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The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

8020japanese.com

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Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#111

Post by blipmusic »

dasfasf wrote: post #9

A interesting property of Japanese is that a sentence is also a subordinate clause. For example Tarou wa Noriko wo toshokan de mimashita. (Tarou saw Noriko at the library.) Tarou wa Noriko wo mimashita. (Tarou saw Noriko.) Tarou wa Noriko wo mimashita toshokan (The library where Tarou saw Noriko) Generally " " means "the such that is true for some choice of ".

1. You can't topicalise the subject of a subordinate clause. 2. Only plain form is valid for verbs in a subordinate clause. (maybe the particle "kara" could be seen as an exception here)

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#112

Post by blipmusic »

shiro wrote: post #14
dasfasf wrote: post #9

A interesting property of Japanese is that a sentence is also a subordinate clause. For example Tarou wa Noriko wo toshokan de mimashita. (Tarou saw Noriko at the library.) Tarou wa Noriko wo mimashita. (Tarou saw Noriko.) Tarou wa Noriko wo mimashita toshokan (The library where Tarou saw Noriko) Generally " " means "the such that is true for some choice of ".

Your third example isn't valid. It needs a bit of tweak. Tarou ga Noriko wo mita toshokan The particle "ga" and "wa" both introduce a topic. But in a phrase to explain a noun, we use "ga" exclusively. Your main point still holds, in a sense that "Tarou ga Noriko wo mita" is a valid sentence. But to be precise, "mita" in those two sentences are different conjugated forms; it just happens that two conjugated forms are…

> The particle "ga" and "wa" both introduce a topic

Forgive me for saying this, since you seem to be a native speaker, but don't you mean that they both introduce the subject, not topic (using 'topic' as a linguistic term)?

"Wa" would be the topicalising subject marker, denoting known information:

Tanaka wa nihon ni itta.

Tanaka went to Japan. -> As for Tanaka, he went to Japan. Tanaka = known information (i.e. Tanaka is familiar to the listener)

"Ga", while also a subject marker could denote/introduce new information:

Tanaka ga nihon ni itta.

Tanaka went to Japan. -> e.g. It was Tanaka who went to Japan.

Tanaka = new information (e.g. the listener is did not not Tanaka was the one going to Japan.)

(Note: I realise there are other constructions for my interpretation of the ga-sentence)

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#113

Post by stephengillie »

mcaruso wrote: post #110
stephengillie wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could this situation be described by nesting sentences? "Taro saw (Noriko wears a dress)." To extend your example: formal(past(miru))(topic="Taro", object="Noriko") "Taro saw Noriko." formal(present(kiru))(topic="Noriko", object="doresu") "Noriko wears a dress." Nested: formal(past(miru))(topic="Taro", object=(formal(present(kiru))(topic="Noriko", object="doresu")) ) "Taro saw (Noriko wears a dress)." "Taro saw Norik…

It wouldn't type-check, since `object` is expected to be a noun and not a verb. :)

It's a difficulty inherent in describing one unfamiliar language with another unfamiliar language. :)

This could work in Powershell. The function would have to be written to expect nested recursive calls, to remove the omitted particle.

  Construct-Sentence -verb miru -Formal -Past -Topic Taro -Object (
  Construct-Sentence -verb kiru -Formal -Present -Topic Noriko -Object doresu
  )

  "Taro saw (Noriko wears a dress)."
  "Taro saw Noriko wear a dress."

  "Taro wa (doresu wo kiru Noriko wa(?)) wo mimashita"
  "Taro wa doresu wo kiru Noriko wo mimashita"

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#114

Post by samfisher83 »

iamnotlarry wrote: post #25
whym wrote: post #19

This article does a great job at presenting a gist of the Japanese sentence structure. Nevertheless, it makes me want to point out that it's not the whole story. If you take into account topics such as modality and conjugation, some of the information you add to a verb is placed after the verb and cannot be freely reordered. Japanese verbs are "greater" than English verbs in the sense that you conjugate/suffixate a v…

For Japanese, you learn a handful of rules to conjugate a verb. Then those rules always apply with no exceptions. In English, there are not set rules. Every case is special. What is the past tense form of 'shake'? 'see'? 'walk'? 'sleep'? 'eat'? 'speak'? 'sit'? 'seek'? 'work'? There are no rules. You basically have to memorize every word and all the possible ways it can morph. English possessive: 's or s' or ' or s, d…

The thing with English is people in general can understand most things even if you screw up tenses or tones. You put a few words together and people will mostly get you. In Japanese you have to remember extra things to add so you identify different parts of a sentence. Same with gender in romance languages. They just add more complexity. In a way Korean and Chinese are a little easier in terms of rules.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#116

