彼は数学の博士だそうです

Without any context, is there any reason to believe this should be はくし and not はかせ?

Because it seems ambiguous to me even though Core claims its はくし. I've been thinking of rewriting the sentence to something like:
彼は数学の博士課程に就いた (就いている ？) - He started/set upon a doctorate in math.

a bit of googling, and my dictionary confirms this, seems to suggest はくし is used for the academic title (doctor, professor), and はかせ is used more generally as "expert" or "learned person".

I wasn't aware of the distinction and I feel like I hear はかせ a lot more (even はかせごう（博士号））, but then I've never been in academia in Japan.

edit: so to answer your question, in the context of 数学の博士課程, you'd probably read it はくし.

Well heres where I'm confused by the Core then (likely its just another example of crappy sent. in the deck).

彼は数学の博士だそうです is the はくし card but,
彼は物理学の博士です。is the はかせ card.
They seem pretty identical to me given no context.

----

Separate question (moved from prior post)
彼ったら怒り爆発だったよ。
What is the function of ったら on　彼? I've never seen this construction before.

In those two sentences, I think both could be ok depending on the context, in a formal academic setting talking about a doctor, はくし, just talking about an expert, はかせ. But I don't really know.

re: ったら. It's an abbreviation:
と言ったら　＞　ったら
彼ったら　(lit. speaking of him....)
It has a nuance of blame or exasperation.

彼ったら怒り爆発だったよ。

(exasperation) He was really pissed off.

nadiatims Wrote:In those two sentences, I think both could be ok depending on the context, in a formal academic setting talking about a doctor, はくし, just talking about an expert, はかせ. But I don't really know.

Ah ok. My only exposure to 博士・はくし has only been in the context of "doctorate course work" hence why I'm thinking of changing it to 「彼は数学の博士課程に就いた／就いている(？)」 for clarity's sake.

Quote:re: ったら. It's an abbreviation:
と言ったら　＞　ったら
彼ったら　(lit. speaking of him....)
It has a nuance of blame or exasperation.

彼ったら怒り爆発だったよ。

(exasperation) He was really pissed off.

Ok thanks.

nadiatims Wrote:re: ったら. It's an abbreviation:
と言ったら　＞　ったら
彼ったら　(lit. speaking of him....)
It has a nuance of blame or exasperation.

彼ったら怒り爆発だったよ。

(exasperation) He was really pissed off.

I would never have guessed this nor have been able to know what it meant without speaking to a native speaker - Ellipsis is just so common in japanese Could you give me a link to, or explain the Japanese ellipsis rules please? it isn't covered thoroughly in the books I have.

I don't quite know what you mean by ellipsis rules here. I don't know if anything is being emitted, I just know that that's the nuance carried using ったら in that way. It's something I learned/read somewhere quite a while back and seems to fit my experience.

覚えるしかないと思う。

Yeah, I don't think this is really ellipsis -- DBJG has an entry on ったら and it's usually in dictionaries too. It generally shows annoyance.

I don't know what "ellipsis rules" there are either. Contractions are common in every language -- you just have to learn them individually, I think.

I was reading this article about people not standing to say the national anthem, and a couple of things confused me. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20120224...31000.html

Question 1
大阪府内の公立学校は小・中学校や高校などおよそ１７００校に上り、大阪府教育委員会は、条例の施行後、初めてとなる卒業式を前に、先月には、府立の学校の教職員に対し、条例を順守するよう職務命令を出していました。

こうしたなか、府立高校の卒業式が２４日から始まり、この日は、３２校で式典が行われました。
大阪府教育委員会によりますと、このうち６校で合わせて８人の教職員が君が代の斉唱の際、起立しなかったということです。

What's the こうしたなか mean exactly?

Question 2
子どもたちにも目の前でルールを破るとところを見せるのは非常に悪影響を及ぼす」と述べました。

What's the とところを doing here exactly? The meaning of the sentence is obvious, but that one little phrase confuses me.

こうしたなか is basically saying, "under these circumstances". The first sentence is setting up the background circumstances. The next sentences are describing what happened under that backdrop.


in your next sentence I think one of those と is a typo...it should be:
子どもたちにも目の前でルールを破るところを見せるのは非常に悪影響を及ぼす」と述べました。
"showing breaking the rules right in front of their eyes has a really bad influence on the kids" (someone) explained.

Still from the biographies book:

ファーブルの手伝いをしていた羊飼いの青年が、先が尖ったフンの玉を持ってきます。

What is 手伝いをしていた？

My idea: Fabre's help came earlier from a young shepherd that brought him a tapered ball of dung.

