Japanese Language

12:21 PM

@snailboat Wait. 何 counts as ど?!

@snailboat ooooh, interesting

Anonymous

@Xeo Well, it depends on what you mean by "counts as ど". I was just trying to explain that I was including it in there because fits the same patterns. It doesn't actually include ど.

Anonymous

But have you ever heard people talk about wh-words in English? Like who, what, when, where, why, and how?

Xeo

okay

Anonymous

How doesn't have that wh in there, but it's more convenient if we call it a wh-word anyway . . . :-)

Xeo

Can't say I have, but then again, English isn't my mother tongue

Anonymous

12:23 PM

ど is Japanese's wh

Anonymous

Ah, well, English used to have a paradigm like こそあど, though with only 2 levels of distance rather than 3, like こそど

Anonymous

Hither, thither, and whither

Anonymous

= こ・そ・ど

Anonymous

Here, there, and where

Xeo

mhmh

@snailboat Very interesting.

So the か in 彼女 and 彼 are the old form of あ from the こ・そ・あ・ど series?

Anonymous

12:28 PM

@Xeo Yes, that's right

3 to 5 business days

@snailboat "how" was formerly "whow", but the "w" was lost

Anonymous

They were invented as translations for Western gendered pronouns

Anonymous

@3to5businessdays The oldest cited form in the OED is hu

Anonymous

Are you talking about a reconstructed form?

3 to 5 business days

@snailboat More like talking out of my お尻

Xeo

12:32 PM

9

Q: Is whow a word?

According to this chart describing an extension of 5W1H, the word how originates from the word whow which means “how much”. I can’t find any references to such a word on the Internet. Is (or was) whow really a word? If not, where do you think the author of the chart got his information from? He...

etymology

Anonymous

It looks like it does come from the same Proto-Indo European root, *kwo-

Anonymous

So etymologically, they do all have the same interrogative morpheme, looks like

Anonymous

Whereas 何 really doesn't contain いづ

3 to 5 business days

@Xeo Aw shit, I misread it as "wow"

Anonymous

So Proto-Indo European *kwo- became Proto-Germanic *hw, which became h and hw in various English wh-words

3 to 5 business days

12:36 PM

@snailboat Is it いづ or いず?

Anonymous

@3to5businessdays Yes, but it was originally いづ

Anonymous

And of course we eventually got our hw backwards

Anonymous

It was idu.

Xeo

@snailboat Ah, that's where that one pronounciation of "white" comes from, I guess? With the audible "h" at the beginning

Anonymous

Eventually du assibilated to something more like dzu and then merged with ず

Anonymous

12:38 PM

But when it was いづ, it was still a plain d sound, idu

Anonymous

And that did not sound like いず at the time

3 to 5 business days

@Xeo Frank Underwood says "white" like that

Anonymous

And (for example) iduko eventually become doko

Anonymous

@Xeo Yes, there are still some speakers who pronounce the h in white but for most it is lost

3 to 5 business days

@snailboat Is it the same with どれ and どの?

Anonymous

12:40 PM

When Japanese borrowed ホワイト it was somehwat more widespread

Anonymous

@3to5businessdays These are all いづ originally, and you'll still find them used in literary or pseudo-literary registers, often いず

Anonymous

Today いずれ survives

3 to 5 business days

It lives!

Xeo

Say, how long have you been learning / studying Japanese @snailboat?

Anonymous

You'll hear e.g. いずれにせよ

3 to 5 business days

12:41 PM

@snailboat いずれも

いずれか

Anonymous

@Xeo Seventeen years, but I'm a bit of a slow learner, so probably someone else who'd been studying as long would know a lot more :-)

Anonymous

@3to5businessdays It's like Frodo

Xeo

Okay, so it's not like I need to despair with my 8 months of learning :)

3 to 5 business days

►

Xeo

@3to5businessdays Rikaichan actually shows definitions for those two, with 何れも and 何れか even

Anonymous

12:43 PM

@3to5businessdays books.google.com/…

3 to 5 business days

@snailboat I am disappoint. I thought it was a book analyzing Family Guy

Anonymous

Hehe, sorry, I'm not really familiar with Family Guy or the literary analysis thereof :-)

Xeo

@snailboat In some compound words it shows with いず but not いづ. Hm.

