Japanese Language

Anonymous

1:11 AM

Marking with か on embedded interrogative clauses is obligatory. The presence of a wh-word makes it an interrogative clause.

rhyaeris

4:05 AM

Thanks everyone! :)

chocolate

5:41 AM

この人の最後の文ですが、

> I don't what that is

ってありますよね

ここにも、

> I don't where you came from.

てありますよね

know を省く、って、よくあるんですか？

書く時ではなく、話すときも、よくありますか？

Anonymous

@chocolate I don't think people leave out words like that in speech. I think they just made a mistake in typing.

Anonymous

I guess Häagen-Dazs got autocorrected to Haugen joined?

Anonymous

@chocolate Wait, they made the same mistake twice? That's weird.

Anonymous

Maybe they're using voice input, and the voice-to-text program made the same mistake both times.

Anonymous

At any rate, I don't think people omit know in speech like that . . .

Anonymous

5:48 AM

Even if it's not pronounced clearly, I think people would hear it as though it's there.

Flaw

I don't think know is omitted. It could be the same mistake twice. Or maybe it's due to thinking faster than you type

Anonymous

I feel like there are a lot of explanations given to us learners about 〜のだ that are hard to understand. Like for example, when I first heard that 〜のだ expressed "explanatory modality" I had no idea what it was supposed to mean. People ask what 〜のだ means in general a lot . . .

Anonymous

I like the way のだ is explained in 中上級を教える人のための日本語文法ハンドブック. It's presented in a chapter called 関連づけ, which starts this way:

Anonymous

> 文は談話や文章の中で他の文と何らかの関連を持っているのが普通です。日本語には文が他の文や状況と関連性を持っている（関連づけられている）ことを表す形式があります。‌ここではそうした関連づけを表す形式として「のだ」と「わけだ」について考えます。なお、「のだ」には関連づけを表さない用法もありますが、ここで併せて扱います。

Anonymous

And the chapter is divided up into the different relationships that のだ (and わけだ) can show, which they divide into: ①理由・解釈　②言い換え　③発見　④再認識　⑤先触れ　⑥前置き, and then they list ⑦命令 under uses that don't show a relationship to another sentence / something in the surrounding context.

Anonymous

5:57 AM

And they give examples for each one, so for example under 発見 they have:

Anonymous

> （それまでわからなかった機械の使い方がわかったとき）そうか。このボタンを押せばいいんだ。

Anonymous

I think on our site it makes the most sense to try to explain what 〜のだ does in individual examples because there are so many ways it can be used.

Anonymous

We get a lot of answers trying to explain 〜のだ in general instead, and I don't think any of them really cover the topic.

Anonymous

Imagine if you tried to explain the English perfect auxiliary have without listing the individual uses of perfect constructions (existential, continuative, resultative, recent past, etc.). You can come up with a unifying explanation, but it ends up being vague and not really telling people when to use it.

Anonymous

I'd also like it if we could convince people to include more context in their questions, since certain topics (like 〜のだ) depend a lot on context, and people don't always provide it :-(

Anonymous

6:06 AM

They get the same thing over on ELL. Here, we get questions about は and が without context. There, they get questions about a(n) and the without context.

unarist

6:23 AM

サイトの方はともかく、ここのチャットは時々 ELL in Japanese になりますね :p

rhyaeris

6:35 AM

@chocolate I don't think I've ever seen people omit "know" from their sentences

the mistakes could have been due to autocorrect, or the person could have been in a hurry

as far as I know, omitting verbs is only done under certain circumstances, like when the same verb has been used once before

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/317847/omitting-verbs-is-it-correct

You have to visit all the places, which she wants to (visit)

Although I wouldn't put a comma before "which"

Yasashii Eirian

7:16 AM

I thought my brother wants the police to let his dog bite the thief.

