I didn't post these in the other thread because I know what they mean, I just don't understand why they mean what they mean.

I was going through my Core 2000/6000 reviews in my anki deck today, and a few sentences came up that have been bothering me for awhile. I figured I might as well ask about them, rather than spend my life living in wonder.

髪を切る - Obviously, this means "cut hair". But why is it also used in reference to someone else cutting your hair (i.e. "I had my hair cut at the salon")? Why is it 髪を切る and not 髪が切れた, in these cases?

お湯を沸かす - This makes sense if you are, in fact, boiling hot water, but the English translation, if I recall, simply reads "Boil water". Why is this? Is 水を沸かす also acceptable, if you are specifically boiling cold water? I get お湯は沸かしてある, because obviously water has to be hot if it's boiling, but with お湯を沸かす, why would you use exclusively (if that is the case) お湯 when referring to the act of boiling water if the water is not even hot yet?

索引はたいてい本の後ろについています - Why do inanimate objects in sentences like this take いる? Wouldn't つけてある make more sense? We're dealing with inanimate objects, so, in almost all cases, someone has made that thing become its current state. Like in the above example, an index did not magically manifest itself in the back of the book; someone put it there. In cases like these, why isn't ある used, since it's assumed that someone had to have actively put the index in the back of the book?

I understand if you use something likeドアが開いている when you come home and the door is open, and you don't know why--maybe it was the wind, maybe it was a person, maybe it was a very smart bear, maybe it just opened by itself, etc--but in the case of an index, you know it wouldn't be in the back of a book if someone didn't put it there.

グラスを落として割った - This one actually makes perfect sense to me, but I have a question. Is something such as グラスを落として割れた (or グラスを落として割られた) also acceptable?

髪を切る

They basically just leave out that detail. It's like you cut your hair by using someone else. For example, we say "I fixed my car" even when you just hired someone to do it.

お湯を沸かす

We say "cook a meal" and not "cook ingredients for a meal", even though the meal is the result. In this sentence, the お湯 is the result of the boiling.

索引はたいてい本の後ろについています

Think of this as part of the verb. ついています just gives the continuitive tense of the verb. You can add ある sometimes, but that is not the norm... It gives a different and specific sense and is used more rarely. I have a hard time thinking of how to explain when ある would actually be used here, but I think it would give a sense of permanency and finality...

グラスを落として割れた

Sure, that's also fine. Normally one would probably say グラスを落として割れちゃった in normal conversation.

Aru is used when it was planned and done by someone for a purpose. It's also used with transitive verbs, not tsuku which is intransitive. So it can be tsuite iru (affixed) or tsukete aru (affixed (by someone for some purpose ahead of time)).

torokun Wrote:髪を切る

They basically just leave out that detail. It's like you cut your hair by using someone else. For example, we say "I fixed my car" even when you just hired someone to do it.

But I would never say that. I would say, "I got my car fixed." If I told my friends or family members "I fixed my car," there would be much confusion, because they would think that I, somehow, fixed the car, even though I can barely change the oil.

More than that, saying "I fixed my car" is not grammatically accurate if you did not actually fix the car. "The mechanic fixed my car" would be the correct way to say it.

Quote:お湯を沸かす

We say "cook a meal" and not "cook ingredients for a meal", even though the meal is the result. In this sentence, the お湯 is the result of the boiling.

Point taken on this one.

Quote:索引はたいてい本の後ろについています

Think of this as part of the verb. ついています just gives the continuitive tense of the verb. You can add ある sometimes, but that is not the norm... It gives a different and specific sense and is used more rarely. I have a hard time thinking of how to explain when ある would actually be used here, but I think it would give a sense of permanency and finality...

I guess maybe I just need to find a very detailed explanation of いる and ある, because while both indicate a continuing state, it seems logically inconsistent to me to use いる when, in that such sentence, someone would have had to put the index in the state of being in the back of the book. The thing is that I know it's fine--and common--to use いる in sentences like these... I just don't know why.

Quote:グラスを落として割れた

Sure, that's also fine. Normally one would probably say グラスを落として割れちゃった in normal conversation.

