"Twins have the same parents."
Translation:Ĝemeloj havas la samajn gepatrojn.
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I don't know exactly, but probably for the same reason it's necessary in English. "Twins have same parents" doesn't sound right to me. I suspect it has something to do with la/the being a definite article, meaning that it defines a specific thing. http://www.edufind.com/english-grammar/definite-article/
It feels right to me with the "la" but I can't formulate rules for why it should be there / can be there / may be there / should not be there.
I am reading this - two years after you posted it!
I would answer something like this. Can we talk about having "a same parent"? Can we talk about having "some same parents"? We say "the same parents because it's a definite set of parents. The parents of one are the parents of the other. Notice that I said the parents in both cases in the last sentence.
It's similar in Esperanto.
I do think there are cases where we wouldn't say "la sama" in Esperanto even where we would say "the same" in English. Off the top of my head, I would say the rule is that we don't use "la" when using the adverb to describe things that are the same.
- Mi havas la saman ideon - it's one idea, the idea.
- Mia ideo estas sama kiel la via. There are two ideas and they are the same.
Ne ĉiam. Ekzistas ankaŭ "heteropaternala superfekundationo". En tiu rara kazo la ĝemeloj havas malsamajn patrojn.
Oni povus ankaŭ imagi ke du virinoj donis po unu ovo kaj tria virino ricevis tiujn ovojn en sian uteron.
Oni povus diri ke la du infanoj estas ĝemeloj ĉar ili naskiĝis kune ekde la sama virino, sed ili eĉ ne havas la saman patrinon.
"Gepatroj" (parents) is from "ge-" + "patr-o-j", but "ĝemeloj" (twins) is simple a single root, "ĝemel-". It's a coincidence that the first two letters look like the "ge-" prefix.
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There's one hit in the tekstaro.com for geĝemeloj. But it's for two pairs of identical twins.