私は弟が警察官に、ひったくりを犬に噛みつかせて欲しがっていると思った。

Is my Japanese version understandable?

rhyaeris

8:27 AM

@snailboat

I don't really understand のだ right now, but I do agree that analysis of individual examples is very helpful

to my recollection, the top-voted question concerning は and が had a best answer with the context properly explained for each usage

context always helps me whenever I try to understand features of Japanese that are complex and broad, like in the best answer here:
http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/393/differences-among-%E3%81%9F%E3%82%89-%E3%81%AA%E3%82%89-%E3%82%93%E3%81%A0%E3%81%A3%E3%81%9F%E3%82%89-%E3%81%88%E3%81%B0-etc

was really confused about conditionals, and this post helped me a lot

I feel that questions with a kind of generality may be allowed with minimal context provided, like when a person asks for general methods or tricks (though some example sentences might help too):

http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/33364/%E8%87%AA%E5%88%86-how-to-know-what-it-means

chocolate

8:46 AM

@snailboat おおっ、ハーゲンダッツだったのかｗ

音声認識・・なんと

そうそう、同じ人。

@unarist へへ。。

chocolate

9:09 AM

> 数年も漁村に住んでて、いろんな魚種類を食べてるのだ。

「数年も漁村に住んでいるから、いろんな種類の魚を食べてるわけです。」って感じですかね

そう考えると、

「わけです」の使われた節、「いろんな種類の魚を食べてる」は、理由ではなく

「数年も漁村に住んでいる」が理由で、「いろんな種類の魚を食べてる」が結果ですよね

そうすると、

この「のだ」は、理由ではない、ということになるのでは？

理由じゃなくて、結果の文章にくっついてますよね。

51

A: Differences among -たら、なら、-んだったら、-えば, etc

と, ば: The main clause must be a constant non-volitional reaction to the conditional clause unless the conditional clause shows state or if the subjects of the two clauses differ. お金を入れてボタンを押すと、切符が出ます。 'When you put in money and press the button, a ticket will come out.' 春になると、観光客が...

> 有名人にばったり会うとしたら、どうする？

ってちょっと変じゃない？

同じに見えるんですが。。

@rhyaeris You have to visit all the places that she wants to. というふうに、

なると思いましたが・・・

(学校でそういうふうに習ったんです・・)

all ~~ that... って

または You have to visit all the places she wants to.

とも言えますか。

You have to visit all the places, which she wants to. は、意味が違うような・・

制限用法 vs 非制限用法、または限定用法 vs 継続用法、と習いました

attributive use vs continuative use とか restrictive use vs nonrestrictive use っていうらしい。。(今調べたら)

@YasashiiEirian It's so confusing

Hmm

「警察官がひったくりに犬を噛みつかせてくれればいいと弟が思っていると、私は思った。」とかどうですかね？

Anonymous

9:41 AM

Yeah, they probably wanted to say it with that and no comma, but the which and comma version is possible too with a different meaning. I only know the terms restrictive/nonrestrictive and integrated/supplemental, I don't think I know attributive/continuative in that meaning…

chocolate

「警察官に犬をひったくりにかみつかせてほしいと弟が思っていると、私は思った」とか・・

(Maybe still confusing, though)

Anonymous

@chocolate I had to re-read the English four or five times because it was too complicated for me to fit in my poor little brain :-)

rhyaeris

@snailboat I always remember it as ", that" and "which"...

oh wait

now i'm confused too

Anonymous

@rhyaeris But sometimes both that and which are possible.

rhyaeris

I see, "that" doesn't have a comma and "which" may or may not have it

quora.com/Should-I-not-put-a-comma-before-which-or-before-that

Anonymous

9:44 AM

@rhyaeris That quora answer looks correct.

Anonymous

Although there's a lot more to say, of course :-)

rhyaeris

ohh

putting a comma in the sentence above changes its meaning

You have to visit all the places which she wants to visit.
(She may not want to visit all places)

You have to visit all the places, which she wants to visit
(She wants to visit all places)

actually, in that case, since "which" goes after a plural noun "the places", shouldn't it be "want to visit"?

