"I prefer paper to plastic."
Translation:Mi preferas paperon ol plaston.
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Laŭ estas ĝustaj kaj "Mi preferas paperon ol plaston" kaj "mi preferas paperon al plasto".
(Bertilo verkis la plej modernan kaj fidindan libron pri Esperanta gramatiko. Serĉu por PMEG.)
Interesting to realize that in this case, the word after "ol" still gets the accusative. It makes sense, as it's still an object of "preferas", but one might not immediately realize that and start thinking how words after prepositions don't get accusative case. (I know "ol" is not a preposition but a conjunction, but again, one might not immediatley realize that.)
In an advanced course, I was taught it should be "Mi preferas paperon al plasto". This ol-form makes sense to me, but it does give me pause.
Whoah, I'm reading "al", now. Was it changed or did I just completely see it wrong originally? I'm assuming the former, given the discussion still present here.
Maybe you were right, traevoli, and it was just a mistake, then. Let me check Tekstaro... hm, it does seem to have mostly "ol".
Oh right, now I remember what bertilow wrote below. I do wonder why it was changed, though.
I just had a multiple choice question and I got it wrong for choosing only the "ol" form and not BOTH "ol" and "al".
Well, that seems alright if both are allowed. And it sounds like "ol" is still counted as correct, as well. So that seems fine, right?
Yes, it was "paperon ol plaston" before. I guess the team discussed it after I brought it up on the Facebook group. Since there is some controversy about that ol-form (not every teacher of E-o agrees that "ol" should be used the the verb "preferi"), I guess they decided to go with the more widely accepted form.
Interesting, in that case it surprises me that most of the examples I found on Tekstaro (I'll admit I only checked maybe 10–20) used "ol" rather than "al". Ah well, thanks for the info.
'Ol' is accepted now. But I seem to remember that in another sentence, the noun after 'ol' was in the nominative, even though the structure of the sentence was exactly like this. Odd. (It's a bit like German 'Ich sehe alle [accusative] außer dir [dative, because of außer].)
OK, not only is "al" listed as a correct answer when it should not be, but the "ol" form which in this same lesson has not taken the accusative case is now taking the accusative case. This lesson seriously needs to sort itself out. Does "ol" take accusative"? And why is "al" correct when it's usually to as in "toward", not "to" as in "over".
Well, I don't know if "al" really is correct or not, but I can say that just because a preference relation in English is referred to as one thing "over" the other, that doesn't mean it is necessarily that way in other languages. I could imagine such a relation being "toward" a thing, at least in principle. That said, it would be good if the lesson could avoid inconsistencies.
"Ol" is not a preposition. In principle it's a subjunction (subordinate conjunction). So in principle it always starts a subordinate clause, but that clause is almost always drastically shortened and often only one word remains, so "ol" sure can look a lot like a preposition.
It's almost like saying "I prefer paper [more] than I prefer plastic"
If you took the last half of that sentence, you'd have "I prefer plastic", and that'd leave you with an accusative "plaston".
