I've been studying tae kim's lesson on na and i adjectives, and came across sentences like:

1a. 魚が好きなタイプは肉が好きじゃない。
(As for fond of fish type, not fond of meat.)

2a. 値段が高いレストランはあまり好きじゃない。
(As for high price restaurants, not much like them.)

I'm a bit confused why が is being used in the "descriptive noun clause" part of these sentences (the は part). Why can't the sentences use direct noun modification, as below:

1b. 好きな魚タイプは肉が好きじゃない。

2b. 高い値段レストランはあまり好きじゃない。

In 1b, isn't it more clear that "好きな魚" is modifying タイプ compared to in 1a? In 1a, Tae Kim says that "魚が好き" is modifying タイプ, but it seems as though just 好き is modifying タイプ, so that it becomes something like "The fond type is fish."

Is there some rule against using direct noun modification (attaching the adjective directly to the noun) in cases like these?

Thanks if you can shed some light on this.

vinniram Wrote:I've been studying tae kim's lesson on na and i adjectives, and came across sentences like:

1a. 魚が好きなタイプは肉が好きじゃない。
(As for fond of fish type, not fond of meat.)

2a. 値段が高いレストランはあまり好きじゃない。
(As for high price restaurants, not much like them.)

Both of these are examples of modifying sentences; you take a sentence like 魚が好きだ or 値段が高い, and modify a noun with it. (In the cast of the former, you have to replace だ with な.)

When you have a modifier like 値段が高い + レストラン, it will mean "The restaurant with high prices".

Quote:I'm a bit confused why が is being used in the "descriptive noun clause" part of these sentences (the は part). Why can't the sentences use direct noun modification, as below:

1b. 好きな魚タイプは肉が好きじゃない。

Unless 魚タイプ is a word, this is not grammatical. 好きな魚 means "the fish [i] like", so you're switching around the order of the modifiers (the original means "The type of people who like fish do not like meat.")

Quote:2b. 高い値段レストランはあまり好きじゃない。

Same thing here. You can't just mash two nouns together unless the combination is an accepted, standard compound word. You've once again switched the order of the modifiers, although in this case I think it just results in ungrammatical, unnatural Japanese rather than a different meaning.

The sentences in taekim all look like they were run through a machine translator. Seriously.

They are all horribly awkward in English.

I think the idea behind the translations is to mirror the Japanese grammar as an aid to understand, not to be natural English. But in cases like this, if you don't understand the sentence, the "translation" can cause confusion rather than clarity.

The problem here is that "魚タイプ" sounds like "fish type", and "値段レストラン" sounds like "price restaurant", because they're unseparated.

So if I heard that, I'd be like, "What the heck's a fish-type, and what's a price restaurant??" You can't make up compound words randomly, since they wouldn't be idiomatic.

肉好き (にくずき - meat lover), I would consider an example of a legitimate combination of words, because it follows an accepted pattern.

When it comes to understanding the true underlying mechanics of the grammar, this kind of literal translation into pseudo-english is a lot more useful than the standard natural sentence pairs approach adopted in most textbooks.

Well, it often helps to have both -- say "The type of person who likes fish doesn't like meat [lit. "as for like fish type, does not like meat"]"

vinniram Wrote:I'm a bit confused why が is being used in the "descriptive noun clause" part of these sentences (the は part). Why can't the sentences use direct noun modification, as below:

There is a rule where the item in the descriptive clause has to take が.

おれが買った弁当・・・

私が書いた文章・・・

When you think about it, the が acts in an emphatic way, just like normal.

yudantaiteki Wrote:Well, it often helps to have both -- say "The type of person who likes fish doesn't like meat [lit. "as for like fish type, does not like meat"]"

Yeah, this way is best.

would it be fair to say that in 魚が好きなタイプ。that 好き is modifying タイプ, rather than "魚が好きな" modifying タイプ? Because earlier in the lesson, tae kim says that you can use は or が to make sentences like 友達が静かな人。and that sentence reminds me of 魚が好きなタイプ。, except with this latter sentence, tae kim says that 魚が好きな is modifying タイプ. Would it be then that 友達が静か modifies 人, so as to mean "quiet friend person"?

@sikieiki: I think part of the reason I quit using Tae Kim's guide was because subconsiously the literal English was driving me mad heh. No offense to him meant though.

