Even if it were causative, the causee （presumably 誰も）　would be marked with に　not が.

There appears to have been a bit of miscommunication earlier. Just to clarify, lloydvincent initially explained it as a case of ellipsis, not inversion. By "暮らせる is subordinated under 幸せ", he meant it's a noun modifying clause (consistent with his translation).

imabi, I'm not familiar with the term chiasmus, but it appears to mean something different involving a second parallel expression in which the elements are reversed. Can chiasmus also mean a simple inverted order? Perhaps you had in mind verb-object inversion or object postponement?

delta, transitive potential verbs can take either が　or を. Such particle alternation doesn't apply in every case and there can be subtle differences in nuance. But 暮らす　doesn't work with any object. As lloydvincent mentioned, in the examples using を, the を　is marking a passage of time of sorts. One can "spend their days", "live a lifetime of ...." , or "spend their retirement years ....", but not "live happy". So you couldn't just convert it to potential.

tzadeck, that's what I think when I hear 幸せを. In this sentence, though, what do you make of the 「だれもが、」? That is, who is doing the wishing? And if だれも is the subject of the modifying clause, why the comma?

I should have noticed the first time too...

Yeah, a sentence can end that way for wishful thinking. It's a good use of ellipsis. I do want to note, though, that both wo and ga are used with the potential form of verbs, although technically ga is more correct. In this case though, the verb is an attribute.

The way I was taught in high school was that chiasmus was any deviation from a standard word order. Maybe this was wrong, but if I have misused the term, I didn't mean to.

Yeah, I learned chiasmus as a poetic technique where a parallel line reverses elements. Wikipedia gives a number of good examples from KJB and Shakespeare.

What about: "toward happiness anyone can commonly lead their life"?

[edit: Oh, the first part was in response to delta's post which was subsequently replaced.]

haha, so after all that, you're just going to ignore everybody's suggestions?

誰もが幸せに暮らせる　　Everyone can live happily.

Is there some reason you're resisting lloydvincent's or Tzadeck's interpretations (which are similar)?

Everyone (should experience) the joys of being able to lead an normal life.

I wish for everyone the happiness (in being able) to lead a normal life.

Or, if that comma matters, is "Everyone hopes for the happiness of ordinary life" a possibility? (Can one pray for good things for oneself or is that being too greedy?) ;p

I wrote "everyone can live happily" too (but deleted the post lol).

I just asked a Japanese and he said that を can mean "towards", so that is like a literal translation, the meaning should be "everyone can live happily" like everyone's saying.

Quote:I just asked a Japanese and he said that を can mean "towards", so that is like a literal translation, the meaning should be "everyone can live happily" like everyone's saying.

Since 誰もが幸せに暮らせる　means "Everyone can live happily", I was actually suggesting that 誰もが、普通に暮らせる幸せを would have a slightly different literal translation.

Would you mind clarifying what you friend meant?

1. There are a number of transitive verbs with an を　direct object which mean, for eg, "striving for/toward", "aiming for/at". Is your friend saying the elided verb could be something similar and the sentence is:

誰もが、普通に暮らせる幸せを [aim toward]
Everyone strives for/toward happiness in ordinary life

This would be a version of what we have with different elided verbs: "pray for" "ought to experience".

2. Or, are they saying that 幸せを普通に暮らせる means "living an ordinary life towards happiness"? Your literal translation suggests this and that it's an inverted order sentence:

Quote:What about: "toward happiness anyone can commonly lead their life"?

I couldn't get the person to help me again. I am not sure if the intended meaning is option 1 or 2 but the point is that anyone should be able to do so (live happily), if I remember correctly the ad was about something like a life insurance or life care thing.

(Note: Different question, different post.)

What's the verb for /to complete, finish/?
complete the sentence.
finish your homework.
are you finished (reading, doing the exercise, writing)?

If you want a verb that takes a direct object, 完成する means 'to complete/finish.'

できる also works but takes が so you might think of it technically as 'to be completed, to be finished.'

文章を作って
これを完成して

Thanks! Japanese verbs drive me crazy.

Tzadeck Wrote:できる also works but takes が so you might think of it technically as 'to be completed, to be finished.'