3 to 5 business days

There are university courses on South Park though, I think

Anonymous

@Xeo づ and ず merged, and the modern spelling for most words uses ず

Anonymous

12:46 PM

In Old and Middle Japanese they were distinct sounds

Xeo

12 mins ago, by snailboat

Whereas 何 really doesn't contain いづ

So that's wrong then?

Anonymous

I was talking about the word なに

Xeo

Since in 何れも it's いず

@snailboat ah, ok

Anonymous

The word なに does not contain いづ

Anonymous

The word いずれも is not normally written with kanji

Anonymous

12:48 PM

Old Japanese had a こ・そ・いづ system, to which か was added: こ・そ・か・いづ

Anonymous

こ←こ
そ←そ
あ←か
ど←いづ（いず）

Anonymous

なに was never part of that system. なに does not contain いづ.

Anonymous

That is all I was trying to say.

Anonymous

なに is, however, a wh-word (also called an "interrogative word")

Anonymous

There's also いく・いか・いつ, all apparently built on the same い from いづ

Anonymous

12:51 PM

You probably know words like いかにも or いくつ or いつも

Anonymous

So those fit into the こそあど system under ど

Anonymous

Because they're built off of い(づ)

Anonymous

Every wh-word in Japanese is, except for なに

Anonymous

And uh, なぜ?

Anonymous

Where does なぜ come from?

Anonymous

12:52 PM

Probably from なに. なにゆえ？

Anonymous

There are various words derived from なに like なぞ

Anonymous

1:12 PM

Ohh, なにせ　→　なぜ

Anonymous

なにせ→なんせ→なぜ？

Anonymous

日本国語大辞典 says:

Anonymous

「万葉集」にも多く見られる「なにせむに（何-せむ-に)」からの変化で、ナニセムニ→ナンゼンニ→ナゼンニ→ナゼニ→ナゼとなった。

Anonymous

Ohh, I forgot about 誰

Anonymous

That was from a separate た(れ)

Anonymous

1:19 PM

I guess that makes three sources, なに, た(れ), and い(づ)

Anonymous

It makes English seem simple, with its PIE *kwo- in all the wh-words! :-)

Xeo

sigh I wish Genki wasn't so terribly overpriced over here :<

Anonymous

Aw!

3 to 5 business days

Nooo, you interrupted the excellent monologue!!!

Anonymous

@Xeo Genki seems to be a very popular textbook!

3 to 5 business days

1:27 PM

@snailboat most popular

at least among self-learners. Not sure about classroom

Xeo

@snailboat It's like 50eur at least.

Anonymous

Does it come with CDs?

Xeo

Dunno. I only know that on Amazon.co.jp it's 28eur :<

But as soon as you add shipping and customs... meh

Anonymous

Books on language can be expensive!

Anonymous

Sometimes you can find them cheaper used :-)

Xeo

1:40 PM

Wait, which one would I actually want? The workbook or the textbook?

3 to 5 business days

I think JP in italics looks nasty

Anonymous

@3to5businessdays Japanese speakers do use italics! (Well, obliques)

Anonymous

I try to avoid using italics in Japanese because people recommended that I avoid them

3 to 5 business days

What can I say, people do nasty stuff

Anonymous

When I wrote an answer recently I used emphasis dots ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9C%8F%E7%82%B9

Anonymous

1:41 PM

I put {﹅} over kanji with the furigana engine :-)

Anonymous

I thought that was better than using italics

Xeo

@snailboat ebay.de/itm/191356101712 :(

Anonymous

Oh, no!

Anonymous

@Xeo Are you still going through Japanese from Zero?

Xeo

Ye

Need to finish book 3 and 4 yet

Anonymous

1:44 PM

Ahh, if you need to finish books 3 and 4 still, then maybe you can get by without Genki for now :-)

Xeo

I'm currently lagging behind because I haven't been transcribing vocab from book 2 after the first half, so I'm currently doing that.

