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The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - undead_saif - 2012-12-07
I'd appreciate any clarification on this beginner question.
What's the difference between:
-今日、日本語を勉強する。
-今日は、日本語を勉強する。
-今日に日本語を勉強する。
Not in the literal translation, but in conveying info.
Thanks!
And thanks delta for trying to answer my previous question. I think I have to read those ~16 pages on the subject in ADOBJG
Edit: My own interpretation is as follows:
-First one: basic sentence, it just tells that I/he/we will study Japanese today.
-Second one: it's actually about "today" more than the verb.
-Third one: like the first one but with more emphasis on when the verb will occur.
(This thread is probably not the best place to ask about grammar, but the question is not worth making a new thread.)
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - yudantaiteki - 2012-12-07
今日に doesn't work; に only goes with specific time words, not "relative" time words like "today". The は behaves like usual -- it can mean "Today I'll study (but maybe not other days)" or it can just be the topic (Speaking of today, I'm going to study.)
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - undead_saif - 2012-12-07
I see, I gained some good insight.
Thanks!
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - Babyrat - 2012-12-07
「ちいー？ おきてる？」
見たら わかるでしょ 寝てるでしょ
I am trying to work out usages of たら。 With the 見たら is this saying "if you look"? or is there a better translation of what the 見たら is saying?
@undead_saif
I was learning about に today and how you can not use it with non specific time words. To add more clarification i'll quote from the book I was reading. (kamiya taeko japanese particle workbook)
"Ni is optional with the four seasons. The following time expressions do not take ni, because the do not pinpoint time:
朝
今日
昨日
明日
来月
去年
一時間
いつ
＠
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - CloverJoker - 2012-12-07
Ash_S Wrote:It's the "quoting" と - the one you get in like ～～と言った／～～と思う etc. - and the verb following と has just been omitted.Hah. Now that you mention it, there is 思う in the previous sentence. So, its probably that they're "wondering" what the voice was.
Are there any thinking/wondering/speaking kinda words in the previous sentence you could substitute in after the と?
Thanks for clearing that up. I'll have to keep an eye out for that from now on.
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - delta - 2012-12-12
Does anybody know anything about the origins/history of 形容詞 (stative verbs or いadjectives) in modern in Japanese and how they looked in Old Japanese?.
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - yudantaiteki - 2012-12-12
delta Wrote:Does anybody know anything about the origins/history of 形容詞 (stative verbs or いadjectives) in modern in Japanese and how they looked in Old Japanese?.They ended in し instead, so 高い was たかし and 強い was つよし, etc. There were two types which have collapsed into one.
The 連体形 was -き (i.e. たかき) which you still see sometimes in modern. In the Edo period (or so) all the 連体形 became the modern 終止形 and the "k" sound dropped out due to 穏便, leaving you with たかい.
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - delta - 2012-12-12
That's certainly very interesting, but what I am particularly looking for is a possible explanation as to why 形容詞 look so different from normal verbs ending in う (i.e. why do both sets of words look and inflect differently if they are both verbs anyway?). Is it possible that they ever functioned together as a single kind of verbs from which い and う ending verbs eventually diverged?
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - yudantaiteki - 2012-12-12
No, they're different things. Japanese grammar is not English grammar. I've seen the term "stative verb" applied to i-adjectives before but they're unrelated to what are usually called "verbs" in Japanese.
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - delta - 2012-12-12
Lol, the Internet is wild. Anyway, putting that obvious remark aside, where do you recommend to look for finding more about this? I already read a few excellent posts on StackExchange and went through the Wikipedia articles that discuss 形容動詞 in depth but not much about 形容詞.
Here is the thing, I learned that the so called い-adjectives are really better appreciated like a type of verbs (stative verbs), I became aware of the simplest thing that 踊る蝶 works just like 白い蝶. This realization made a lot of sense to me. Basically, these two kind of words work just the same but inflect differently.
青い is blue
踊る [will] dance
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - yudantaiteki - 2012-12-12
I would say a type of predicate. Japanese has three basic predicates: verb, i-adjective, and noun/na-adjective + da.
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - delta - 2012-12-12
Verbs and i-adj work exactly the same in both attributive and predicate forms and without the copula, however they inflect/conjugate differently (which makes sense I guess since they both have different endings.)
I am no one but I would say that there are only two things in Japanese, verbs and nouns.
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - delta - 2012-12-12
Another question:
皆に見えるように大きく書いてください
Why 皆に rather than 皆が?
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - drdunlap - 2012-12-12
delta Wrote:Another question:Because with the verb 見える, the word paired with が is the thing that can be seen and the word paired with に is the person/persons/thing/etc doing the seeing.
皆に見えるように大きく書いてください
Why 皆に rather than 皆が?
（文字が）皆に見えるように大きく書いてください。
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - delta - 2012-12-12
Ah, so 皆 is the indirect object here. Thanks!!
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - drdunlap - 2012-12-12
delta Wrote:Ah, so 皆 is the indirect object here. Thanks!!I knew there was a more academic way to explain this.
Luckily (this time, anyway) I managed to avoid the advice of "BECAUSE THAT'S HOW IT IS- GET USED TO IT." :] thumbsup.
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - delta - 2012-12-12
Worse was the Japanese native who gave me "it is difficult for a foreigner to learn".
So, for the record:
皆に見える <obj>が can be seen by / is visible to everyone.
