central relation: generic recipient with al, negative volitive, definite possessor, and accusative object.
Information structure: why the al-phrase comes first
The order can be mapped as:
| Part | Role | Discourse effect |
|---|---|---|
| Al leono | recipient/goal | sets the dangerous case as the frame |
| ne donu | negative volitive predicate | states the prohibited action |
| la manon | direct object | places the crucial vulnerable item at the end |
An unmarked conversational order could be Ne donu la manon al leono. The Fundamento order is grammatical today, but more rhetorically shaped: the warning begins with the source of danger. Historical status does not make fronting mandatory, and modernity does not make it incorrect.
Al infanoj montru la simplan menuon; al spertuloj montru ĉiujn agordojn.
Show the simple menu to children; show all the settings to experts.
Here repeated fronted al phrases create a balanced contrast. This is a productive information-structure device in present-day speech and writing.
Historical wording and modern use
The sentence sounds like a moral maxim or elementary fable. The literal act “give the hand” is intelligible, but a real modern safety notice would probably name the dangerous action more concretely:
Ne metu la manon en la kaĝon kaj ne provu tuŝi la leonon.
Do not put your hand into the cage or try to touch the lion.
That difference is stylistic and situational. The original demonstrates enduring grammar; it does not prescribe the most informative wording for every twenty-first-century warning.
The Fundamento is normative evidence for the structures it models. It is not a ban on later vocabulary, alternative neutral word orders, explicit possessives, or context-appropriate phrasing. A careful reader separates grammatical continuity from historical genre.
A reliable parsing method
When a historical sentence feels strange, do not translate left to right mechanically:
- Find the finite ending: -u identifies the volitive predicate.
- Locate negation: ne rejects that predicate.
- Mark prepositional roles: al identifies the recipient.
- Find case: -n identifies the direct object.
- Only then interpret the fronted order and generic reference.
The method works because Esperanto morphology remains transparent even when information structure differs from English.
Common Mistakes
Marking the complement of al with accusative
❌ Al leonon ne proksimiĝu.
Incorrect — al already marks its complement’s role.
✅ Al leono ne proksimiĝu.
Do not approach a lion.
Using an infinitive as a direct prohibition
❌ Ne doni manĝaĵon al la bestoj.
Incorrect as an ordinary addressed command — the infinitive only labels the action.
✅ Ne donu manĝaĵon al la bestoj.
Do not give food to the animals.
Infinitives do occur on terse signs as action labels, but (formal) signage style should not be confused with the ordinary finite command taught here.
Forgetting object marking
❌ Al fremdulo ne donu via pasvorto.
Incorrect — the possessed adjective must agree, and the direct object requires -n.
✅ Al fremdulo ne donu vian pasvorton.
Do not give your password to a stranger.
Assuming the first phrase must be the subject
❌ Al la gasto ricevis la ŝlosilon.
Incorrect — al la gasto cannot be the receiver subject of ricevis.
✅ La gasto ricevis la ŝlosilon.
The guest received the key.
Treating historical order as the only correct order
❌ Nur la vortordo “Al infano donu la libron” estas ĝusta.
Incorrect claim — Esperanto permits other clear orders.
✅ Donu la libron al infano.
Give the book to a child.
Key Takeaways
- Donu is a volitive; with preceding ne, it forms a negative command.
- Al leono is a fronted recipient phrase and therefore takes no -n.
- Bare singular leono has generic reference; la manon is a contextually definite direct object.
- The fronting remains grammatical today, while a modern safety notice may choose more explicit vocabulary and neutral order.
- Parse morphology and roles before translating historical prose into familiar English patterns.
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Start learning Esperanto →Related Topics
- Historical Esperanto and Modern UsageC1 — Read older Esperanto accurately while distinguishing unchanged grammar, dated style, accepted modern alternatives, and later innovation.
- The Volitive in -UB1 — Learn how invariant -u expresses commands, requests, wishes, proposals, purposes, and desired actions in subordinate clauses.
- Clause Negation with NeA1 — How to negate an Esperanto clause by placing ne before its finite verb, including commands, questions, and common scope contrasts.
- AlA2 — Use al for movement toward a goal, recipients, orientation, and abstract targets without adding an unnecessary accusative ending.
- Generic ReferenceA2 — Refer to a whole class or species with zero-article singulars, zero-article plurals, and stylistically marked definite generics.
- Objects and ComplementsB1 — Distinguish accusative direct objects from prepositional, adverbial, clausal, and predicative complements selected by Esperanto verbs.