Ah, okay. Good to know. Thanks for the reply.

Tobberoth Wrote:Aru is used when it was planned and done by someone for a purpose. It's also used with transitive verbs, not tsuku which is intransitive. So it can be tsuite iru (affixed) or tsukete aru (affixed (by someone for some purpose ahead of time)).

Yes, that is exactly my point. An index does not magically manifest itself in the back of the book. It is purposefully put, by a person, in the back of the book as a reference for readers. Thus, to me it would make more sense to use つけてある, not ついている.

mirina Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:Aru is used when it was planned and done by someone for a purpose. It's also used with transitive verbs, not tsuku which is intransitive. So it can be tsuite iru (affixed) or tsukete aru (affixed (by someone for some purpose ahead of time)).

Yes, that is exactly my point. An index does not magically manifest itself in the back of the book. It is purposefully put, by a person, in the back of the book as a reference for readers. Thus, to me it would make more sense to use つけてある, not ついている.

In English you can say both "there is an index in the back of the book" and "an index has been put in the back of the book". As you say, indexes have all been 'put' there by a person; that doesn't mean that the first of these English examples is unnatural or wrong or even that it would be the less common choice. If you're not deliberately trying to include in what you are saying the idea that somebody has put the object in that state, ている is fine. Sentences don't have to (indeed, should not!) include information simply because it happens to be true.
[NB: English phrases are more intended as analogy than translation.]

Regarding 髪を切る, I think that it is a mistake to demand logical rigour of an idiomatic phrase: the whole point of idiom is that the whole has a meaning which can't be simply determined from the meaning of its parts. You just have to accept that the phrase means what it means, and that idioms don't translate mechanically between languages.

Like pm215 is saying, the important thing here is that てある IMPLIES and PUTS EMPHASIS on the fact that it was done for a reason beforehand. You don't NEED to use てある in every case where something was done beforehand for a reason, only when that is what's important. Another example from English:

There's a stone in the road.
There was a stone placed on the road.

Both sentences mean the same thing, but the emphasis is different. In some situations, the first one makes sense, even if it WAS placed there by someone.

So to connect it to your problem sentence, you would only use つけてある if you were explaining something to someone, as in a tutorial, something like "If you can't find this, an index has been placed at the back of the book to help you out". This sentence is more like "Generally, an index follows at the end of a book". Someone definitely placed it there, but it's not important.

I guess I see what you guys are talking about in terms of いる and ある. I suppose I had a bit of tunnel vision in regards to the technicalities of the usage, but it makes sense that unnecessary information does not need to be included or expressed every time.

Quote:Regarding 髪を切る, I think that it is a mistake to demand logical rigour of an idiomatic phrase: the whole point of idiom is that the whole has a meaning which can't be simply determined from the meaning of its parts. You just have to accept that the phrase means what it means, and that idioms don't translate mechanically between languages.

It's not really an issue of translation, it is more a question of how a sentence such as this expresses something that does not really make sense in its current grammatical state, as least as far as I understand it as a non-native. 切る is a transitive verb, acting upon 髪. Someone has to be performing the 切る. What does not make sense is when the person stated as doing so is not the hair stylist, but the person getting their hair cut. It's like saying テレビを消した, or "I turned off my TV", when someone else turned off the TV for me.

Wouldn't "idiom" mean that the sentence figuratively implies something other than cutting one's hair? I don't see how that applies here.

Maybe what I'm looking for a linguistic explanation of why this sort of phrase is acceptable, or how it came to be.

OED on 'idiom Wrote:3. a. A form of expression, grammatical construction, phrase, etc., peculiar to a language; a peculiarity of phraseology approved by the usage of a language, and often having a signification other than its grammatical or logical one.

The phrase is '髪を切る'. The 'grammatical or logical signification' (ie the apparent meaning of the words) is that the person themselves did the cutting. The actual signification is merely that they got it cut. This is a peculiarity, but it's the way the language is. Thus, an idiom :-) (Also, notice that in either language "to cut your hair" means more than merely to hack at it with a knife.)

It's no weirder than your お湯を沸かす example, it just happens not to have an English analogue.