Post by gizmo686 »

blipmusic wrote: post #112
shiro wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your third example isn't valid. It needs a bit of tweak. Tarou ga Noriko wo mita toshokan The particle "ga" and "wa" both introduce a topic. But in a phrase to explain a noun, we use "ga" exclusively. Your main point still holds, in a sense that "Tarou ga Noriko wo mita" is a valid sentence. But to be precise, "mita" in those two sentences are different conjugated forms; it just happens that two conjugated forms are…

> The particle "ga" and "wa" both introduce a topic Forgive me for saying this, since you seem to be a native speaker, but don't you mean that they both introduce the subject , not topic (using 'topic' as a linguistic term)? "Wa" would be the topicalising subject marker, denoting known information: Tanaka wa nihon ni itta. Tanaka went to Japan. -> As for Tanaka, he went to Japan. Tanaka = known information (i.e. Tana…

Not a native speaker, but have studied Japanese linguisticly (as well as as a second language).

Wa is a bit of a complicated topic. The prevailing thinking is (roughly) that it has two distinctive meanings: topic marking, and contrastive. As a topic marker, wa does not introduce the subject (although in many cases, there is a null anaphora referring to the topic).

In anycase, the common linguistic explanation for shiro's correction is that the subject of subordinate clauses resists topicalization.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#117

Post by blipmusic »

gizmo686 wrote: post #116
blipmusic wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The particle "ga" and "wa" both introduce a topic Forgive me for saying this, since you seem to be a native speaker, but don't you mean that they both introduce the subject , not topic (using 'topic' as a linguistic term)? "Wa" would be the topicalising subject marker, denoting known information: Tanaka wa nihon ni itta. Tanaka went to Japan. -> As for Tanaka, he went to Japan. Tanaka = known information (i.e. Tana…

Not a native speaker, but have studied Japanese linguisticly (as well as as a second language). Wa is a bit of a complicated topic. The prevailing thinking is (roughly) that it has two distinctive meanings: topic marking, and contrastive. As a topic marker, wa does not introduce the subject (although in many cases, there is a null anaphora referring to the topic). In anycase, the common linguistic explanation for shi…

(Is this where people start flaunting their phd:s, professor titles? j/k ;-) academic here as well - I do not hold a phd)

Well, I realise the topic + contrast bit but is it really treated as a null anaphora, rather than acting as both topic and subject marker in my example...? My examples referred to information structure more than anything.

Yes, I realise you can have sentences like "Ashita wa Tanaka ga..."/"Sou wa hana ga nagai." - I've even seen a discussion on double topics (some old, theoretical text by Yasuo Kitahara IIRC, probably more known for 'Mondai-na Nihongo'). I also realise that in some contexts where it seems to denote a subject its noun is only a topic ("watashi wa unagi desu").

Logically, it would indeed be quite difficult for a subordinate clause to contain the/a topic.

Anyway, I'm curious if you happen to have further explanations (or articles)!

(Unrelated note: why is it that Japanese of all things make us crawl out from under our rocks...? :-))

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#118

Post by vram22 »

yawaramin wrote: post #93
glandium wrote: post #68

Something I like about the whole "verb at the end of the sentence" thing is that you can totally flip over the meaning of what you're saying, right at the end. In English, you can achieve the same effect with awkward forms (like "not" at the end of the sentence), but in Japanese, it's just the natural form. Try to imagine the kind of snarks you could do if you could put things like "I don't reckon" on hold until the…

I was just thinking about negation by adding the suffix. We have it in Bangla too. In fact, we share the same word, 'nai', for 'is not there'.

I think many Indian languages have it too.

And in fact the Japanese negation at the end - negation suffix ("nai"→"naka") - from whym's comment in this thread - sounds like the Marathi one - same sound (naka or nako).

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#119

Post by Panoramix »

kazinator wrote: post #94

Hey all, on a topic related to this: here is another way to get some feeling for the different sentence structure. I recently finished making English subs for a 45 minute Japanese rock concert video from the 1980's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNqfX9nm-No Here I introduce a concept in subtitling whereby a subtitle template with dashed ("------") blanks appears for an entire English sentence, and the blanks conver…

That's pretty cool, I've been looking for something like this.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#120

Post by raverbashing »

kazinator wrote: post #94

Hey all, on a topic related to this: here is another way to get some feeling for the different sentence structure. I recently finished making English subs for a 45 minute Japanese rock concert video from the 1980's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNqfX9nm-No Here I introduce a concept in subtitling whereby a subtitle template with dashed ("------") blanks appears for an entire English sentence, and the blanks conver…

Wow, that's a great way of presenting the lyrics in a different language

I've watched it a bit and it seems very nicely done

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