Anonymous

No, the subject is she.

Anonymous

The gap is in object position.

rhyaeris

ah, that makes sense

Anonymous

9:51 AM

she wants to visit (places) → places [ that/which/∅ she wants to visit ＿＿ ]

Anonymous

The relative word which links the head noun places to the gap in object position, following visit.

Anonymous

It can be replaced with that or omitted.

rhyaeris

what's a gap?

Anonymous

It's the "missing" part of the relative clause, the role played by the head noun outside the relative clause.

Anonymous

In this case, the direct object of visit is missing.

Anonymous

9:56 AM

And it's not just ellipsis. You actually can't put the object back in.

Anonymous

*places that she wants to visit places and *places that she wants to visit them are ungrammatical (in standard Engilsh).

Anonymous

So we say there's a "gap" there. I indicated it with the underline above, but we normally don't write it down.

Anonymous

I ate a sandwich. The sandwich [ that I ate ＿＿ ] was tasty.

rhyaeris

ah, I see

Anonymous

Fun fact: in some languages, you can put a pronoun in the gap, and it's called a resumptive pronoun :-) We occasionally do it in English, but most English speakers don't think it sounds very good, so it's usually considered non-standard.

rhyaeris

10:00 AM

"The sandwich that I ate it"?

Anonymous

Yeah, like that. But I doubt anyone would say that. Usually English speakers only use resumptive pronouns if they can't figure out a way to avoid it, and in that example avoiding it is pretty easy :-)

rhyaeris

"Resumptive pronouns are pronouns that become more common the deeper the relative clause is embedded within the sentence because of greater processing constraints. When a relative clause is deeply embedded, the sentence is longer and it is more difficult to understand what is being modified by the relative clause. This added level, or additional distance, makes processing the sentence more difficult."

"These pronouns may not be actually grammatical in some languages like English, but are inserted into some sentences for clarity when there is a great deal of embedding or distance."

that's interesting!

Anonymous

They're standard in some other languages, like French.

Anonymous

Oh, the example at the top of the Wikipedia page is good.

rhyaeris

hm?

Anonymous

10:03 AM

Resumptive pronoun

A resumptive pronoun is a personal pronoun appearing in a relative clause, which restates the antecedent after a pause or interruption (such as an embedded clause, series of adjectives, or a wh-island). 1. This is the girli that whenever it rains shei cries. Resumptive pronouns have been described as "ways of salvaging a sentence that a speaker has started without realizing that it is impossible or at least difficult to finish it grammatically". An English speaker might use a resumptive pronoun in order to prevent violations of syntactic constraints. In many languages resumptive pronouns are...

rhyaeris

"This is the girl who whenever it rains, cries." would be better wouldn't it

Anonymous

> This is the girl that whenever it rains she cries.

rhyaeris

"ways of salvaging a sentence" sounds pretty funny to me :p

Anonymous

@rhyaeris Well, naturally you would think so, since English speakers generally don't like resumptive pronouns. It can be hard to understand sentences with island violations, though.

Anonymous

English speakers do come up with sentences with resumptive pronouns, but they're usually not very happy with them when they do.

Anonymous

10:05 AM

So they're usually said to be non-standard.

Anonymous

Treated as a kind of mistake.

rhyaeris

that's exactly how I see it haha

Anonymous

> The manager fired a reporter who the fact that the senator sued was a secret.

rhyaeris

http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/relative-pronoun-vs-resumptive-pronoun.2192893/
Another example given:
"That's the man who I don't know if he stole my wallet or not."

Anonymous

The sentence I just quoted is pretty hard to understand without adding a resumptive pronoun.

rhyaeris

10:07 AM

I don't see how the "fact" comes into play

oh

Anonymous

> The manager fired a reporter who [ the fact that the senator sued (him) ] was a secret.