One possible explanation is that the custom a long time ago was to cut one's own hair, and the phrase stuck. Whether that's actually the case or not though, I have no idea.

I understand how you feel, but the best advice I can offer is to just accept it and move on. Once you're exposed to such phrases long enough, they start to feel natural.

IceCream Wrote:um... isn't it just 付いています? As in, it's the polite form of the て　form verb, and nothing to do with いる？

You can look at it as V-te + iru (or +aru), ie consider いる and ある as auxiliary verbs (which as usual for aux. verbs don't particularly retain the meaning they have as standalone verbs). Personally I generally think of it as 'the ている / てある form' but there's nothing inherently wrong with the other viewpoint (and I would be unsurprised to find it was more useful for linguistic purposes).

pm215 Wrote:

OED on 'idiom Wrote:3. a. A form of expression, grammatical construction, phrase, etc., peculiar to a language; a peculiarity of phraseology approved by the usage of a language, and often having a signification other than its grammatical or logical one.

The phrase is '髪を切る'. The 'grammatical or logical signification' (ie the apparent meaning of the words) is that the person themselves did the cutting. The actual signification is merely that they got it cut. This is a peculiarity, but it's the way the language is. Thus, an idiom :-) (Also, notice that in either language "to cut your hair" means more than merely to hack at it with a knife.)

It's no weirder than your お湯を沸かす example, it just happens not to have an English analogue.

Ah, I was not aware it also referred to things of a grammatical nature. I guess I will just have to accept it as it is, as much as I want to mentally pick at it until it makes sense.

resolve Wrote:One possible explanation is that the custom a long time ago was to cut one's own hair, and the phrase stuck. Whether that's actually the case or not though, I have no idea.

I understand how you feel, but the best advice I can offer is to just accept it and move on. Once you're exposed to such phrases long enough, they start to feel natural.

I guess that's possible (the cutting your own hair thing). Unfortunately, the problem is that, although most posters here, from what I've read, seem to think grammar should just be absorbed naturally, I love grammar and enjoy analyzing it to death. So while some people just see it and go, "Okay, well that's how it is," every time it comes up in my reviews I go, "BUT WHY????"

IceCream Wrote:sorry for the not much explanation, hope this helps...
i once wrote in my lang-8 entry:
化粧や髪がちゃんとした。
the guy corrected it to:
化粧や髪をちゃんとした。（"髪がちゃんとする" sounds as if your hair has its will.）
presumably 髪が切れた sounds like your hair cut something up... so, it won't work. Has to be 髪を切る、髪を切れた.
You could say 髪が切られた　which sounds like the cutting was done to your hair, though.

Yes, 髪が切られた is what I meant, thank you for pointing that out; I put 髪が切れた mistakenly. I suppose 髪が切れた might work in a sci-fi novel though.

Quote:anyway, the same applies for 走っている. It doesn't mean that the person is running and existing, it means that the person is "in the state of" running, which is what all ている things say... so, the ている means "being in the state of" rather than normal いる　（居る）.

I really meant てある and ている in what I was saying, but I just wrote the grammatical terms as how I think of them, which is just ある and いる. It's technically not the correct way to refer to them, though.

IceCream Wrote:@pm: mm, not sure what an auxilliary verb is, but i remember asking myself this same question ages ago, then just gave it up as a bad job since almost everything is ている. If something comes up as てある i guess there's a special purpose for it that's something over and above normal ある... (which i guess was described above.)

Why not look it up? I recommend you pick up a copy of The Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar.

Aux. verbs are as they sound: verbs added on to the main verb - helper verbs. There's a list of them at the bottom of this Wikipedia Japanese grammar page. ある and いる　are two types of aux. verbs:

intr. verb +ている:　　窓が閉まっている　　The window is closed.
tr. verb +てある: 　 窓が閉めてある　　　The window has been closed (and kept that way)
tr. verb +ている：　　　窓を閉めている　　　 Someone is closing the window.

Vてある　is often translated as "...has been done", but it's not passive. It can be thought of as　2　sentences combined: 窓を閉めた　and 窓がある. It expresses the meaning that someone completed the action on something and that something has been kept in that state.