You've got the basic meaning but not the grammar. 手伝いをする just means "help".
Here's a breakdown of the modifiers, if this makes sense:
[[ファーブルの手伝いをしていた] [羊飼いの]] 青年 が、[[先が尖った] [フンの]] 玉 を 持ってきます。

So the basic sentence is 青年が玉を持ってきます "A young man brought a ball." The first set of modifiers describes the man, and the second the ball.

Alright, so

A young shepherd brought a tapered ball of dung to help Fabre.

Does that make sense?

Thanks nadiatims!

Yeah, definitely makes sense as a typo.

turvy Wrote:Alright, so

A young shepherd brought a tapered ball of dung to help Fabre.

Does that make sense?

You have to make sure to pay attention to which modifiers go with which words -- check again the bracketing that yudantaiteki parsed out for you.

ファーブルの手伝いをしていた羊飼いの青年が、先が尖ったフンの玉を持ってきます。

ファーブルの手伝いをしていた describes the young shepherd, not the act of bringing a tapered ball of dung. That is, it's not some random act of "Hey, do you want this tapered ball of dung?" -- the shepherd was helping out Fabre as a continuous thing (that's why it's していた)

So a closer translation would be "A young shepherd who was assisting Fabre brought him a tapered ball of dung."

Wow, that is amazing. By the way, why "brought" where is the past tense in the sentence?

Japanese does not consistently use perfectives in narrative to mark past tense -- I suppose you could translate this as "brings" but since narratives are usually written in complete past tense in English, that's how I put it into Japanese.

I understand what you are saying but that does not explain anything (at least not to me in my current level). The way you put is almost as if they just go about using tenses randomly, which isn't [can't be] the case. I *suspect* the use of the present here adds certain emphasis?, if so the translation could look like this instead:

A young shepherd who was helping Fabre 'would come to' bring him a tapered ball of dung.

Does that make sense?

Without seeing the rest of the story I can't say for sure. It might be to highlight the "time" difference between the していた and the "current" (in narrative time-frame) action of bringing the ball of dung, but that's just a guess.

yudantaiteki Wrote:[[ファーブルの手伝いをしていた] [羊飼いの]] 青年 が、[[先が尖った] [フンの]] 玉 を 持ってきます。

If only Japanese used such notation all the time

I heard someone who said that Japanese has the recursion built into it and in sentences like this you can see why. I was also wondering about the "bracketing". Wouldn't the following reflect better the modifiers logic?
[[[ファーブルの]手伝いをしていた]羊飼いの]青年が、[[先が尖った]フンの]玉を持ってきます。

I don't think so. First of all, the first の is a subject marker (substituted for が in a subordinate clause). It's not a substitute for だ here.

My problem with [[[ファーブルの手伝いをしていた]羊飼いの]青年 is that ファーブルの手伝いをしていた is not modifying 羊飼い. It's not telling you what kind of sheepherder the young man is. Rather, the man is being described in two ways -- as a sheepherder, and as someone who helped Fabre before. Same thing with the next part; both modifiers are saying what kind of ball it is.

Nested modifiers do occur, but I don't think this is an example of them.

Thanks, yudantaiteki.

Thinking to myself: OMG, what did I get myself into...

yudantaiteki Wrote:I don't think so. First of all, the first の is a subject marker (substituted for が in a subordinate clause). It's not a substitute for だ here.

isn't it just the の that connects two nouns phrases? 人の名前、家の屋根、ファーブルの手伝い

maybe i'm misunderstanding your post in some way...

Oh wow, that was a dumb mistake. You're absolutely right.

Inny Jan Wrote:Thanks, yudantaiteki.

Thinking to myself: OMG, what did I get myself into...

Don't worry, it soon becomes second nature. The logic is fairly simple. Subclauses modify nouns and this can recurse (you can modify a noun that is itself in a subclause modifying another noun). Multiple subclauses can also modify a single noun. It's of course up to the speaker/writer to juggle this and still be comprehensible. Once you're familiar with these very basic rules, you can form quite complex sentences pretty easily.

And yeah, yudantaiteki, don't do that to me. I was like, what? Have i been thinking about this wrong all along?

I'd parse it as follows:

[[[ファーブルの]手伝いをしていた][羊飼いの]]青年が、[[先が尖った][フンの]]玉を持ってきます。

Which is essentially the same as yudantaiteki's except for the first part (which, imho, is the same grammatically as the [羊飼いの] and [フンの] later).