Anonymous

I've been drilling vocab. It's kind of mind-numbing

Anonymous

I like this word　→　光芒

Xeo

I like　光, looks like a lasergun :)

Anonymous

Hehe! 閃光！

Xeo

1:46 PM

(the beam part being on top, i.e. it's rotated)

Anonymous

I see!

Anonymous

@Xeo 光線銃！

Xeo

lol

3 to 5 business days

@snailboat It's pretty

How's that book? Good?

Xeo

@snailboat Damn, how is one supposed to identify those kanji on a monitor without zooming in?!

Anonymous

1:47 PM

@3to5businessdays I have no idea. Xeo is the one who has the book :-)

Anonymous

@Xeo I don't know . . . what do they look like on your screen?

3 to 5 business days

@snailboat What do you mean? I wasn't talking to you...

Anonymous

3 to 5 business days

jew 銃

Anonymous

Hehe, chat made the image all huge :-) If you click the link you can see it at normal size

Xeo

1:49 PM

3 to 5 business days

That's some nasty ass character rendition

Xeo

maybe my fontsize is just too small :)

looks much better when I zoom in a bit

3 to 5 business days

Definitely

I don't know why, but JP websites use super-small font sizes

Anonymous

@Xeo That's definitely readable

Xeo

Maybe I just need to change my font, cuz even with zooming it doesn't look very smooth

Anonymous

1:51 PM

But it is rather small, and you should make it bigger if you have trouble reading it.

Xeo

@snailboat You can identify the second and third kanji from that?

Anonymous

Yes, it's fine

Xeo

ehh

3 to 5 business days

Hmmm, because you've already seen the word prior to the screenshot?

Anonymous

Most kanji, if you're used to recognizing them, then you can recognize them even when they're blurry or pixelly or blobby

Anonymous

1:53 PM

@3to5businessdays Fine, give me some other kanji at that size to read :-)

Xeo

@snailboat Btw, it's the used ones that start at 50+

The new one, on amazon.de, is at 73eur.

It's ridiculous

3 to 5 business days

@snailboat I won't lower myself to such level!

Anonymous

Seriously, though, I'm used to reading kanji that are that pixelly. If you play any games on DS, kanji are generally 9x9 pixels

Xeo

ew

3 to 5 business days

I have witnessed such a horror

Anonymous

1:54 PM

And they're perfectly readable

3 to 5 business days

My eyes still sting from the bleach

Anonymous

I have seen pixelly kanji I had trouble reading at first.

Anonymous

I can read that fine now, but when I first saw it I couldn't.

3 to 5 business days

物 something

Xeo

1:58 PM

Yeah, 物 I could've guessed

but after that? no clue

3 to 5 business days

騒

maybe

call me maybe

Anonymous

Hehe, yep! :-)

Xeo

So you basically have to guess at the kanji from a few recognisable bits...

Anonymous

Actually, if I showed you a complete sentence, you'd have an easier time, I bet

Anonymous

3 to 5 business days

2:01 PM

why the comma?

Xeo

時 I can also identify

3 to 5 business days

I was able to identify the ～

Xeo

or rather, that part of the kanji

3 to 5 business days

(Pat myself on the shoulder)

Anonymous

I don't know. Sometimes in Japanese people put commas between modifier and head

Anonymous

2:03 PM

Different people use commas in different ways

3 to 5 business days

@snailboat It confused me for a second

Anonymous

Some people use a comma to indicate ellipsis, some to indicate pauses, some to indicate a coordination of modifiers

3 to 5 business days

I was going through a few possible meanings of 時代 due to that comma

Xeo

Ah, "it's a dangerous time, isn't it~"

or "dangerous times"

Anonymous

I think 物騒な時代 is a collocation

Anonymous

2:07 PM

But I have no idea why they chose to insert a comma.

3 to 5 business days

> giving away calendars and bottles of wine with her picture on them in her constituency.

Bribing voters with calendars?

Anonymous

I guess? The wine might be more effective as a bribe

Xeo

Wine is yucky

Anonymous

I'm a teetotaller. I've never had alcohol

Anonymous

I've had alcohol in my possession before. But I gave it away

3 to 5 business days

2:13 PM

@snailboat Not even in cakes?