Even so, this is pretty often used to mean "finish". It's relatively common (more so with some verbs than others) to use intransitive verbs even to talk about things you personally did. Sometimes it's specifically to avoid emphasizing your own action (for politeness), sometimes it's just idiomatic.

For instance, 宿題できた？ technically means "Is the homework finished?" but it's used to ask people if they finished their homework.

From Asahi's 天声人語 column a few days ago (Cache)
木をお母さん、黄金（きん）色の実をあまたの子に擬し、落下を「旅立ち」と描く筆はやさしい▼
Is this use of を listed in Seiichi's Japanese dictionaries anywhere?

vix86 Wrote:From Asahi's 天声人語 column a few days ago (Cache)
木をお母さん、黄金（きん）色の実をあまたの子に擬し、落下を「旅立ち」と描く筆はやさしい▼
Is this use of を listed in Seiichi's Japanese dictionaries anywhere?

I'm pretty sure it's in DBJ since it's just the usual object marker. What's probably tripping you up here is the compounding of the XをY phrases, both of which connect to に擬し. You see this pop up from time to time in more formal or literary writing.

Weird. Cause I asked a friend and they said it wasn't a direct object particle, it functioned like a subject marker. But maybe this is classic "Japanese don't understand their own grammar."

Hmm, now that you mention it, it does seem more like the nouns are the subject of 擬する, although I don't know the full context of this Miyazawa Kenji tale so I don't know who is changing the things or if they're changing themselves.

早起きの身に、よく晴れた晩秋の夜明けは気分がいい。きのうは藍色の天空に居待（いま）ち月が浮かび、明けの明星が皓々（こうこう）ときらめいていた。暁を覚えぬ春とは違って、眠気はすっきり心と体から抜けていく▼そんな澄み切った明け方、丘の上の一本の銀杏（いちょう）から、ぎんなんが一斉に飛び降りる童話を宮沢賢治は書いた。木をお母さん、黄金（きん）色の実をあまたの子に擬し、落下を「旅立ち」と描く筆はやさしい▼子らは靴をはき、外套（がいとう）をはおって旅の支度をする。冷たい北風がゴーッと吹くと、「さよなら、おっかさん」と口々に言って枝から飛び降りる――。黄金（きん）の雨が降るような描写を読み直すうち、ふと読者から頂いた便りを思い出した

Here's surrounding context of the excerpt. If I understood my friend, the 木をお母さん bit is trying to say the "The tree is the mother" or maybe "The tree is like a mother."

当日、どんな服を着て行きますか？

In this sentence is 行きます being used to ask what clothes you are going to wear? Before now I have only seen it used to describe going to a place rather than an action like this.

This has been bothering me for a quite a while now and I was thinking of opening a topic on that, but decided not to hoping the explanation is short and fits this thread better

This troubles me: たら・と・とき. A friend sent me an email using たら in an unconditional sense, which I understood, but I have troubles differentiating when to use とき（に／は） and when たら to express "when" in Japanese. Besides, と can be used also to express purely temporal stuff.....

lardycake Wrote:当日、どんな服を着て行きますか？

In this sentence is 行きます being used to ask what clothes you are going to wear? Before now I have only seen it used to describe going to a place rather than an action like this.

着て行きます in this case literally means "Wear, and then go [somewhere]". So the feeling is like "What clothes will you wear when you go?" Depending on the context they may have a specific place in mind or it may just mean in general when you leave your house and go anywhere.

In this sentence from core 6k:
あの会社との契約が成立しました。
We concluded/completed a contract with that company.

Is あの会社との契約 a noun phrase meaning "the contract with that company"? And, is that translation good enough?

The noun phrase is good and don't see any problems with the translation.

Is the following also correct?
あの会社と契約が成立されました。

Have a question on the -sou ending
If I am talking about something painful and the person listening wants to say 'that sounds painful' or something like that, what would it be? 痛そう or 痛いそう?

I believe it to be the former but my friend believes the latter

Aさん 田中さんが上田さんに足を踏まれた。。。
Bさん 痛そう

delta Wrote:Is the following also correct?
あの会社と契約が成立されました。

I dont believe it is correct.

If you use あの会社と with the と meaning with/together, then following it must be a sentence describing what they did together or の which makes it a noun phrase.
For what its worth, I dont think its worth trying to figure out the details of the grammar. It should just come naturally and incorrect grammar will just feel wrong.