It's useful, especially to figure out nuance, but it can be hard to follow.

vinniram Wrote:would it be fair to say that in 魚が好きなタイプ。that 好き is modifying タイプ, rather than "魚が好きな" modifying タイプ? Because earlier in the lesson, tae kim says that you can use は or が to make sentences like 友達が静かな人。and that sentence reminds me of 魚が好きなタイプ。, except with this latter sentence, tae kim says that 魚が好きな is modifying タイプ. Would it be then that 友達が静か modifies 人, so as to mean "quiet friend person"?

No, they're really different kinds of sentences. (Actually, if you look in Tae Kim, the sentence is 友達は静かな人 -- it doesn't feel as natural to me with が but I'm not a NS).

魚が好きなタイプ　is, all together, a noun phrase: The type of person [who likes fish], and "likes fish" modifies person. If you have a sentence like このタイプは魚が好きです - This type likes fish -- you can flip it around so that the description modifies the noun: 魚が好きなタイプ.

友達は静かな人 is all together a complete sentence.　静かな modifies 人, but 友達　stands on its own as if they're two sides of an equation: 友達＝静かな人.

vinniram Wrote:would it be fair to say that in 魚が好きなタイプ。that 好き is modifying タイプ, rather than "魚が好きな" modifying タイプ?

The answer would be No in this and the subsequent case, at least the way I read it. If the former idea was true and you parsed it 魚が(好きなタイプ,) then the sentence would mean, "Fish are (type that is liked)".

So I suspect that it's not a question of grammar that's your primary problem ATM, but perhaps that you haven't quite understood the nuance of the *English* sentence. IOW, タイプ is referring to a *person*, not to the *fish*.

vinniram Wrote:would it be fair to say that in 魚が好きなタイプ。that 好き is modifying タイプ, rather than "魚が好きな" modifying タイプ? Because earlier in the lesson, tae kim says that you can use は or が to make sentences like 友達が静かな人。and that sentence reminds me of 魚が好きなタイプ。, except with this latter sentence, tae kim says that 魚が好きな is modifying タイプ. Would it be then that 友達が静か modifies 人, so as to mean "quiet friend person"?

No, that type of comparison doesn't work. In 友達が静かな人, 友達 is the subject of the sentence, and 人 is the predicate, with an implied copula だ. In 魚が好きなタイプ, the entire phrase is a single noun clause, which is used as the subject of a larger sentence. The whole phase 魚が好きな is modifying タイプ, and nothing less.

vinniram Wrote:would it be fair to say that in 魚が好きなタイプ。that 好き is modifying タイプ, rather than "魚が好きな" modifying タイプ? Because earlier in the lesson, tae kim says that you can use は or が to make sentences like 友達が静かな人。and that sentence reminds me of 魚が好きなタイプ。, except with this latter sentence, tae kim says that 魚が好きな is modifying タイプ. Would it be then that 友達が静か modifies 人, so as to mean "quiet friend person"?

I think you're confused because you're trying to think of it as a straight-forward sentence where the adjective modifies the following noun. However, this is a relative clause, in which the subordinate clause itself modifies the noun.

物価が高い = consumer prices are high
物価が高い国 = the country whose consumer prices are high

In this sentence 高い isn't modifying 国, the entire sentence 'consumer prices are high' is modifying it.

櫻が多い = a lot of sakura
櫻が多い公園 = the park with a lot of sakura

Likewise, 多い isn't modifying 公園, it's 「櫻が多い」and then 「公園」if it helps, think of the clause as the adjective, rather than the actual adjective, because it's the clause which is modifying the noun, not the adjective.

To get the hang of it, just practice making simple relative clauses. Take a simple sentence that with an adjective describing a noun, like "the ocean is pretty" or "the trees are big" then use that phrase to modify a noun.

To answer your question specifically of why が is used, it's because が is taking it's common role as a subject marker in relative clauses. の can also be used to mark the subject. However, since の links nouns, if a noun directly follows the subject then you cannot use の, as that would change the meaning completely.

スタインウェイがピアノを上げた音楽家
The musician to whom Steinway gave a piano.

スタインウェイのピアノを上げた音楽家
The musician to whom Steinway's piano was given.

@Aijin - about の　and が...
You have 桜が多い, and then 桜が多い公園. This is pretty simple. What about 桜の多い公園, or 人気のある人
I've heard people use の instead of が in situations like this, but I can't think of the exact case. I was just wondering if there was some rule or something that separated them, or if の is just wrong in the cases I'm thinking of...

