Hi. Can anybody tell me what character the second symbol in this restaurant's logo is? I got the rest: 櫻X日本料理

http://www.sakurauk.co.uk/index.html

Thanks!

Edit: Is it 花?

Yes.

This is the definition of しばらく in 大辞林 (the one built in OSX)

長くはないが，すぐともいえないほどの時間が経過するさま。

What's the role of も there? And, what's wrong with just 長くないが, why a は in between?

I don't have enough knowledge to explain it formally, but it's a phrasing that you commonly see when someone is looking for something, but not quite finding it.

Like, "I thought I saw my keys around here somewhere. It's not in my pocket. It's not on the dresser either..."

If those particles were missing, yes, the sentence would essentially be relating the same facts - it won't be long, and it won't be soon. But with that alone, I'd wonder, "Well, if it won't be long, and it won't be soon, when the heck is it going to be?!"

But the sentence as it is is saying, it won't be long, but it won't be quite soon either, which makes me understand that ok, then they're saying it's somewhere in the middle.

Thank you, you are one clever little fellow (bug). I get it now.

delta Wrote:This is the definition of しばらく in 大辞林 (the one built in OSX)

長くはないが，すぐともいえないほどの時間が経過するさま。

What's the role of も there? And, what's wrong with just 長くないが, why a は in between?

は is often used to place emphasis. Or show contrast. (or both)
ex/ 人多いな。まあ多くはないけど、普通よりは・・・
There's a ton of people here! Well, not a *ton* but.. more than usual.

↑ The first は（多くはない）is putting emphasis on 多い and, in a way, showing contrast.
You could also say (with slightly different meaning) 多くはないけど少なくもない。
The second は （普通よりは）is also showing contrast and emphasis as opposed to simply saying 普通より.

も can do the same thing, and in the sentence you quoted they are working together to show the contrast. 長くはないが、すぐともいえない Not *long* but not quite short either.
As opposed to "Not long and not short."

It's tricky. Maybe. But easy to get a hang of with enough input and makes things sound smoother. It adds flavor to the language and is apparently considered by natives to be slightly high level when used correctly. (And by high level I mean.. like.. reasonably clever middle school, high school/college kids use this normally). I had a 国語 teacher comment on my use of this grammar as opposed to his middle school students who, for the most part, wouldn't even think to put it to use.

It also can be used for humor:
Aさん：「デイビッド酔ってる？」
デイビッド：「いやー、今日は酔ってない」

Mr. A is probably making fun of David for tripping on a curb or something. David responds with the implication being that every other day he *is* drunk but *RIGHT NOW* he is sober. Wordplay. Laughs ensue.

Thank you @drdunlap.

Exactly, 今日は, today in particular or today as opposed to other days. Another good example is 二時間は勉強した, I studied at least for two hours (no less).

New question: Here at StackExchange they are discussing 〜ている, punctual verbs and whatnot, but I am particularly interested in what user @Lukman said:

Quote:Then there is a question of what to say when the subject is on the way, i.e. "is coming" in English sense? That's when we use 〜て来る form. While most 〜て来る verbs mean "to do something and return", there are some verbs that when used with 〜て来る form mean "is currently coming here doing X", for example 歩いてくる, 走ってくる, 飛んでくる etc. 歩いてくる does not mean "to walk and return" but "is walking here".

I understand てくる will come doing something and not "currently coming here doing something" that would rather describe a progressive state. So, 歩いてくる should be "will come on foot". I'm confused because this user seems to know what he's talking about though.

His wording is just a little odd.
Otherwise I think you and he are on the same page.

He's just trying to make a distinction between usages like コンビニに行ってくる (in which someone is going someplace and returning) and, say, コンビニから歩いてくる or こっちに走ってくる (where someone is coming towards "here" from elsewhere by walking/running).

JSL says that -te forms describe something "actualized", for an action that means that it's *at least* started, and often (but not always) finished. So for 歩いてくる or 食べている the action is started (but not finished), but 行ってくる the going is finished then the くる happens.

yudantaiteki Wrote:JSL says that -te forms describe something "actualized", for an action that means that it's *at least* started, and often (but not always) finished. So for 歩いてくる or 食べている the action is started (but not finished), but 行ってくる the going is finished then the くる happens.

