yudantaiteki Wrote:It looks like the normal -te form of the copula to me, which is fully explained by the textbook I use. But I can't say for certain because I'm not sure I fully understand what the phrase means, and you're apparently unwilling to explain it -- I have no idea why.

I wanted to hear what Aijin would have to say about the sentence in question.

From your post, I'm guessing 形容動詞 is treated as a noun+copula? I'm not sure exactly what te form for copulas means, but maybe, is it treated like a version of te following 連用形 the same way as in で in 読んで? And I guess ず is treated in a similar way so 泣かず笑わず何もせず are a triple combo of 連用形?

If it handles the problem of 形容動詞 vs 名詞+copula very well with that explanation later, I think it can work.

magamo Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:It looks like the normal -te form of the copula to me, which is fully explained by the textbook I use. But I can't say for certain because I'm not sure I fully understand what the phrase means, and you're apparently unwilling to explain it -- I have no idea why.

I wanted to hear what Aijin would have to say about the sentence in question.

From your post, I'm guessing 形容動詞 is treated as a noun+copula? I'm not sure exactly what te form for copulas means, but maybe, is it treated like a version of te following 連用形 the same way as in で in 読んで? And I guess ず is treated in a similar way so 泣かず笑わず何もせず are a triple combo of 連用形?

If it handles the problem of 形容動詞 vs 名詞+copula very well with that explanation later, I think it can work.

形容動詞 aren't treated as nouns in any beginner text i've seen, they're a class by themselves, notionally adjectives but separate to normal 形容詞. Normally they're called na adjectives, and they have their own conjugation tables. In the book i used, we treated 元気で as a conjugation of 元気 rather than a conjugation of the copula, although i've heard that explanation too and i don't think there's a lot of practical difference between the two.

As for your ず example, i've always rightly or wrongly seen that as adverbial. Without crying, without laughing, without doing anything. Maybe i'm missing something, but what is so hard about that?

zigmonty Wrote:形容動詞 aren't treated as nouns in any beginner text i've seen, they're a class by themselves, notionally adjectives but separate to normal 形容詞.

I actually haven't read the whole thread, so I don't even know what you're talking about, but the beginners textbook I used (Japanese: The Spoken Language) treats 形容動詞 as nouns. So at least some of them do.

zigmonty Wrote:形容動詞 aren't treated as nouns in any beginner text i've seen, they're a class by themselves, notionally adjectives but separate to normal 形容詞. Normally they're called na adjectives, and they have their own conjugation tables. In the book i used, we treated 元気で as a conjugation of 元気 rather than a conjugation of the copula, although i've heard that explanation too and i don't think there's a lot of practical difference between the two.

As for your ず example, i've always rightly or wrongly seen that as adverbial. Without crying, without laughing, without doing anything. Maybe i'm missing something, but what is so hard about that?

If 連用形 of copulas such as ず, で are all called te form, then it goes well with the theory of 連用中止 = masu stem. And I think it's a great way to see it.

I think the way yudantaiteki explained it is better in this regard. Introducing a copula to describe the behavior of 形容動詞 is, I think, very good when na adjective vs. noun+copula is a problem because this way you can argue that a word (or combination of a noun and copula) is more na adjective-ish or more noun+copula-ish. It also allows how the same combination can be seen as more na adjective-like or more like a noun-copula sequence depending on context. The creative use of nouns as na adjectives can also be explained this way.

If my memory serves right, linguists are still arguing how best we explain the 名詞 vs. 形容動詞 problem (unless someone came up with a stellar idea in these few years). So introducing the copula that way allows you to see why it's tough for even experts.

I was thinking most textbooks would avoid this 名詞 vs. 形容動詞 problem. But it seems yudantaiteki's one is a rare exception. Maybe Japanese: The Spoken Language? I vaguely remember that one also goes into rarely treated but important stuff like 名詞文 vs. 動詞文 and even pitch accent.

Of course, these aren't useful if you already learned them without explanation. I think that's the best way to learn a language.

Edit: Ah, so, as Tzadeck says, JSL treats it that way.