Anonymous

It's really not a very good sentence any way you slice it!

chocolate

@snailboat manager?

Anonymous

Oh, oops! Yes :-)

Anonymous

Pretend I typed manager.

rhyaeris

10:09 AM

it's making my head hurt :/

Anonymous

Thanks to Super Moderator Powers, I can edit messages from up to ∞ minutes ago.

Anonymous

So I stealthily went back and fixed my typo :-)

rhyaeris

to me, sentences shouldn't be vague on purpose

chocolate

manager になっても、文の意味がまだわからん・・ｗｗ

rhyaeris

"The manager fired a reporter whom the senator sued secretly."

chocolate

10:11 AM

おお。。そうか

むずい～

rhyaeris

I'm not convinced that we need resumptive pronouns, actually

Anonymous

Well, it's just a natural phenomenon.

Anonymous

I'm not arguing that we should use them, I'm just pointing out that people occasionally do.

rhyaeris

mmhm, I'm aware :)

Anonymous

And they're kind of interesting! :-)

rhyaeris

10:13 AM

though if I accidentally start a sentence off wrongly I would just correct myself

rather than make people scratch their heads XD

chocolate

> [なければおかしい]部屋　⇒　a room [that it would be strange if it didn't exist]

こういうやつ？

resumptive pronoun って

Anonymous

Yeah, the English there has a resumptive it!

chocolate

ここにあった

6

A: 本来なければ usage and meaning

It seems you got a few things mixed up. Allow me to show you how I parse it. ・なければおかしい is a clause modifying 部屋 [なければおかしい]部屋　⇒　a room [that it would be strange if it didn't exist] ・本来なければ is not the negative version of 本来ならば (It never is!) 本来 here is an adverb that modifies (or is part...

rhyaeris

was that from a question?

ahh

perhaps not the best place to use it though, since there's only one noun :)

would there be any reason to use ば there?

can I replace it with と or たら or なら

chocolate

「conditional ば」ですね

本来なかったらおかしい部屋

本来ないとおかしい部屋

・・・ともいえると思います

「本来ないならおかしい部屋」は、ちょっと変です

rhyaeris

10:28 AM

hmm but isn't なら normally used with nouns / na-adj?

chocolate

そうなんですよね・・・

「なら、と、ば、たら」って、

使い方のルールがよくわからないんですよね・・

rhyaeris

東京では大体「と、ば、たら」かもしれません

「なら」の文章よりおおいとおもいます

chocolate

なら can be attached to ない... like 知らないなら、お金がないなら、忙しくないなら

Anonymous

I think it historically absorbed a の, so it was like 知らないのなら　→　知らないんなら　→　知らないなら

rhyaeris

kasi-time.com/item-73869.html　「光るなら」

what would 知らないのなら have meant back then?

Anonymous

10:35 AM

So then it ended up after verbs/adjectives, even though ならば was originally a form of the copula

rhyaeris

hmm

chocolate

ないなら is grammatically correct, but 「(本来)ないならおかしい(部屋)」「(本来)ないならいけない(部屋)」 sound unnatural

で、「なんで？」というと、・・

よくわからない・・

rhyaeris

looks like this is something that'll come naturally

through much listening and use

Anonymous

How did we get on the topic of なら being used with nouns / na-adj, by the way?

Anonymous

I think I missed something

rhyaeris

10:41 AM

chocolate said 「本来ないならおかしい部屋」は、ちょっと変です

but according to my impressions of なら, it's normally used for nouns / na-adj

might be dead wrong though xD

chocolate

「走るなら」もいいですね

「かわいいなら」もいいですね

rhyaeris

so according to the above

「走らないなら」

「かわくないなら」

are both acceptable?

Anonymous

かわいくない

rhyaeris

whoops

good catch!

「かわいくないなら、彼女はたぶんすきじゃないでしょう」

Yasashii Eirian

@chocolate: Thank you very much. It is nice. I am looking for other forms if any just for the sake of learning more.