My god

Anonymous

@3to5businessdays I've made homemade bread, which has a small residual alcohol content

Anonymous

What I've never had is an alcoholic beverage

3 to 5 business days

@snailboat Not even apple cider?

My god

Xeo

@snailboat I used to be like that too. I didn't drink alcohol (wine, beer, vodka, etc) because I just did not consider it tasty.

Then I found rum.

And mead.

And damn those are yummy.

Anonymous

Hopefully in tankards.

3 to 5 business days

2:15 PM

Now you are an alcoholic

Xeo

nah

Anonymous

Tankards of mead for a-quaffin'!

Xeo

I rarely drink alcohol still

currently it's just a bottle of mead every week or two, because a friend of mine comes over for the weekend.

Of course, we drink it properly from horns.

Anonymous

Phew. I was worried.

Anonymous

I mean, you wouldn't want to dishonor Óðinn.

Xeo

2:17 PM

Mead in anything but a horn? Blasphemy!

3 to 5 business days

Is 相 are more formal term for "minister" than 大臣

Anonymous

@3to5businessdays It's more like a word-forming element than a word, isn't it?

Anonymous

It's listed as （造） in 明鏡

3 to 5 business days

Look what I found

3

Q: Understanding the kanji 相 as "government minister"...?

One of the onyomi readings of 相 is しょう. If I'm doing my legwork right, when its read this way, it has an indication of government involvement, in words like (and here, I'm relying on my dictionaries-- I have no idea if these words are commonly used?) 丞相　じょうしょう　"emperor's assistant" 首相　しゅしょう　"pri...

kanji

Huh, 相 is actually the "lighter" word than 大臣

Anonymous

@3to5businessdays Hmm, I still think I would call it a word-forming element

3 to 5 business days

2:27 PM

Yes, but my question is more on the difference in nuance

Anonymous

Oh

3 to 5 business days

Jeez look at 大辞林's definition of 相（しょう）

> 君主をたすけて政治を行う職。大臣。宰相（さいしよう）。「此の道に明らかならば－とするにたへたり／正統記嵯峨」

Anonymous

Hey, a citation with it as an independent word! :-)

3 to 5 business days

大辞泉

> 君主を助けて政治を行う職。宰相。大臣。

Anonymous

But in 明鏡 it's just a 造語成分. I wonder if it used to be used as an independent word but not as much anymore?

3 to 5 business days

2:35 PM

@snailboat I find it odd that 大辞泉／林 doesn't mention its 造語成分 usage

After all, it's the more common usage nowadays

or probably, the only usage

Anonymous

広辞苑 says: しょう【相】ｼﾔｳ　　たすけること。君主を輔佐し政を行う職。大臣。「外―」

Anonymous

日国 says: ①君主を補佐して政治を行なう職。宰相。大臣。（examples omitted）②助けるもの。補佐。

Anonymous

I guess 輔佐 and 補佐 are the same word

Anonymous

集英社 lists it under 〔造語〕 and says 君主をたすけて政治を行う人。たすける。「相国・宰相・首相・丞相・内相・農相・文相・法相・労相」

Anonymous

集英社国語辞典 is a good dictionary

3 to 5 business days

2:47 PM

It's in your 電子辞書?

Anonymous

No, I have it on paper

Anonymous

岩波国語辞典 too

3 to 5 business days

Found かもしれない's cousin: かねない

Anonymous

〜かねない is a little different

3 to 5 business days

Please, tell me more

Likelihood of かねない is higher?

Xeo

2:55 PM

Rather, lower I'd think

Going from the verb with "unable to do", anyways

Anonymous

@3to5businessdays It's really just a rather different word. I could quote a reference or two...

3 to 5 business days

@snailboat I hope it's something more palatable than linguistic papers

Anonymous

> Lastly, the verb 〜かねる is a negative potential which is used in formal contexts in order to express a polite refusal or disapproval, as in (85). Its negation is pragmatically completely different, as it takes a negatively evaluated proposition as its complement and denotes an apprehension or warning (86):
>
> (85) ご意見に賛成しかねます。　"I can't agree with your (honorable) opinion."
> (86) 出会い系サイトは事件の引き金になりかねない。　"Online dating sites can become the trigger for (unfortunate) incidents.
>
> The negated 〜かねない, denoting a fear or apprehension is also close to epistemic modality, as it takes uncontrollab…

Anonymous

@3to5businessdays Why don't you look it up in A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar, p.96-99?

