Arupan Wrote:EDIT:
@yudantaiteki:

Here's one of the 35,500,000 hits about "に任せてある" from Mr. Google:
http://maggiesensei.com/2010/12/22/%E3%8...-makaseru/

(If you don't feel like opening it: Ex. この件は、マギーに任せてあるのでわかりません。)
↑As you can see they use it with a transitive verb.

This looks like an interesting website.

Arupan Wrote:→　Majored in English and Japanese in the university (I've never really studied English though, so I don't claim I'm very good at it)

I certainly thought from your posts that you are a native English speaker.

Kuzunoha13 Wrote:So, in response to the OP. I guess I could take this as a sign of progress, but the things I don't know are getting harder to look up...which gets a little annoying.
For example: something I found out recently: のだ can also be used to signify a command, as in 行くのだ！ I'm pretty sure it wasn't in any of the textbooks I read. Maybe it's time to start some new ones.

PS: Just out of curiosity, at what stage in your grammar studies do you think you'll start learning kana and kanji? English is fine and all, but eventually (at least I did) you hit a point where it's much faster to find answers in Japanese rather than English.

It's probably a good sign that the things you don't know are getting harder to look up. I wish I were at that stage.

I already know kana and I completed RTK1. However, I realized I was spending too much time studying kanji and not enough time studying grammar. I'm currently working through a textbook and reader in romaji as a review of grammar and to provide practice. When I finish these two books I'm going to pick up my study of kanji again.

I found that reviewing kanji takes up a lot of time and I decided to focus exclusively on grammar review/practice for awhile instead.

I already 'get' a lot of things but it doesn't give me any special feeling. I won't be satisfied until my Japanese comprehension is as good as my English.

Arupan Wrote:EDIT: @Linval: Drums? Nice!!

And a great release after a frustrating study session :p

Roketzu Wrote:I already 'get' a lot of things but it doesn't give me any special feeling. I won't be satisfied until my Japanese comprehension is as good as my English.

That's a bit extreme, I love reveling in my small achievements... I don't think I felt as good studying Japanese as the time I managed to finish a full ベルセルク tome with only a few (read : about 20) trips to the dictionary. Without that kind of moments I don't think I'd be able to continue learning Japanese at a steady rate...

Arupan Wrote:EDIT:
@yudantaiteki:

Here's one of the 35,500,000 hits about "に任せてある" from Mr. Google:
http://maggiesensei.com/2010/12/22/%E3%8...-makaseru/

(If you don't feel like opening it: Ex. この件は、マギーに任せてあるのでわかりません。)
↑As you can see they use it with a transitive verb.

There are some things which aren't mentioned in the textbooks. And that's why there are people like me who are researching them. I don't know what your research was on when you were (or still are?) on MEXT, but my field of study is Japanese grammar. I guess yours was something different.

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say here. てある is always used with transitive verbs, I know that. Can you be clearer about exactly what you think I'm wrong about? Here are the points I was making:

1. てある is used with transitive verbs to represent that an action has been done, and typically that the result of the action continues to affect the present (sort of like ている in that sense).

2. It is frequently used in Japanese in places where we would use the passive voice in English. For instance, the sentence from the Meikyo above: 壁に絵がかけてある would often occur in places where in English we would say "A picture has been pasted/put on the wall." (Another possibility is "Somebody put a poster on the wall" -- this can also be done with 誰か, of course.)

3. In most cases it does not represent an action done by the speaker. There are exceptions, though -- some probably idiomatic, others fitting in with common Japanese usage where you avoid saying that you did something for politeness or indirectness. In the example you posted there, the writer offers two possible English translations -- one indicating the speaker did the 任せる action, or that the speaker didn't do it. In either case the speaker is emphasizing the result of the 任せる rather than who did it.

4. Although it is used with transitive verbs, the object of the verb is marked with が (which can of course be replaced by は). I think that probably the が is seen as connecting to ある rather than the verb itself. However, as I learned posting to that last thread, native speakers apparently do sometimes use を (not as commonly as が though).

Here's what my trusty old Teach Yourself Japanese (page 152) says about てある (again, sorry about using romaji, but the book is in romaji and I'm not at a computer with Japanese fonts):

"Another verb form that may be termed passive is that consisting of the -TE form of a transitive verb with the verb ARU as an auxiliary. The subject of this is normally inanimate, and the form refers to a state resulting from some person's action--

Heya wa kirei ni katazukete arimasu. The room has been neatly tidied up.

Kanzyoo wa moo haratte arimasu. The bill has already been paid.

Himo wa kitte arimasita. The string had been cut.

Note that this construction can refer only to a state resulting from an action, and not to an action (it could not, for example, be used to translate "This door is opened at eight o'clock every morning"). Nevertheless, the state must be the result of an action, and it implies that somebody carried out the action. The sentence Himo wa kirete imasita would imply that the string was broken, but not that anyone had done it--

E wa kabe ni kakatte imasu. The picture is hanging on the wall.

E wa kabe ni kakete arimasu. The picture has been hung on the wall.

.

Arupan Wrote:The results so far:
→　The one sentence I told you about, namely お昼ごはんはもう頼んである is grammatically correct and often used. 4 of 4 people said so.
→　Your sentence, お昼ごはんがもう頼んである, according to 3 of 4 people isn't as commonly used. The 4th one said it's ungrammatical. 1 of the 3, however, claimed he used it the most.

That sounds completely correct and exactly the response I would have expected, with the exception of the person who said the second one is ungrammatical. Using が instead of は in that context isn't going to happen as often. That's pretty much true of any XがY sentence that isn't a relative or subordinate clause.