Anonymous

10:51 AM

I feel like なら doesn't occur very often in noun-modifying clauses

rhyaeris

かわいくないなら買わない人, for example?

Anonymous

I read a really good paper about なら, but now I can't find it :-(

Anonymous

It pointed out the similarity between some なら conditionals and topics (like with は).

rhyaeris

would love to read that, if it ever comes up. :)

chocolate

この人のブログを見たときに・・・　1311racco.blog75.fc2.com/blog-entry-1624.html

「ば」「と」「たら」「なら」は、使い分けがものすごくややこしいとわかりました

特に、この表を見た時に

「？？？」ってなりました

rhyaeris

11:11 AM

that's amazingly detailed...

thanks for sharing! :)

looks like なら really has limited usage, then...

another interesting thing to me is that the table shows no cases in which all 4 conditionals are acceptable

meaning you can't just use whatever you like, in any situation

chocolate

@rhyaeris おお、ほんとだ、気づかんかった・・

Anonymous

It seems like several different linguists have compared なら to a topic marker

Anonymous

ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp/LINGUISTICS/staff/munakata_takashi/pdf/…

rhyaeris

11:29 AM

so it seems like it can be used as a "as for X..."?

or "if we're talking about X..."

oh, sounds familiar; I read something like that on Tae Kim's site

The contextual conditional always requires a context in which the conditional occurs. For instance, you would use it for saying things like, "If that's what you are talking about..." or "If that's the case, then..."

guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/conditionals

the paper is kinda hard to understand, but I do see なら being compared to は a lot

"In addition, I claim
NP1 is interpreted as a topic as well as an Intensional Object in the nara-construction."

the meat is there, but I have no clue as to what's going on here

goldhick

2:58 PM

こんばんは:)

chocolate

ああ・・「なら」って topic marker にもなりますね・・あまり考えたことがなかったです

@goldhick こんばんは

intensional (内包的な) は、intentional (意図的な)と、発音は違いますか？

You may want to avoid translating 助動詞 as "auxiliary verb" in this context. Most foreigners who would ask this type of question won't be familiar with that term. — virmaior 4 hours ago

そうだった・・助動詞って、auxiliary verb じゃなくて、

なんていったほうがいいんですかね・・

goldhick

intensionalって単語、初めて聞きました

chocolate

私もです・・

oals

'intensional' and 'intentional' are pronounced the same. Also, yes, the first time I've run across it too.

virmaior's comment does seem sort of out of place at first sight. 'Auxiliary verb' is hardly uncommon terminology in language classes.

But then I notice that it is referring to 〜そう; and I consider auxiliary verbs to be, well, verbs.

To me, auxiliary verbs are verbs that attach to the masu stem or the て form. 〜てくる、〜てみる、〜すぎる, 〜始める etc

Wouldn't 〜そう be an auxiliary adjective then?

"answered yesterday" → 2016-04-04 16:56

StackExchange's idea of 'yesterday' does not really agree with mine.

goldhick

3:15 PM

助形容詞・・・　そんなコンセプトが可能だったことも知らなかった

oals

I think their 'yesterday' is 'more than 24 hours ago but less than 48 hours ago'

'two days ago' is 48-72 hours ago then?

2

Q: Sentences using humble expressions and multiple verbs

I was solving exercises from the Genki II workbook when I stumbled upon this sentence: ”私は先生に東京の大学について聞きました”. It had to be changed into a sentence using humble expressions. There appear to be 2 verbs つく and 聞く, so I thought that both of them should be changed. However, according to the answer key...

Would someone please go point out that it should be お聞きしました and not お聞きました ?

I don't particularly wish to point out a second typo =/

本当だ　読んだのに気づかなかった

私も気づきませんでした・・

Thanks.

Done!