It's more or less the same thing; it's possible that if you get into in-depth linguistics you might find out more, but even when I took linguistics classes they told me there was no real difference in most cases.

Quote:No, they're really different kinds of sentences. (Actually, if you look in Tae Kim, the sentence is 友達は静かな人 -- it doesn't feel as natural to me with が but I'm not a NS).

Standalone it works much better with は, although those kinds of sentences are often used for grammatical illustration because は is ambiguous. 友達が静かな人だからいいルームメートだ is fine (although that could be は also, it probably works the best if you're the subject of the second part of the sentence)

Quote:おれが買った弁当・・・

私が書いた文章・・・

When you think about it, the が acts in an emphatic way, just like normal.

Another way to think about it is that a は usually puts the focus of the whole sentence on whatever it comes after, so if it's in a subordinate or modifying clause, that's not where the focus of the sentence is going to be.

In meaning there's not really a difference. There's a difference in feeling to の and が just due to their usage tendencies (の is used much more frequently than が in relative clauses in much of older literature, for example) but in what they express they're interchangable.

I think I have it understood now:

When you have a (noun-particle-adjective)(noun) noun phrase, use が as the particle - 魚が好きなタイプ...

And don't confuse these noun phrases (which can be dependent clauses in bigger sentences) with standalone sentences which use the (noun)(particle)(adjective-noun) structure - 友達は静かな人。

I will just have to be careful when reading sentences, to determine which of these two structures it is.

Thanks for the indepth replies.

(Also, I realized that the title of this thread is wrong. It should have been "descriptive noun phrases", since a clause = subject + predicate, whereas noun phrase = head (the noun) + modifiers. Sorry about that.)

Glad you understand it! It usually takes learners quite a while and a lot of practice and exposure to get used to the concept, but before you know it it'll come very naturally to you

Warning, thread derailing in progress.

@Aijin
I noticed you used a kanji for sakura that I'm not used to. If you don't mind answering, what's the literary difference between 桜　and 櫻？

P.S. +1 for useful thread with very helpful replies.

Oh, that's just a matter of personal style. 櫻 is the traditional character for 桜. When they simplified kanji, a lot of the simplified kanji became rather meaningless as images, because essential parts of how those kanji symbolized the words visually were eliminated. So for me 櫻 just gives me a more sakura-esque feeling than 桜 (does that make sense??) I have a lot of peculiar stylstic writing habits since I am such a bookworm.
As a rule of thumb, using traditional characters instead of the simplified ones is only okay if the average person knows the traditional character anyway so they'll be able to read it just fine.
Traditional characters also serve the purpose of giving an antique/old-fashioned feel to a piece of writing, or a character's dialogue. It's not too uncommon, actually, in some manga you'll even see older characters using 國 instead of 国 or 摑まる instead of 掴まる for example, since everyone can read it anyway. Also, even though older literature is now published using simplified characters, if there was literary merit in the author's choice, the traditional kanji will be retained, with furigana added. Kanji in which just radicals were simplified also often use the original kanji to give a pre-war feel to the work.

vinniram, others have explained the grammar, I just wanted to add something about ambiguity and reading.

I think this is just something that comes naturally with more reading. Coming from English, it takes time to adjust to front-loaded Japanese. (Some clauses carry on for multiple lines!) In potentially ambiguous sentences, our brains either learn to view and process larger sections at once, or they become faster at selecting a better interpretation if we hit something that makes absolutely no sense. A simple eg:

When you first start reading: 目が・・・・・・・・・・・・・青い女　wth?
After a little practice: ［目が青い］女は・・・・・・・・・・

Sometimes the nonsense meaning makes it obvious, but others times you just have a better overall sense of the sentence. In your eg:

魚が［好きなタイプ］は　might be a possible interpretation in a different sentence. Maybe a kids story about a certain fish who's looking for a fish mate? :-)
　　　彼が好きなタイプは静かな人だ。
But if your eyes had taken in the whole sentence, (・・・・肉が好きじゃない)　you might have perceived it as 　魚が好き・・・・・肉が好き.

Our brains are often able to quickly sort out potential ambiguity without us specifically turning our mind to it. It's kind of amazing.

Here's one: :-)
彼が好きなタイプは肉が好きじゃない。

thanks for that post Thora. It really hit the nail on the head with this issue of ambiguity.