[tags: mieru, indirect object]
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - yudantaiteki - 2012-12-12
Actually が can be used here as well -- 皆が見えるように is fine. Sometimes が can be replaced with に and it has basically the same meaning. So you can say 私に分かる日本語 or 私がわかる日本語 and it's pretty much the same. The Koujien limits this to honorific phrases but it's definitely more widespread than that.
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - delta - 2012-12-12
But this is incorrect 文字が皆が見えるように right?
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - Thora - 2012-12-12
[I'd already typed this long version before ydtt's reply, so I'll post it anyway.]
皆に is a dative subject, not an indirect object, because みえる is a stative verb.
One test to identify the subject is honorifics: 先生に 日本語が おわかりになります。
About 'stative': all adjectives (na and i) are stative b/c they describe a property or state of the subject rather an action or event. Most verbs describe actions or events, but there are a few which describe a property. They're called 'stative verbs'. All verbs in their －ている form are stative too because they describe a state.
I think DoBJG has a list of stative verbs. Common ones include: existence/possesion (いる、ある), ability (わかる、potential verbs), need (いる), perception (見える、聞こえる）. These are non-volitional verbs when used as stative verbs (some also have non-stative meanings)
The object of these stative verbs (the thing which is possessed, understandable, visible, needed, etc) is marked with が and sometimes を. (You've probably encountered that alternation with potential verbs.). The subject (the person experiencing or possessing) is marked with に or が. Marking the subject of a stative predicate with が gives it focus, though, unless it's in a relative clause. ('It is BOB who can understand Swahili.') A dative (に) subject never occurs with を object.
These stative verb constructions are neither pure transitive nor intransitive. The verb might be labelled 'intransitive' in the dictionary, but intransitive verbs are only supposed to have one participant. Stative verbs, however, require the existence of an experiencer person as well so there are two participants. Better to just learn them as stative constructions - another hybrid category.
There aren't that many of them and the predicate vs attributive forms of a few of them are restricted which you might want to know at some point.日本語がわかる
It doesn't make much sense to say 'Japanese is understandable'. It's a language after all. There must be an unspoken person who can understand it (often 私).
彼に 日本語が わかる
彼が 日本語が わかる（こと）
(こと makes it a neutral subject, not focused, which apparently can sound awkward)
彼が 日本語を わかる (less common, apparently more by younger people?
He can understand Japanese. Japanese is understandable to him.
If the subject is a topic, it's either 彼は or 彼には
* * *
About verbs vs i adj:
As ydtt said, Japanese and English parts of speech don't match up perfectly. For eg, so-called na-adjectives have properties of both nouns and adjectives. So shall we call them 'nominal adjectives' or 'adjectival nouns'? Similarly, i-adjectives are more verb-like than na-adjectives, but they don't have all the same properties as verbs. (different conjugation, don't combine with aux verbs, no formal conjugation, no imperative, etc.) So I suppose we could call them 'verbal adjectives' or 'adjectival verbs'? But the latter would be confusing b/c it's the literal English translation of 形容動詞 (in traditional Japanese grammar だ was considered part of those words.)
It gets described as a continuum from most noun-like to most verb-like:
Noun........na adj..........i adj.......verb
One suggested explanation of the difference bw verbs and i adj is that the い in i-adj is a kind of copula-ish (だ) thing that evolved the way ydtt described. So it's like adj + だ, but different. ;p
btw, English also has verbs acting like adjectives: The bear is dancing. The dancing bear.
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - tuliaoth - 2012-12-12
自分の利益のために仲間をぎせいにする人間は、助かる危険も助からなくなります。
Could someone please explain or translate the part after the comma?
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - drdunlap - 2012-12-12
Thora Wrote:((linguistics n' stuff))...確かに（笑）
I knew I should leave the explanations to people who actually studied the language／language and stick with my "THAT'S HOW IT IS, GET USED TO IT!" advice. ><
I will forever stick by my "think less" guns for language learning.
I'm such a linguistic-hippy.
I'll just stay away from teaching...
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - yudantaiteki - 2012-12-12
delta Wrote:But this is incorrect 文字が皆が見えるように right?Usually the 皆が would come first, but there's nothing wrong with XがYが見える. Most of the time it's going to be Xは instead, but you see the double-が if it's a modifying clause.
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - Tzadeck - 2012-12-12
tuliaoth Wrote:自分の利益のために仲間をぎせいにする人間は、助かる危険も助からなくなります。A man who sells out his friends for his own benefit will not be saved from what he otherwise would be saved from.
Could someone please explain or translate the part after the comma?
助かる危険=a danger that he will be saved from
も=even (emphasis)
助からなくなります= will end up not being saved
So, something like:
will end up not being saved even from a danger that he would (otherwise have been) saved from.
The "What's this word/phrase?" thread - delta - 2012-12-12
@thora Awesome.
However, I am still looking for more (anything?) about the evolution of い stative verbs (which is in fact the only thing I was asking for hehe). Maybe I should look in Japanese… :O
I also found the following two posts at StackOverflow extremely useful:
http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/1008/why-does-japanese-have-two-kinds-of-adjectives-i-adjectives-and-na-adjective
http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/920/why-is-it-that-some-形容動詞-accepts-の-after-it-while-some-only-accepts-な-after-it
The Wikipedia article on Japanese Grammar was also useful.
EDIT: @thora So what do we call the role of に in stative verbs? The dative subject marker かな?
EDIT2: Wait, but isn't the dative the same as the indirect object? If not, what's the difference?