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The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

8020japanese.com

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Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#21

Post by teraflop »

panorama wrote: post #15

Beginner question: In casual, spoken Japanese, I've been taught that I can drop the particles (including pronouns). Hence "watashi wa tabemasu" can be colloquially shortened to "tabemasu". Thanks to this article, I've come to understand particles much better and why they're important, but does it change in casual spoken Japanese? Are some particles okay to drop whereas others are kept? Thanks in advance.

Well, to be clear, particles and pronouns are very different things. (In fact, Japanese pronouns basically just act like nouns, from a grammatical perspective.)

Japanese is a so-called "pro-drop" language, which means it's normal to omit pronouns completely when they can be inferred. "Watashi wa tabemasu" would only be used for specific emphasis, as in: "I specifically (as opposed to somebody else you were just talking about) am eating." In any other context, it sounds unnatural, and you would just say "tabemasu" even in formal situations.

Separately, you can omit particles in colloquial speech when they're obvious. So for instance, in a polite setting you might ask "ashita wa, nani wo shimasu ka?" (meaning "what are you doing tomorrow?") But in a casual environment, you could say "ashita, nani suru?" and still be understood perfectly.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#22

Post by kalleboo »

iamnotlarry wrote: post #12

Remember those English diagramming classes everyone hated? I'm not very familiar with the education system in Japan, but I doubt they have diagramming classes. In Japanese, the diagramming is built into the language. You tag the subject, the direct object, the indirect object, etc. Everything gets markup. Which part of the sentence is the direct object? Uh... the part with the direct object tag hanging off it? Correc…

The grammar perhaps, but then you get to the writing system :)

Meanwhile over in Korean, the writing system was designed from scratch to be very simple (I'm led to believe - I don't know any Korean)

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#23

Post by DrPhish »

panorama wrote: post #15

Beginner question: In casual, spoken Japanese, I've been taught that I can drop the particles (including pronouns). Hence "watashi wa tabemasu" can be colloquially shortened to "tabemasu". Thanks to this article, I've come to understand particles much better and why they're important, but does it change in casual spoken Japanese? Are some particles okay to drop whereas others are kept? Thanks in advance.

In general, you can drop everything except the jitsugo (verb or adjective most usually) if the other bits can be inferred.

eg: Taberu (eat) or Hayai (fast)

It sounds like cavemen talk if you translate it literally, but it is perfectly valid japanese

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#24

Post by unscaled »

iamnotlarry wrote: post #12

Remember those English diagramming classes everyone hated? I'm not very familiar with the education system in Japan, but I doubt they have diagramming classes. In Japanese, the diagramming is built into the language. You tag the subject, the direct object, the indirect object, etc. Everything gets markup. Which part of the sentence is the direct object? Uh... the part with the direct object tag hanging off it? Correc…

I never had the pleasure of taking them myself, butI'm pretty sure Japanese grammar classes are not so fun as you imagine.

Putting aside that the norm in Japanese school is rote memorization and pedantic attention to details (e.g. you'd memorize dates of historical events), the Japanese grammar that is taught in class is traditional Japanese grammar. It's pretty streamlined compared to the abomination that is medieval Latin grammar (which remains the basis for English grammar taught in class), but it still targets Classical Japanese and uses rather obscure terms where clear diagrams would suffice.

I'll have to ask, but I think that instead of diagrams, Japanese students mainly need to memorize the difference between Izenkei, Mizenkei, Renyoukei, Rentaikei and Shuushikei, even though the last one is irrelevant for modern Japanese.