That's pretty interesting. I've been wondering what it is supposed to be expressing though keep forgetting to look it up. The sense of "actualized" is something which seems to have somewhat been internalized from a simple matter of accumulated exposure, though something I do not entirely trust at all on it's own.

In respect to 歩いてくる, are they any grammatical forms which express whether or not the action which has at least started, was done so in a manner either by the desire or against the desire of the subject it relates to or may refer to? Or would something such as expressing desire for an action be a different verb entirely with a negative or positive state of being/copula?

drdunlap Wrote:Mr. A is probably making fun of David for tripping on a curb or something. David responds with the implication being that every other day he *is* drunk but *RIGHT NOW* he is sober.

One very small point: は generally implies that alternatives exist (ie other days), but doesn't necessarily make any implied assertion about them (ie was drunk). So the implication would be that he *might* be drunk on other days, since he hasn't included them.

Sometimes the implication can be that the opposite is true for the alternatives. One eg is if only 2 alternatives exist: "Women （は）　in that country live longer". This implies that it's men who have shorter life spans. (Incidentally, this is the interesting eg where contrastive は　and exclusive が　are essentially interchangeable.)

delta Wrote:Exactly, 今日は, today in particular or today as opposed to other days. Another good example is 二時間は勉強した, I studied at least for two hours (no less).

It can also have the related sense of ”studied as much as 2 hours!". This implies some previous knowledge of the amount hours and the speaker is emphasizing the amount. So it's similar to emphasis も.

It's probably fair to say that the various functions of は　all convey (to varying degrees) the implication that no claim is being made about whether the comment applies to likely alternatives. But contrastive は and emphasis　は　have some functional and syntactic differences, so it might be good idea not to merge them completely in your mind. (For eg, Vては　can emphasize V in the sense that V is repeated - eg "he just eats and eats" or "every time he eats, he...". V is kind of being singled out, but the contrastive sense isn't strong; it isn't trying to imply much about other Vs.)

drdunlap already mentioned that different functions of はcan overlap/co-occur (here, emphasis and contrast) and that emphasis　は and も　share similar functions. Another function in your sentence (and in the earlier 助かる sentence) is to mark which element is being negated ('negative scope'). (English uses emphasis for this: "Bob didn't go school YESTERDAY".) It's a subtype of emphasis perhaps, but it still plays a grammatical role. Some teachers claim sentences sound less natural without them. An extreme eg: は is rarely left out of ~ではない (じゃない）　from ～である.

* *
For my own learning, I'd be interested to know what made は in this sentence difficult to understand. Was it that は　marking an adjective, verb or adverb is less familiar than when it marks a noun phrase? Or was it the　は、も combination?

* *
More generally, I think beginners might want to at least take note that "topic marker" is a convenient label for the particle は, but it doesn't describe the various functions of は. They shouldn't listen to the mistaken advice given by someone in this forum that " は only ever marks a topic -what the rest of the sentence is about- and any other explanation is nonsense". (lol) If they do, they might be confused when they encounter other uses, it will take longer to develop a sense for the different nuances conveyed by は, and they won't understand why some of their own sentences are grammatically incorrect.

There's no need to memorize anything or read anything complicated. A simple awareness that the different uses exist will help people to notice them and to fine-tune their understanding more quickly as they read and listen.

Edit: moved unrelated comment to a separate post.

Thora Wrote:

drdunlap Wrote:Mr. A is probably making fun of David for tripping on a curb or something. David responds with the implication being that every other day he *is* drunk but *RIGHT NOW* he is sober.

One very small point: は generally implies that alternatives exist (ie other days), but doesn't necessarily make any implied assertion about them (ie was drunk). So the implication would be that he *might* be drunk on other days, since he hasn't included them.

Sometimes the implication can be that the opposite is true for the alternatives. One eg is if only 2 alternatives exist: "Women （は）　in that country live longer". This implies that it's men who have shorter life spans. (Incidentally, this is the interesting eg where contrastive は　and exclusive が　are essentially interchangeable.)

In the humor context it's pretty much assumed that he's drunk regularly because that's what makes it funny. The meaning is the same either way, with the nuance in this humorous statement being that he is, indeed, drunk every other day.

Yes, technically and grammatically ... etc etc.
But I've never been a fan of technically and grammatically and I attribute my success (grammatical and otherwise) in large part to this irony.

