Talk:Japanese grammar/Archive 2

Illustration

Can someone explain the illustration on the right of the page to me? Is it some kind of calligraphy style? It seems to be very ugly and also it is totally unreadable. --DannyWilde 07:57, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I can read the third character, "go", meaning language... otherwise, it is totally unreadable. --AKismet 16:27, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

The explanation is on the image page. The illustration says 日本語文法, or "nihongo bunpō," in a cursive handwriting style. Fg2 20:39, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

It looks like some kind of nasty scribble, probably generated by a computer, rather than "cursive handwriting style" to me. I'm not an expert in Japanese calligraphy, but the thing just seems so ugly and unreadable I find it hard to believe it is a worthwhile piece of calligraphy. One of my neighbours runs a calligraphy school, so maybe I'll show it to her and see what she thinks. --DannyWilde 22:06, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Readability is not the point of calligraphy. In extreme cases, even the writer can't read it... Fg2 03:26, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, but I continue to wonder if this is a worthwhile piece of calligraphy. I know a small amount about the different Chinese calligraphy styles, and I contributed quite a lot to several of the Wikipedia articles on them (grass script, shodo, running script, edomoji, etc.), but I'm definitely not an expert. Even so, my uneducated eye says "Hmm" about this one. --DannyWilde 03:44, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, UNreadability often seems to be the point. But even (perhaps especially?) at its most illegible there is an ineffable characteristic of artistry. I agree with DannyWilde's comment (further) above: this thing was most likely created on a computer. And not, I would add, by someone who particularly knew what they were doing. RJCraig 08:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

"Nasty" is the word for it. A friend I showed it to asked 「なにそれ、タイ語？」("What is that, Thai?") Anyone want to be "bold" and try replacing it? RJCraig 03:10, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

(In case it wasn't clear from the quote, the friend I mentioned is a native Japanese speaker. RJCraig 08:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC))

I just worked up a new version (also in a gyosho font) and have placed it on my talk page; comments appreciated. RJCraig 05:31, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Nobody else has commented, so let me say that that is much better. I suggest replacing the current thing. --DannyWilde 15:15, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Even though I was "watching" this page, I didn't notice your comment until now; sorry. Shall we do it, then? RJCraig 11:12, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Sounds OK to me. Fg2 11:16, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

So it's done, then. Cheers. RJCraig 20:39, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Particles split

To pitch in my ¥2, I second Rodasmith's suggestion to split the Particles section off to its own page. Eiríkr Útlendi 23:54, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the current separate Japanese particles page is being cleaned up at the moment. Content from the section here will be folded in as we go. Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 16:59, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I removed the tag. People are working on improving both this article and the article on particles, so everybody is informed and we don't need the tag anymore. As for the merge: The article on particles and the section here use a different method: The separate article is a huge list that mentiones all particles one by one. The section here tries to group them by usage and leaves out the less common ones. Both approaches have their value. The article is great if you want to look up the usage of one specific particle, the section here is great for getting the larger picture. The problem with merging both is that either one approach is lost, or the article will be very, very long and bulky. Probably we can fix this with two separate articles: Japanese particle and List of Japanese particles, the first giving the introduction and the latter listing all of them with their individual usage. -- Mkill 20:00, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The big picture is appropriate for an encyclopedia article, but Wiktionary seems like a better place to look up a single Japanese particle. I propose that the big picture of Japanese particles move to the Japanese particles page and individual particles move to Wiktionary. See, for example, the entry I just created at wikt:ばかり. How does that sound? The Rod (☎ Smith) 05:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Error in Group 1 volitional conjugation

The verb conjugation table has the rule for generating the volitional form of Group 1 verbs as: "imperf. + う(u)". The example given, 書く -> 書こう, is correct, but the rule is wrong because the imperfective form of 書く is not 書こ, but 書か (as given by the rule for imperfective forms and in all other examples of the imperfective form of 書く in the conjugation table). Other references I've seen either define the volitional form of Group 1 verbs by a romaji rule (replace -u by -ou) or via an intermediate お-row stem. Any suggestions? --Frentos 07:37, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

The rule is correct. As explained in the histrical note, Group 1 verbs ware 4-row conjugation verbs and the volitional form of 書く was written as 書かう. Over the time, the pronunciation had shifted from -au to -ō and now they are 5-row conjugation verbs. I have added -o forms to Group 1 verbs. --Kusunose 12:07, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