And of course Japanese wasn't "designed" any more than English was. There are dialects with widely varying grammar and vocabulary, and there some aspects which are very hard to learn even if you ignore the writing system (e.g. the proper use of Wa vs Ga, the proper use of emphatic sentence endings like no/n'da or yo). Inflection is way more regular than English, and syntax is pretty streamlined, which is a boon.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#25

Post by iamnotlarry »

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, depending. Japanese possessive: no

English plural: different for every word. Japanese plural: same as singular, or throw on a -tachi

English past tense: different for every word. Japanese past tense: -mashita for verbs, deshita for adverbs/adjectives

In English, nothing is simple. In Japanese, a multi-word phrase may have more syllables, but at least it will always be the same rule.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#26

Post by unscaled »

I have to enter a caveat here though. Spoken Japanese is a little bit different, and in some cases, arguments will follow the verb. It's pretty rare, but I did hear things like "Dou sureba ii ore" or "nani yatteru omae"?

This is VERY rough and informal though, and not Japan being very polite, it's not something that I'd hear everyday. Maybe on TV or from really close friends, and even then I'm not sure if everyone would say that.

But it just goes to show that natural languages are very complex creatures, and even the tidiest rules have exceptions sometimes.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#27

Post by iamnotlarry »

kalleboo wrote: post #22
iamnotlarry wrote: post #12

Remember those English diagramming classes everyone hated? I'm not very familiar with the education system in Japan, but I doubt they have diagramming classes. In Japanese, the diagramming is built into the language. You tag the subject, the direct object, the indirect object, etc. Everything gets markup. Which part of the sentence is the direct object? Uh... the part with the direct object tag hanging off it? Correc…

The grammar perhaps, but then you get to the writing system :) Meanwhile over in Korean, the writing system was designed from scratch to be very simple (I'm led to believe - I don't know any Korean)

I really like the Korean writing system. It's very cool. Take the 1-4 sounds that make up a syllable, arrange them into the syllable template, and you have a single character that represents that syllable. It's pretty slick, space-efficient, phonetic, and full of yummy goodness.

Then, just to mess with people, optionally throw in thousands of Chinese characters.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#28

Post by greenhatman »

iamnotlarry wrote: post #8

I learned Japanese very much the same way I learn programming languages and found it to be very easy to learn spoken Japanese. As far as languages go, Japanese is structured a lot like a programming language. If you learn five or six "bunpo" or grammar rules, you can go a very long ways. Then, to improve, just add rules to your mastery. When I first learn any programming language I start with basics: variable binding…

I like that you can add 'sen' at the end of a sentence to make it negative, or 'ka' to make it a question.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#29

Post by unscaled »

iamnotlarry wrote: post #8

I learned Japanese very much the same way I learn programming languages and found it to be very easy to learn spoken Japanese. As far as languages go, Japanese is structured a lot like a programming language. If you learn five or six "bunpo" or grammar rules, you can go a very long ways. Then, to improve, just add rules to your mastery. When I first learn any programming language I start with basics: variable binding…

Japanese actually has a confusing array of conditional constructions

  VERB (conjugated) + nara (or the ridiculously formal "naraba")
  VERB (conjugated) + some noun, such as baai (case)
  VERB (plain form) + to
  VERB (izenkei form) + ba
  VERB (past form) + ra
And there are complex forms such as:

  VERB (plain form) + to shitara
  VERB (plain form) + to sureba
And you can add moshi or moshimo in the beginning to increase the level of supposition.

Each has a slightly different use and meaning of course, but it's still confusing enough for me even now.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#30

Post by irq11 »

iamnotlarry wrote: post #8

I learned Japanese very much the same way I learn programming languages and found it to be very easy to learn spoken Japanese. As far as languages go, Japanese is structured a lot like a programming language. If you learn five or six "bunpo" or grammar rules, you can go a very long ways. Then, to improve, just add rules to your mastery. When I first learn any programming language I start with basics: variable binding…

"For Japanese, it's naraba . That's it. Unless? nakeriba ."

There are actually a number of ways to say "if" in japanese, and the one you mention can only be used in certain contexts.

People might get your gist if you use the conditional tense for everything, but you'll be wrong a lot. The -tara/nara grammar is at least as commonly used, if not more so.

I bring this up to illustrate only that the "programming language" metaphor doesn't go very far. Japanese, like any human language, is loaded with weird, illogical exceptions.

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