Maybe the chart in Wikipedia's article on 連用形 might help show that i-adj/nominal adj have conjunctive forms too [and dispel some big indescribable mystery?]
verbs: same as stem in ~masu conjugations 書き
i adj: 　美しく, 　　なく
na adj:　　静かに　also 静かで

The origins of で, に、 あり, なり are related. Is Magamo suggesting that such historical knowledge is necessary or...?

Folks are using "~masu stem" to describe the verb form. Why would the fact that other word forms conjugate differently mean that this grammar isn't being taught properly?

And looking at ....なく、... it's easy to see why some folks refer to it as "missing the て" when the conjunctive form is used to link clauses. Such shorthand descriptions shouldn't really be anything to worry about.

I also don't believe much is necessary when explaining to a beginner the matter of 連用形 which commonly join clauses in sentences. Similarly, ず　(from M's example) can be concisely and adequately explained to a beginner.

The evolution of grammar is interesting to some [including me], but that doesn't mean it's the best way to teach it. Having a native speaker explain any differences in nuance, feel, usage is valuable, though. Thanks Magamo.

What Magamo considers "real" grammar is in fact commonly, [in my experience] just without the Japanese terms (which I agree might turn off some beginner students and aren't necessary). So not finding the term 連用中止 doesn't mean much. Also, as zigmonty said, students soon figure out (or are taught) the varied uses of ~masu stem (or conjunctive form of verb). So I'm still not sure what the perceived problem is. If it's the existence of internet questions, I agree with pm215's comment that it's probably self learners encountering a form they cannot easily look up.

While I appreciate Magamo's effort, I think his explanation is unnecessarily opaque. Mysterious even. ;-)

[Edits] Deleted irrelevant sentence about old adj grammar - I totally misunderstood Magamo's reason for introducing his example sentence with the mysterious で. ]

I think Magamo's explanation is good for those of us like to know Why? Why things are the way they are. But of course not everyone is like that which is good, life is boring when everyones the same.

I once read a different explanation of verbs and why they conjugate the way they do in Japanese. Basically there are five verb conjugations (for godan verbs anyways):

e.g. 聞く

聞か negative
聞き the famed 連用形, the conjugatable form
聞く the plain dictionary form
聞け the potential
聞こ the subjective

And then all the different forms of verbs we know of today are formed by adding special particles, e.g., ず、る、て、ない、つつ。　ます is a verb that serves to elevate the formality. Which explains why いただきまして isn't weird.

Like all grammatical explanations it falls short of reality but illustrates another aspect of the language. This one helped me see why different endings of verbs are attached to the different forms. The command form (聞け) and potential form　(聞ける) both exhibit a potential for something to happen.

Of course ichidan verbs are another story I hear it has something to do with the verb える

Thora Wrote:While I appreciate Magamo's effort, I think his explanation is unnecessarily opaque. Mysterious even. ;-)

I lost the argument!

Well, while I keep throwing more and more stuff here, I'm not saying they are necessary. I think anything more than the first post is unnecessary unless grammar study is the most important part of your learning. The original post isn't necessary if learners don't find anything difficult about it either. I believe so even in cases when it's just a false impression. I wouldn't say the same applies for teachers though.

I think I said somewhere in this thread (or I meant so), but I really don't think grammar is very important to second language acquisition. So stuff I've posted is not to say "You should teach them!" or anything similar. They're definitely not meant for beginners either, as I originally wrote these for people who already learned masu stem etc.

If only few people are having trouble on masu stem, ず, 名詞 vs. 形容動詞, etc., what I've said is all totally unnecessary. And according to goddess Thora and others, it seems this is the case... I'm sorry for jumping to the wrong conclusion!

Ah, and I forgot to address this:

zigmonty Wrote:As for your ず example, i've always rightly or wrongly seen that as adverbial. Without crying, without laughing, without doing anything. Maybe i'm missing something, but what is so hard about that?

It's not necessary to know this at all, but ず is the older form of ない's 連用形. If this is treated as a special version of te form of the copula ない, it fits quite well with the phenomenon "It's 連用中止 at the end so it becomes older form" just like how 音便 is canceled in the same situation. And other rules about 連用中止 can be carried over the same way.