That seems a shame. It's commendable from the point of view of classical Japanese, but conjugation using the imperfective is now ambiguous for modern Japanese. Hopefully any confused readers will stumble across the verb conjugation page where the rules are less ambiguous :-). --Frentos 02:31, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if adding these forms to the table is the right way to go. Specifically, the かこ and つかお forms are not the 未然形 in any other context than when followed by the 助動詞 "う". Perhaps a footnote for the irregular 五段-ness of verbs like 書く and 使う would be more appropriate? Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 17:03, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Mary and John

Why are English names used in the example Japanese sentences? This seems to be a habit borrowed from many teach yourself Japanese books. Can I suggest the names are changed to Japanese names? This would also avoid the argument on how to write "Mary" in katakana! --Auximines 21:37, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. I'll do that now. Exploding Boy 21:44, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Just thought I'd point out that some of the english text still refers to "Mary" and "John" while the japanese examples regarding them refer to "Nobu" and "Shizuko" -- is this on purpose, or simple an oversight in the change from english to japanese names? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 153.90.114.11 (talk • contribs) 20:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC).

I haven't been following changes to this article very closely. Are the current occurrences of John and Mary (that shameless shoji-lurker!) new appearances or original instances which escaped the PC Police substitution of Makoto, er, I mean Nobu and Shizuko?

NATIVE NAMES IN EXAMPLES ONLY! BANZAI! BANZAI!

RJCraig 14:59, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Question on Branching in introductory section

I've been wondering for a while about the appropriateness of the mention of branching in the introductory section. Is the concept that widely/generally understood? Is mention of the Romance and Germanic languages necessary here, as opposed to simply stating "Japanese is a (strongly) left-branching language" and allowing the interested reader to follow the link to Branching (linguistics)? RJCraig

Not topic-prominent?

"Japanese is neither topic-prominent, nor subject-prominent...? As far as I get it IS a topic-prominent language, and this is in contradiction with the Topic-prominent_language article. nihil 06:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

double ga & wa

For the Brave: maybe mention double ga & double wa constructions? such as,

• watashi-ga karupisu-ga nomitai.
• Ken-wa Jun-wa kirai da.

There is obviously a problem calling ga a subject marker when it has other functions. For more info, see:

• Ono, T., Thompson, S., & Suzuki, R. (2000). The pragmatic nature of the so-called subject marker ga in Japanese: Evidence from conversation. Discourse Studies, 2, 55-84.

peace – ishwar  (speak) 16:25, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Marriage

In the verbs section of "conjugable words" there is a list of different classifications and how they function. Is it perhaps worth noting that some verbs like kekkon suru and shinu are not used in the continuous when refering to the state of being dead, or being married? They are used in the past form to indicate that the instentaneous action which created the continuous state which is now in effect in fact happened. I might be wrong here, or this might already have been said in the article in a way that I just didn't catch. Anyone? --zeigfreid

... considering the number of Google hits I'm getting for お前はすでに死んでいる and お前はもう死んでいる, I'm pretty sure 死ぬ, at least, is actually a "punctual" verb (although I would have called it an "inceptive" verb to differentiate it from 打っている, which is really a horse of a different color). — on that note, looking at the "punctual" entry, I see am knowing for 知っている. Does anyone actually consider I am knowing something to be acceptable English? I'm not aware of any dialects in which it is.  –Aponar Kestrel (talk) 05:10, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Some dialect of Indian English, perhaps? (Or is that just a stereotype?) But not standard British or American, I should (be) think(ing). As far as I know, 結婚した describes the event per se, 結婚している the resulting state of matrimony. RJCraig 05:24, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Good article comments

Very good and thorough. But comments:

• An infobox connecting all of the articles concerning the Japanese language would be useful.
• The article is very long. Suggest explaining the basics in this article and having sub-articles with full details + all of the examples (the examples are what really lengthen it).
• Punctuation needs to be mentioned briefly.