3:33 PM

Sometimes the politer version 「つきまして」 is possible but not in that sentence.

a room [that it would be strange if it didn't exist]　というちょっと文法的に怪しい英語は dummy it と if節を使った方が構造的に元の日本語に近いかなと考えて迷った結果の妥協案でした。 It sounded okay to me, but maybe I shouldn't have used it in an answer.

strawberry jam

”Otherwise, you will see the like of 先生について、世話をした → 先生にお付きして、お世話をし申し上げた"

「し」申し上げた ??

I don't understand the purpose of that をし

chocolate

3:48 PM

@goldhick でも、ほかにどういったらいいか、わかんないですよね・・

goldhick

「し申し上げた」 sounded unfamiliar to me at first but I think 申し上げる here is used as 補助動詞　「する＋申し上げる」→「し申し上げる」？

chocolate

a room [that it would be strange if ＿＿ didn't exist]　とか、言えるんでしょうかね・・・

Darius Jahandarie

言えないと思います。（なぜかはわかりません…）

chocolate

おお・・

strawberry jam

@goldhick I considered that too, but I never encountered that before. It doesn't make much sense to me either. why exactly would one use 申し上げる as an auxiliary for する？

goldhick

3:54 PM

"The manager fired a reporter who the fact that the senator sued was a secret."　これが一応アリなのには驚きました。理解するのには時間がかかりそう。

Darius Jahandarie

意味ほぼわかりませんね…

goldhick

@strawberryjam To indicate humility, I think.

Darius Jahandarie

@strawberryjam In general, 申してあげる is more polite than いたす (for example, 宜しくお願い申し上げます）, and I think user4092 was intentionally using as obtuse keigo as possible in that sentence, which is perhaps why they opted for し申し上げる, even though that's a pretty rare form.

Or more humble, I guess.

strawberry jam

well that's definitely a first time encounter for me.

goldhick

The full verb 「申し上げる」 may be the humble form of 「言う」, but as a 補助動詞, it completely loses that sense. (I guess)

Anonymous

7:55 PM

If you think of the "adversative" interpretation of the Japanese indirect passive as secondary . . .

Anonymous

Then it's interesting to note that the English get-passive has adversative interpretations at least 80% of the time.

Anonymous

I was reading The rise of the English get-passive, where this was pointed out. One study came up with 88% as a number.

Darius Jahandarie

Hmm... do you have an example of a non-adversative get-passive? Nothing is coming to mind. It seems incompatible with good things *"I got helped by John" and if you use it with something neutral it seems to result in a negative implication "I got passed over during the selection process".

Anonymous

9:53 PM

@DariusJahandarie Givon and Yang argue that the get-passive started out as strongly adversative and that it still is colloquially / among the working class (where it's more frequently employed), but that in more formal language it's becoming neutral more often in modern speech, in phrases like get elected that can be interpreted either way depending on context.

Anonymous

They write:

Anonymous

> a. The ɢᴇᴛ-passive started as an adversive passive.
> b. The ɢᴇᴛ-passive started in the speech of less educated people.
> c. In the speech of less educated people, the ɢᴇᴛ-passive is still much more frequent, retaining predominantly adversive characteristics.
> d. In the speech of educated people, in contrast, the ɢᴇᴛ-passive is much less frequent, and its use is much less adversive.
> e. In the speech of educated people, the ɢᴇᴛ-passive has either been slowly moving toward a non-adversive use, or has never been predominantly adversive.

Anonymous

(pages 138-139)

Anonymous

I think there are a bunch of examples in A quantitative study of the alternation between the be and get passives (Herold 1986), but I don't have that here.

Anonymous

0

A: What does ...なくはない mean?

As far as I'm aware, なくはない is a double negative with the meaning being something like, "it's not that (whatever was said) is not the case" with the implication "(whatever was said) may be true, but there is some issue with plainly stating 'yes.'" So I guess "not no" is a good way to think about i...

Anonymous

10:02 PM

> I happen to have read this manga

Anonymous

Does everyone on Japanese.SE read 『トモちゃんは女の子！』? :-)

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