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The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

8020japanese.com

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Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#31

Post by iamnotlarry »

unscaled wrote: post #24
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 medieva…

Wa/Ga aren't that hard. Mostly just subject vs topic. Just like objective and subjective isn't that hard in English. Of course, most Americans can't master objective/subjective.

The trick for wa/ga is often just to remember that subjects are often implied in Japanese and missing from the actual text/speech. So, "Nekko ga suki desu" because the "watakushi wa" was implied.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#32

Post by joshka »

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.

There's another article on the site [1] that explains this in detail. It seems that you can drop the "watashi wa" only when the context of the statement or answer is obvious from previous parts of the conversation.

[1]: https://8020japanese.com/wa-vs-ga/#comparison

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#33

Post by iamnotlarry »

irq11 wrote: post #30
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…

What? You mean there's a ternary operator?

I bring this up to illustrate that the metaphor isn't perfect, but it has some legs. I meant that BNF diagrams would be easier to create and understand for Japanese than for English.

You are right that there are more forms for saying 'if'.

Then again, I've seen programmers who spell 'if' 'f-o-r'.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#34

Post by sdrothrock »

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.

> I can drop the particles (including pronouns)

Sure. "piza wo taberu?" can be "piza taberu?" and that's fine, even normal.

> (including pronouns)

This is different and I think there are a few misconceptions bundled up in this assumption.

1. Particles don't exist on their own; they're permanently linked to the word that precedes them; if you've ever studied a Romance language, you can think of them as a way of declining nouns.

So "watashi wa" is the nominative, "watashi wo" is the accusative.

2. Pronoun dropping is done in the sense that the pronoun is not essential to the sentence and can be inferred from context.

For example, if you and your friend are eating and you ask "motto taberu [gonna eat more?]," nobody's going to be confused about whether the subject of that sentence is "watashi wa" or "anata wa."

It happens in English, too, but people overthink it a lot when presented with it consciously in Japanese.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#35

Post by chc »

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…

I think this is overstating the regularity of Japanese a bit. For example, what is the past tense of "kuru"? What is the present tense of "datta"?

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#36

Post by Grue3 »

Yeah it's "logical", except in casual language the rules are broken all the time. A lot of things can follow the verb.

The article doesn't mention subclauses at all, but it's where things become hairy. There's particle "ga" which is similar to "wa" except it works as a subject of subclause, except sometimes it means "but". There are dozens of ways to incorporate subclauses into main sentence, using different particles. It's very common for the entire sentence to be a subclause ([something] no/n desu).

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#37

Post by irq11 »

iamnotlarry wrote: post #33
irq11 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

What? You mean there's a ternary operator? I bring this up to illustrate that the metaphor isn't perfect, but it has some legs. I meant that BNF diagrams would be easier to create and understand for Japanese than for English. You are right that there are more forms for saying 'if'. Then again, I've seen programmers who spell 'if' 'f-o-r'.

No, I mean that there are at least a half a dozen different ways to express "if", and they all have specific semantic uses. It is way, way more complicated than syntax.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#38

Post by panorama »

sdrothrock wrote: post #34
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.

> I can drop the particles (including pronouns) Sure. "piza wo taberu?" can be "piza taberu?" and that's fine, even normal. > (including pronouns) This is different and I think there are a few misconceptions bundled up in this assumption. 1. Particles don't exist on their own; they're permanently linked to the word that precedes them; if you've ever studied a Romance language, you can think of them as a way of declin…

Thanks. Sorry for the confusion; I have a decent understanding of when pronouns can be dropped, but my question was moreso about when particles can be dropped. For instance, from the linked article, this sentence:

Tarō wa Noriko wo toshokan de mimashita.

In casual spoken Japanese, can any of these particles (wa, wo, de) be dropped?

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#39

Post by iamnotlarry »

joshka wrote: post #32
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.

There's another article on the site [1] that explains this in detail. It seems that you can drop the "watashi wa" only when the context of the statement or answer is obvious from previous parts of the conversation. [1]: https://8020japanese.com/wa-vs-ga/#comparison

As others have commented here, Japanese relies heavily on inference. Subjects and topics are very commonly dropped.

I shouldn't say that the language relies on inference. Rather, speakers of Japanese rely on inference. It's like chaining functions in some languages.

Car.rent().driveTo(work).park().driveTo(lunch).wash().

By the time you get to the washing in the conversation, the car is hard to find in the sentence, and the driver never does appear. But they are both there if you go looking.

Re: The Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure

#40

Post by iamnotlarry »

panorama wrote: post #38
sdrothrock wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can drop the particles (including pronouns) Sure. "piza wo taberu?" can be "piza taberu?" and that's fine, even normal. > (including pronouns) This is different and I think there are a few misconceptions bundled up in this assumption. 1. Particles don't exist on their own; they're permanently linked to the word that precedes them; if you've ever studied a Romance language, you can think of them as a way of declin…

Thanks. Sorry for the confusion; I have a decent understanding of when pronouns can be dropped, but my question was moreso about when particles can be dropped. For instance, from the linked article, this sentence: Tarō wa Noriko wo toshokan de mimashita. In casual spoken Japanese, can any of these particles (wa, wo, de) be dropped?

generally, no
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