In other words, ない's te form is なくて. But it should be ず if it's 連用中止. So 泣かなく笑わなく何もしなく kind of makes sense, and it's supposed to mean 泣かなくて笑わなくて何もしなくて. But the grammatically correct version is 泣かず笑わず何もせず because 連用形 is at the end because of 連用中止.

So those words you see as adverbials are more akin to sentence structure AしてBする or Aし、Bする. If you think about it, Aし(て) in Aし(て)Bする is kind of like an adverbial, especially when the implied relation is not chronological order, isn't it?

I don't have a copy of JSL at hand now. But if it explains everything from 連用中止 to behavior of 形容動詞 like this, I think it's one of the more beautiful explanations.

theBryan Wrote:I once read a different explanation of verbs and why they conjugate the way they do in Japanese. Basically there are five verb conjugations (for godan verbs anyways):

e.g. 聞く

聞か negative
聞き the famed 連用形, the conjugatable form
聞く the plain dictionary form
聞け the potential
聞こ the subjective

Actually, there are six verb conjugations, though two pairs of them are identical in modern Japanese godan verbs, and two of them have two versions. They're also not divided up like you have them:

聞か 聞こ imperfective (used in negative, passive, causative, volitional)
聞き 聞い conjunctive, continuative (the famed 連用形)
聞く attributive (modifies nouns)
聞く predicative (ends sentences)
聞け hypothetical (used in the -ば form)
聞け command

Quote:Like all grammatical explanations it falls short of reality but illustrates another aspect of the language. This one helped me see why different endings of verbs are attached to the different forms. The command form (聞け) and potential form　(聞ける) both exhibit a potential for something to happen.

AFAIK, potential verbs and the command form are unrelated and it's a coincidence that they conjugate the same way. It seems noone's sure where the modern potential conjugation came from, but there's a theory that it's a contraction of
continuative + 得る as in 聞きえる -> 聞ける.

I'd like to know how Thora, yudantaiteki, and others analyzed the grammar of 亭主元気で留守がいい. If you still have a little interest in it, can you let me know how you parsed it (if you use grammar to analyze a sentence, of course)?

Since it seems I have no reason to wait for Aijin any more, here's the "problem" I thought the 亭主 sentence would cause:

亭主元気で留守がいい。

In short, 留守 isn't exactly a noun here. And what 元気で modifies is NOT いい. 留守 would look like a noun here, and te form (or 連用形) can't modify a noun. So the pitfall I was implying is that a learner may not notice it's modifying 留守 or assume te form can modify a noun.

Te form modifies 用言, not a noun. Then, what is 元気で modifying? The only obvious 用言 word is いい. But native speakers would immediately notice it's not いい. In fact, 元気でいい means a different thing. 亭主 wouldn't be the one because it's a noun and is before 元気で. So the remaining options are 留守, が or maybe its combination 留守が. But then, 留守 is listed as a noun in a dictionary, and が is a particle, which again isn't something te form can modify.

But as yudantaiteki's explanation implies, there is a hidden copula right after 留守. In other words, it's like 元気で留守(だというの)がいい, where 留守だ is a na adjective (or more precisely 形容動詞).

連用中止 is now understood as 元気で留守 with 留守 being 用言, not a noun. So the whole sentence is analyzed as:

がいい is referring to the whole clause "亭主 (subject or was it called "topic"??) + 元気で (te form) + 留守 (na adjective without na, da, or te)."

I though 留守 would just look like a noun, and so I thought learners might interpret the sentence as something along the line of 亭主が元気でいい or 亭主は元気でいい with 留守 thrown in, which is wrong.

[Edit] Ah, it might be easier to see the correct parsing if it's worded this way: 元気で留守。こういうのがいい亭主だ。(こういうの is referring to 元気で留守). This way, it'd be easier to see 元気で is modifying 留守.

I thought this was hard to explain by using translation. And probably I was wrong again here... Maybe a rule something like "が contains a hidden だ" would suffice, I guess.

[Edit 2] Edited the way it's reworded etc.

magamo Wrote:If 連用形 of copulas such as ず, で are all called te form

Nope; well, not to me anyway. 'te form' is only the verb form that ends in 'te' (書いて、読んで、して, etc). The point about talking about grammar in this way is that you're describing what is actually written. And then you would say something like 'for verbs and i-adjectives you use the te form, for nouns and na-adjectives you add で'. Then later you might say 'you can use the masu-stem and it means the same thing', and you can introduce ~ず later too.