Quote:→　Apparently the Japanese can't disregard the fact that お昼ごはん is not "human entity."

I don't think this is the case. As I have now cited from 4 sources (two dictionaries and two grammar books), when you use てある, the object of the verb that would normally be marked by を is instead marked by が (although some native speakers feel that を is appropriate as well). Of course the が can be は instead, and typically will be without a specific context suggesting or requiring が. But there is no danger that using が will somehow result in people taking that as the subject of the verb rather than the object, at least in any normal context.

1)の場合、行為者が「お昼ごはん」かのように捉えられるか？
　→そう捉えられることはないかと思います。

The one guy who initially said it was ungrammatical then changed his answer, citing ご飯が食べたい as another case where が can be used to mark what looks like the object of the verb (of course を can be used there too).

tomatoma's response matches what I learned and what I have taught.

But I'm still a little uncertain about your point -- are you just talking about this ご飯 example in particular? I'm not going to go to hell and back to defend that single example which may or may not ever be used. But the citations from the Daijisen and the Meikyo I posted earlier contained five phrases (presumably written by native speakers) that have XがYてある, where X is not the doer of the action:
「花が生けて―・る」
「ドアが閉めて―・る」
「壁に絵がかけて―」
「机に本が置いて―」
「荷物が乱雑に積んで―」
I assume the writers of the dictionaries avoided は because they wanted to emphasize the unexpected use of が, although in actual usage I would expect to see all five of those phrases occur more often with は if they were standalone sentences.

.

Arupan Wrote:(heavy off-topic)
@yudantaiteki:
I created a lang-8 post just for this topic alone. You can have a look at it:
http://lang-8.com/951962/journals/251385...4825873036

I got 4 answers so far, but it's getting pretty tedious and I have many other things to do.

The results so far:
→　The one sentence I told you about, namely お昼ごはんはもう頼んである is grammatically correct and often used. 4 of 4 people said so.
→　Your sentence, お昼ごはんがもう頼んである, according to 3 of 4 people isn't as commonly used. The 4th one said it's ungrammatical. 1 of the 3, however, claimed he used it the most.

I'm not following this argument in detail but I did look at what lang-8 is and I guess my only question is, how do you know what the qualifications are of the people who respond? From what I see they could be either editors at major publishing houses (good) or...not.

Being a "native speaker" doesn't necessarily make someone an "expert". I still cringe about the time I was riding a bus and a woman got on I recognized from high school--a native English speaker--(born and raised a few blocks from me) and I heard her loudly say to the bus driver "Sorry I don't got ten cents". A non-native English speaker might have thought that was some kind of super cool slang...and not realize that it was really idiotic trailer-park trash speech.

Arupan Wrote:Dude, you only found out about ～を～てある and ～は～てある recently when I pointed it out. How come you can even argue on something you're still not very familiar with? Anyway, if you're still not convinced, I have nothing else to add. Have it your way.

I apparently can't convince you either -- if you're just quibbling about that example, as I said, I'm not going to defend it. It was given as an example of a structure, but perhaps a different sentence would have been better. The sentence gets 0 google hits no matter which particle you put in there -- so the problem is not the が, the problem is the whole sentence.

In every google hits example you gave above, if you replace は with が you still get a large number of hits -- sometimes more than the は version. And I dare you to go to each of those pages and inform the person using it that you think what comes before が is the doer of the verb. What do you mean that it will only be used with examples "similar to the ones I posted"?

Of course I knew that ～は～てある was a valid structure; as I said, が can be replaced with は. That's a standard, basic feature of Japanese grammar that I didn't feel obligated to point out.

john:

Quote:Being a "native speaker" doesn't necessarily make someone an "expert". I still cringe about the time I was riding a bus and a woman got on I recognized from high school--a native English speaker--(born and raised a few blocks from me) and I heard her loudly say to the bus driver "Sorry I don't got ten cents". A non-native English speaker might have thought that was some kind of super cool slang...and not realize that it was really idiotic trailer-park trash speech.

It's not slang or "trailer-park trash speech," it's just a dialect variation. Using "got" to mean "have" is a fairly standard feature of several American dialects.

john555 Wrote:A non-native English speaker might have thought that was some kind of super cool slang...and not realize that it was really idiotic trailer-park trash speech.

That's... a very highbrow way of seeing things. And a bit sad really. A language without slang / dialects / sociolects is a dead language.

Being a native speaker does not make you a grammar expert, that much is true (I couldn't give you any grammatical insight in my native tongue, because reading grammar makes my organs fail from sheer boredom), but it makes it easy to determine if something sounds natural or not.

.

Five examples, none of which are compound sentences, questions, or sentences where the one before が is the doer.
「花が生けて―・る」
「ドアが閉めて―・る」
「壁に絵がかけて―」
「机に本が置いて―」
「荷物が乱雑に積んで―」

I still haven't seen more than a few examples (all Internet) of てある where the doer of the action was marked with が. That seems very unusual to me.

Quote:No, you didn't know about both を and は. And you even edited your own posts once you found out that both are possible after our brief conversation, as far as I remember.

The first time I taught てある was in 2006; the notes I have from that class have the example ピザはもう注文してある.

Anyway I guess Arupan isn't responding anymore, but perhaps I do need to be clearer in my examples in the future. Often in explanations of grammar patterns, は is avoided because it can stand in for either が or を, so to make it clear you stick to one of the latter. So you might have an example like 田中さんが英語ができます. This example is unlikely in actual use; it is possible to construct a context where it works but it is a rare sentence. But I suppose I shouldn't assume that everyone is familiar with that textbook/dictionary practice and stick to examples that are more likely to be used in the real world.