3 to 5 business days

> 悪い姑果になる可能性がある時に使う。

It's the evil cousin

I knew it!

Anonymous

3:05 PM

It has a whole different feel

3 to 5 business days

> かねない expresses the speaker's unease or worry that something unfortunate will occur

恐れがある

Anonymous

3 to 5 business days

Anonymous

3:10 PM

3 to 5 business days

whoa red color

Anonymous

Hehe, you can't fool me, I saw someone else in here do that before you ever did :-)

Anonymous

I think it was the honorable ssb

Anonymous

@3to5businessdays Uh-huh, the grammar dictionaries are nice books! :-)

Anonymous

There are three of them

3 to 5 business days

3:12 PM

@snailboat You mean the honorable ssb?

Anonymous

@3to5businessdays Oops, I do! T_T

Anonymous

They put かもしれない in their definition :-)

3 to 5 business days

seems like it's often used with conditional

Anonymous

Oh, I have a new translation for 確定条件！ "Factive conditional". That appears to be what you get when you translate it to German and then into English :-)

3 to 5 business days

3:23 PM

Still find it hard to associate "because" and "although" with "conditional"

Anonymous

I normally like to type things up instead of taking pictures, but sometimes when I want to quote something really long I get too lazy

3 to 5 business days

@snailboat Don't worry, you can type it out in the future );

3 to 5 business days

3:40 PM

tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/228107

"got the teacher's number"?

Anonymous

Yeah, that's non-ideal :-)

3 to 5 business days

I suspect 山を当てる is super flexible though

As in "got really lucky"

Anonymous

Yeah, it had to be guessing, right? But they did a good job and managed to guess right

3 to 5 business days

Gambling and speculations

Anonymous

日国 says: (1)埋蔵物のある山を掘り当てる。 (2)転じて、可能性の少ないことを成就する。

3 to 5 business days

3:48 PM

Sounds like 大辞林

> ② 可能性の少ないものにかけて当てる。「ダービーで－・てた」

Anonymous

広辞苑 says: 鉱脈を掘り当てる。転じて、少ない可能性のものをうまく当てる。

Anonymous

@3to5businessdays It's funny how often these dictionaries sound very much alike

Anonymous

English dictionaries are largely plagiarized from one another

Anonymous

I'm not sure how true that is in Japanese

3 to 5 business days

It's hard to come up with unique definitions though

Anonymous

3:50 PM

This is true

Anonymous

And most dictionary editors don't really want to come up with their own analyses of words in terms of parts of speech and so forth

Anonymous

They just report the same parts of speech other dictionaries do

Anonymous

There's a bit of variation though

3 to 5 business days

Such as?

Anonymous

Well, 広辞苑 for example doesn't include 形容動詞

Anonymous

3:52 PM

It just categorizes them as nouns

Anonymous

Which is certainly different from most 国語辞典 :-)

3 to 5 business days

Oh I thought you were talking about English dictionaries too regarding the p.o.s.

Anonymous

Oh

Anonymous

Mostly true, but in recent years dictionaries have started listing determiners

Anonymous

Which is progress of a sort :-)

Anonymous

3:55 PM

You can't really come up with a coherent theory of English grammar without separating determiners from adjectives.

Anonymous

It feels like "struck gold" should work as a translation of 山を当てた since it's almost the exact same metaphor, but it doesn't really

Anonymous

That's weird :-)

3 to 5 business days

because it's "struck mountain"

Anonymous

Hehehe

Anonymous

You struck the teacher's mountain well!

Xeo

3:58 PM

@snailboat Btw, you once mentioned that な is a form of だ, IIRC?

3 to 5 business days

@Xeo I believe snailboat did say so

Xeo

Just thinking out loud here - since relative clauses in Japanese are just before the noun, would 「na-adj＋な」 / 「noun＋の」 count as relative clauses, as they contain a copula, or in extension, ある?