Quote:I'd like to know how Thora, yudantaiteki, and others analyzed the grammar of 亭主元気で留守がいい. If you still have a little interest in it, can you let me know how you parsed it (if you use grammar to analyze a sentence, of course)?

FWIW, it was the initial 亭主元気 that threw me a bit, since I wasn't sure if that was a noun-noun compound I didn't know or a dropped particle. Also it looked pretty much like an idiom and trying to parse those is always dodgy ground.

pm215 Wrote:Nope; well, not to me anyway. 'te form' is only the verb form that ends in 'te' (書いて、読んで、して, etc). The point about talking about grammar in this way is that you're describing what is actually written. And then you would say something like 'for verbs and i-adjectives you use the te form, for nouns and na-adjectives you add で'. Then later you might say 'you can use the masu-stem and it means the same thing', and you can introduce ~ず later too.

I see. Hmm. Then it seems like the concept of 連用形 is kind of ignored.

pm215 Wrote:

Quote:I'd like to know how Thora, yudantaiteki, and others analyzed the grammar of 亭主元気で留守がいい. If you still have a little interest in it, can you let me know how you parsed it (if you use grammar to analyze a sentence, of course)?

FWIW, it was the initial 亭主元気 that threw me a bit, since I wasn't sure if that was a noun-noun compound I didn't know or a dropped particle. Also it looked pretty much like an idiom and trying to parse those is always dodgy ground.

No. It's not an idiom. It's perfectly grammatical, and its literal sense is pretty much the same as what it says. The only cultural part is the implied meaning of 元気.

Then how would you parse these?

亭主は帰ってこないで留守がいい。
亭主なんか遊びに行って留守のほうがいい。

Because I didn't use 元気 in these examples, there is no cultural difficulty. And I added は and なんか after 亭主 so the part that threw you off is eliminated. They aren't idioms because I just came up with these sentences while writing this post.

I think you agree that こないで in the former and 行って in the latter should be followed somewhere in the sentences by some related 用言 such as verbs and na adjectives because they're te form. Then which is it in each sentence?

magamo Wrote:

pm215 Wrote:Nope; well, not to me anyway. 'te form' is only the verb form that ends in 'te' (書いて、読んで、して, etc). The point about talking about grammar in this way is that you're describing what is actually written. And then you would say something like 'for verbs and i-adjectives you use the te form, for nouns and na-adjectives you add で'. Then later you might say 'you can use the masu-stem and it means the same thing', and you can introduce ~ず later too.

I see. Hmm. Then it seems like the concept of 連用形 is kind of ignored.

Maybe we're a bit at cross-purposes here. The aim of terminology like "-te form" is just to give you something you can use to describe the verb conjugation you're talking about. I like it because it's the least prone to misunderstanding and need for looking things up. It doesn't impose on a textbook or teacher any compulsion to teach all the bits separately or without pointing out that they're really all doing the same job.

Quote:Then how would you parse these?

亭主は帰ってこないで留守がいい。
亭主なんか遊びに行って留守のほうがいい。

Because I didn't use 元気 in these examples, there is no cultural difficulty. And I added は and なんか after 亭主 so the part that threw you off is eliminated. They aren't idioms because I just came up with these sentences while writing this post.

I think you agree that こないで in the former and 行って in the latter should be followed somewhere in the sentences by some related 用言 such as verbs and na adjectives because they're te form. Then which is it in each sentence?

The second one seems pretty clear to me: 亭主なんか (遊びに行って留守)のほうがいい. I might have been confused by the first one (although given where we are in this discussion I know the answer now). 帰ってこないで留守です I think is the same grammar and also straightforward -- it was just the embedding in the ~がいい structure that would have tempted me to parse it as (亭主は帰ってこないで)+(留守がいい).

But I'm now a bit confused about what your point is. This is all relating to plain old te-form (and the related forms for na-adj and so on). Quite possibly there are parts of it I don't have a proper grasp of -- I don't claim to have perfect Japanese by a long chalk. But I don't think that if my teachers had used the magic word 連用形 that would have improved things at all. (FWIW, I didn't learn from bilingual textbooks particularly, all my class time was taught-in-Japanese.)