Other than these few points, the article looks great. It just needs a little polish for FA. (I would like to see why it failed the first time if anyone can fix that link)
In any case, a defo good article. Excellent job guys. --SeizureDog 06:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Conjugation vs. Inflection

See articles Grammatical conjugation and Inflection. The term "conjugation" (conjugable, etc.) is quite frequently used in this article as applying to adjectives, etc., when "inflection" (inflectible) would be more appropriate. However, I generally work with European languages, and wanted to see if you thought the change was appropriate before I instituted it. samwaltz 15:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Adjectives in Japanese take many endings similar to verbs. They also do not require a copula and are often classified as stative verbs rather than adjectives in the European sense. In fact the Stative verbs article notes In Japanese, so-called i-adjectives are in fact best analyzed as intransitive stative verbs (for example, takai alone means "is high/expensive", and samukunakatta means was not cold). --JWB 16:52, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

True enough, however the term "conjugate" seems too specific to describe what happens to the verbs and adjetives in Japanese which are inflected the same way; an inflected adjective can function as a verb, but does not necessarily have to do so. Additionally, other parts of speech (nouns, etc.) would not be considered "non-conjugable" (as they are in the section "Word Classification"), but "non-inflectible". samwaltz 17:04, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Some context: "Inflection" includes both "declension" and "conjugation". In western grammar, we usually talk about "declension" for nouns and adjectives but about "conjugation" for verbs. However, although adjectives in western languages change form to agree in number, gender, and case with nouns, Japanese adjectives change form with mood and tense, i.e. like verbs. So, it is natural to talk about "conjugation" of Japanese adjectives. Rod (A. Smith) 03:31, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I fully concur. Personally, I'm among those who classify -i-adjectives as stative verbs anyway: keep in mind that when doing so, such constructs as yasashii kodomo "kind child" are relative clauses, just like utau kodomo "singing child". Indeed, even in shizuka na kodomo "quiet child", the na was originally the rentaikei of the old copula nari, making this a relative clause as well!  –Aponar Kestrel (talk) 08:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

The postpositions can be considered declension endings. They are not accented as separate words, but join with the preceding word, even though postpositions are normally set off by a space in Romaji. This is a possible reason for not making the broader statement that nouns are "non-inflectible". --JWB 19:08, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I understand this view of the postpositions but also see problems with it. All are enclitics, true, but a distinction should be made between those with primarily syntactic meaning ("case endings" wa, ga, wo, some ni) and those with actual semantic content ("true postpositions"). While I agree that the former may be on their way to becoming true case endings, they're not there yet. (Can you think of another language where declensional endings are often dropped in conversation?) RJCraig 04:12, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, I am not arguing that the view of the postpositions as case endings should be dominant, just that it exists to enough of a degree that the statement "nouns are non-inflectible" is better avoided as confusing.

As for dropping declensional endings in conversation - isn't that how we got English and the Romance languages? :) --JWB 18:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Touché! :) But not really the same thing, of course; those case endings were clearly bound morphemes, not clitics, which became less prominent with changes in the phonologies of the languages in question and less important with the shift to expression of syntactic roles by word order. (Although the exact relationship between those two is a bit chicken-and-eggish. And who can say that the case endings didn't begin as something similar to J postpositions in prehistory?!) RJCraig 20:33, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Free morpheme says "free morphemes are morphemes that can stand alone", and most of the Japanese case-ending-like particles cannot, no? Synthetic languages#Rather synthetic also seems to take the position that they are not independent words. It's true that you cannot refer to a Latin case marker by quoting its actual sound as an independent unit, since they differ completely by declension, gender and number, so there's no consistent realization to quote, but you can't blame Japanese just for being regular :)

(Hence my use of clitic? And you'd be surprised what I can blame the Japanese for! :) RJCraig 09:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC))

Latin and Old English endings did undergo phonological erosion, but I don't think you can credit their disappearance mostly to phonological evolution. Yes, IE endings do appear to descend from simpler and more regular endings in Proto Indo-European language, and possibly from independent words even farther back. Other European languages like Uralic languages or the Basque language or North Caucasian languages also don't have as irregular and synthetic endings as IE, tending to polysynthetic but more regular endings instead. --JWB 23:07, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Hence, "chicken-and-eggish"? I've yet to read a good explanation of what started the ball rolling...but something did. Different quasi-free-proto-case morphemes could have been used with the different word classes that eventually developed into the gender system. All very speculative, of course, and we can never know for sure. RJCraig 09:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)