Quote:anyway, the same applies for 走っている. It doesn't mean that the person is running and existing, it means that the person is "in the state of" running, which is what all ている things say... so, the ている means "being in the state of" rather than normal いる　（居る）.

I don't think it's helpful to interpret every ている as "in the state of". Depending on the verb and context, ている　can have the meaning of a progressive action (like your 走っている "is running" example) or an action that is completed and remains in that state of completion (忘れている "has forgotten" rather than "is in the state of forgetting"). "The window is closed" is not the same as "the window is in the state of closing".

Another egs: 川端は小説をたくさん書いています。 Probably "has written many novels" rather than "is in the state of writing many novels". 出ている "gone out",　　 卒業している "has graduated", etc.

mirina Wrote:グラスを落として割った - This one actually makes perfect sense to me, but I have a question. Is something such as グラスを落として割れた (or グラスを落として割られた) also acceptable?

--グラスを落として割れた

You might hear something like this in casual speech from time to time, but it's not correct. Strictly speaking, the two verbs in a -て form construction like this have to have the same subject, so:

グラスを落として割った
[X] dropped [the/a] glass and broke it.

グラスを落として割れた
[X] dropped [the/a] glass and then [X] shattered to pieces.

--グラスを落として割られた

This sentence might make sense if you were lamenting someone else breaking a glass, but not if you broke a glass or if the event had no negative emotional effect on you.

IceCream Wrote:Maybe "in the state of" isn't the best way to describe it. I've heard it so much now that i really don't translate it in my head any more when i see it... i guess i'd have to play all kinds of tricks on English to make it fit that...
忘れている in the state of [forget] (not forget-ing)
出ている in the state of being out
卒業している in the state of being a graduate
.... yeah. and now i think it helps no-one except me

this throws me a bit: 川端は小説をたくさん書いています. Why wouldn't they use 書いていました？ I guess it just implies that the author is still alive and writing...

I don't have time to give explanations for OP's questions, but I totally understand what IceCream is saying. If you apply her way of understanding いる to 川端は小説をたくさん書いています, it'd be something like "Kawabata is in the state of having published many novels." The sentence usually implies that he's still alive and active or that the fact that he had written many novels has an influence on the current topic of the conversation between the speaker and the interlocutor so the speaker is compelled to say it in the present tense.

English speakers would translate the Japanese sentence as "Kawabata has written many novels," but I think I understand what she means "in the state of X." Context and the meanings of verbs dictate what exactly it means; in some cases it might be simply the progressive tense "-ing" as in "He's running," and in other cases it might be "have done" in the sense that something has happened/has been completed and the fact that it happened/was completed is the current situation the speaker is talking about. There are more variations when it comes to いる as an auxiliary verb, but they're all sort of "in the state of X." Here are examples of the five basic meanings of the auxiliary verb:

1. 今本を読んでいるところ。(I'm reading a book now.) -> いる = something is occurring/happening,
2. 今も記憶に残っている。(I still remember that.) -> いる = something happened, and the current situation is its consequence,
3. 毎年たくさんの赤ちゃんが生まれている。(Many babies are born each year.) -> いる = something is keep happening or it's kind of a usual thing that always happens,
4. それならもうすでになんども聞いている。(Duh!) -> いる = have experienced something
5. 父親に似ている。(He takes after his father.) -> いる = describing what it's like.

Some dictionaries merge some of the meanings because they're pretty much the same thing. The いる in 索引はたいてい本の後ろについています is the fifth (or the second) meaning.

Re. 髪を切る, it's just that the expression doesn't mean to literally "cut hair", it's closer to "get a hair cut", and therefore 髪を切った is just "got a hair cut".

Expressions often don't make sense literally (hence why they're called expressions), and don't have exact equivalents in other languages, which is why you shouldn't rely on translating every detail.

I know the OP said they love to dissect and thoroughly understand things; I do too really, but very often it doesn't help because things don't make sense literally or fit set grammatical patterns. This is true in all languages, but at least out of the languages I've learned Japanese seems the hardest for literal interpretation. The only way to thoroughly "understand" these cases is to observe how they are used.