Anonymous

Some people even think 「赤い」 in 「赤い花」 is a relative clause

Xeo

I read something about the copula-or-other being implied with い-adjectives

Anonymous

Whatever you call them, they all clearly have a lot in common syntactically.

Anonymous

4:08 PM

We could call them all adnominal phrases.

Anonymous

Martin goes for "adnominalizations"

Anonymous

@Xeo い is sometimes called an adjectival copula

Xeo

And since the copula-or-other is implied, that wouldn't make na-adjectives seem so 'different'

Anonymous

い can be considered a suppletive form for くある. We can pretend it obligatorily "contracts" down to い when you put く and ある next to each other

Anonymous

That makes everything more systematic

Anonymous

4:12 PM

赤く＋ある　　　→　赤い
赤く＋ない　　　→　赤くない
赤く＋あった　　→　赤かった
赤く＋なかった　→　赤くなかった

Anonymous

When you put a particle between them, it doesn't contract

Anonymous

Also, when you write 〜くあるべき it can't contract to 〜い

Anonymous

or 〜くあるまい

Xeo

@snailboat Maybe it makes that more systematic, but adds other special rules, eh?

Anonymous

@Xeo Yep. There are a few obligatory contractions or fusions

Anonymous

4:14 PM

But it's more systematic then in successfully predicting unusual forms, like what you get when you insert a particle between く and ある

Anonymous

You have to account for that somehow anyway

Anonymous

Martin approaches it from the opposite direction. He says that い "splits" into く＋ある

Anonymous

だ splits into で＋ある, い splits into く＋ある, and verbs split into 連用形＋する

Anonymous

書かない＋は　＝　書き＋は＋しない

Anonymous

It doesn't matter so much how you think about it theory-wise as long as you get the relationships between different forms

Xeo

4:20 PM

mh

Anonymous

Oh, notably

Anonymous

ない＋は　＝　あり＋は＋しない

Anonymous

If you don't really pronounce the /w/ in は then you naturally end up with a /y/ instead, ありやしない

Anonymous

So you get ありゃしない as in 〜ったらありゃしない

Xeo

4:35 PM

I don't get the は insertion - nominalisation of the verb?

Anonymous

6:19 PM

@DariusJahandarie Could you take a look at Transitivity of ergative case-marking predicates in Japanese (Kishimoto 2004), example (16)?

Darius Jahandarie

I agree with that example

But there are passives where koto is acting like it is in (16) (as opposed to how it is used in (17)) that work fine

Anonymous

You didn't give an example in your comment

Anonymous

Do you have one handy?

Darius Jahandarie

メンバーのことはその本に書かれている。 or something like that.

I can try to find something from a corpus

I guess it's perhaps not the same koto as in (16), but I don't think it's the one in (17) either.

Anonymous

6:38 PM

OJAD is a great resource for learners: gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ojad/jpn/search/index/word

Darius Jahandarie

「その日のことがつぎのように書かれている。」
「尾張から綛糸を買い付けに来た商人のことが記録されている。」
「『ユダヤ・タルムード』には、ゴイム＝異邦人のことが、次のように記されている。」

I guess I can't find or think of anything where it's clearly the same こと that attaches to people as the が-marked in a passive

@snailboat I dare say that gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ojad/eng/search/index/word would be the better resource for learners.

@snailboat I think I see the point of this paper. It's making me want to ditch the concept of 'object' and 'subject' entirely more than anything else really, though.

Anonymous

7:01 PM

There's been a lot written about the role of alienable vs inalienable possession (e.g. of body parts)

Anonymous

Like, you can say ケンの頭が大きい but not ＊私の頭が痛い, it has to be 私が頭が痛い (ignoring sentence-level effects like は-marking)

Anonymous

I was just looking at Non-Canonical Constructions in Japanese again

Troyen

8:39 PM

@snailboat Have you seen the weekly challenge thing other sites are trying?

12

Q: How do weekly topic challenges work?

A handful of sites have conducted a variation of the "weekly topic challenge" idea. I, myself, have become quite fond of them since they do seem to be effective at increasing asking rate and can be a lot of fun. I've personally initiated challenges on several sites (most recently on History and P...

discussion per-site-meta site-promotion

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