(I would agree that it is good to note the nuance of alternatives, however. That's a word I possibly should have included in my blabbering about contrast.)

Question: Are は (wa) and ば related? and what's the relation?

delta Wrote:Question: Are は (wa) and ば related? and what's the relation?

I believe they are historically related but that goes back to pre-written Japanese.

I was asking because I got caught up reading a bit about the nuance between ば and たら and it just seemed logical that は and ば should be related, but maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me.

I'm actually not so sure now. I was thinking of cases like this poem from the Kokinshu:

鶯の谷より出づる声なくは春来ることを誰か知らまし

なくは here means ないならば or なければ. Whether to voice the は or not is difficult to say because dakuten were not used consistently (or correctly) in old manuscripts but I believe that from looking at the 万葉集 you can conclusively show that it should be unvoiced は (which would have been pronounced something like "fa" in the Kokinshu period and "pa" in Man'yoshu). But I think this construction only goes after adj-連用形 and it's not hard to just interpret it as the usual contrastive は.

I still seem to remember reading that there is probably some relation between them but I'm not sure you can prove the relation just by looking at existing written texts. However, even just thinking about it, it's not hard to see a relation of "XはY" (At least for X, Y is true) and "XばY" (If X, then Y is true).

There are also constructions in modern Japanese where は has a meaning close to "if" -- something like "ルーペを使わなくては読めない" (If you don't use a magnifying glass you can't read it). It's possible you could translate that poem as 鶯の谷から出る声がなくては、春が来ることを誰が知ってるだろうか but I'm not sure.

From the dictionary:
取り組み
① その事に取り組むこと。

Why is the first 事 in kanji, but not the last one?

delta Wrote:From the dictionary:
取り組み
① その事に取り組むこと。

Why is the first 事 in kanji, but not the last one?

It is common practice in dictionaries to write words like こと, さま, and もの (words that are something like fillers for the word that is being defined) in kana rather than kanji. That's what's going on with the second こと. The first 事 could be written either way, but perhaps is in kanji to make it easier to understand that it's not a stand-in for the word, unlike the second こと.

(I'm not phrasing this well, but it's late. I hope you get it.)

Same explanation, just adding that in this case, こと is a nominalizer (事　is a noun).
[Edit: What I was trying to say is that while this use of もの and さま might appear as kanji outside of dictionary defns (as well as in some dict defns), this use of こと would probably remain in kana everywhere. I don't think it matters whether it's interpreted as "the act of" or "Ving"]

[In other words, a word's function can determine when it's in kana or kanji.] Nouns like 物　and 事　got used in certain phrases and ways so frequently they're considered to have undergone a process called grammaticalization where they became like function words (in this case, formal nouns). [こと　used as nominalizer/complementizer is almost always(?) in kana. I think こと’ｓ　other formal noun uses are more mixed, but often in kana. Regular noun uses are more likely to be in kanji. ]

I vaguely recall that past guidelines on kana use said that function words should be in kana. So if they're more commonly found in dictionary text in kana (vs internet), it might have to do with publishers wanting to comply with those style guidelines.

*Edit: Added clarifications in [ ]. Changed 'abstract noun' to 'formal noun'. (こと is an abstract noun, but I meant formal noun here.)　

@Thora Ah, that's what it is. Since the last こと is acting as a head (or tail if you will) of the noun phrase it's written in かな.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I still seem to remember reading that there is probably some relation between them but I'm not sure you can prove the relation just by looking at existing written texts.

This might be quite out of date, but I recall that Kuno had argued there was a connection and some other scholars later argued that Kuno's analysis was flawed. Don't remember the reasons, though. I lumped it into the 'unknown' category at the time.

From inside a quote:

会話をしていても威圧感があるし。私って結構物事を気にするタイプだから、そういうのについていく自信がなくって。
Just in talking with them I feel pressure, and, since I tend to really worry about things, I didn't know if I could handle it.

Source: http://eow.alc.co.jp/search/example?q=威圧...dk=JE&pg=2 (Scroll down.)

What's なくって ? Could it be a short for something like: 自信がないだと思う。

I think it's just the same as なくて, sometimes you see it with the extra っ.

なくっ‐て
［連語］《「なくて」の音変化》「なくて」に同じ。「いやなら、食べ―いい」