And to go back to the original place we came in, I still think that people who want to know "what's this strange use of the masu-stem in the middle of this sentence?" will already have a reasonable grasp of the uses of -te, so the best way to explain it to them is to describe it as a formal/written equivalent using masu-stem. (To some extent this is assuming that the student has picked up the concept without necessarily knowing the label 連用形.)

pm215 Wrote:Maybe we're a bit at cross-purposes here. The aim of terminology like "-te form" is just to give you something you can use to describe the verb conjugation you're talking about. I like it because it's the least prone to misunderstanding and need for looking things up. It doesn't impose on a textbook or teacher any compulsion to teach all the bits separately or without pointing out that they're really all doing the same job.

Labeling doesn't matter much. So as long as each notion is described in some way, I think there is no problem.

pm215 Wrote:The second one seems pretty clear to me: 亭主なんか (遊びに行って留守)のほうがいい.

How does te form of a verb connect to a noun then? Is 留守 in 遊びに行って留守 explained as something other than a noun? Or in a clause like (AしてB) or its masu stem version (Aし、B), is B ok to be a noun?

pm215 Wrote:But I'm now a bit confused about what your point is. This is all relating to plain old te-form (and the related forms for na-adj and so on).

Then how about these?

父親が母親を車で迎えに行き、留守の時であった。(Taken from a random blog by a 40 year old guy)
父親が母親を車で迎えに行き、留守の時に連絡した。(Modified so it looks a little more like the next example)
明け方やっとはって電話へ行き、留守のだんなに連絡しました。(Another random blog post)

How do these 行きs (masu stem) work? The point is the person who is away in each sentence. I guess you wouldn't have trouble parsing them. But I'd like to know if it's ok to connect a masu stem/te form to a noun.

pm215 Wrote:And to go back to the original place we came in, I still think that people who want to know "what's this strange use of the masu-stem in the middle of this sentence?" will already have a reasonable grasp of the uses of -te, so the best way to explain it to them is to describe it as a formal/written equivalent using masu-stem. (To some extent this is assuming that the student has picked up the concept without necessarily knowing the label 連用形.)

Yeah. That was pretty much what I meant by this:

Quote:If only few people are having trouble on masu stem, ず, 名詞 vs. 形容動詞, etc., what I've said is all totally unnecessary. And according to goddess Thora and others, it seems this is the case... I'm sorry for jumping to the wrong conclusion!

Thanks for taking the time to post how you parsed them!

(For clarity: at this point I'm mostly interested in whether my personal understanding of this corner of grammar is correct; I'm not trying to make any argument myself.)

magamo Wrote:Then how about these?

父親が母親を車で迎えに行き、留守の時であった。(Taken from a random blog by a 40 year old guy)
父親が母親を車で迎えに行き、留守の時に連絡した。(Modified so it looks a little more like the next example)
明け方やっとはって電話へ行き、留守のだんなに連絡しました。(Another random blog post)

How do these 行きs (masu stem) work? The point is the person who is away in each sentence. I guess you wouldn't have trouble parsing them.

Wanna bet? :-) Anyway, I think (1) is "it was when father was away picking up mother in the car", ie the person who's away is 父親. In (2) I think the father is still the one who's away, and the speaker is doing the 連絡. In (3) I think the speaker is the person going to the phone (and also doing the 連絡) and the だんな is the one who's away.

Quote:But I'd like to know if it's ok to connect a masu stem/te form to a noun.

So I definitely don't think you can connect it in the sense that the verb modifies the noun. But you can basically link a set of clauses together, and the one at the end could be an adj-na or a noun. So you end up with a combined sentence unit which either modifies something (eg 時 in your (1)) or is the entire sentence (in your (3)). And the difference between (1) and (3) is just a question of which level of thing we're connecting together (ie in (3) 行き is linking up to 連絡しました).

(I'm going to call 留守 a noun here since it's modifying the following noun with の rather than な. I'm not sure if that's a particularly sensible or defensible definition, but hopefully it doesn't matter too much here.)

The way JSL deals with this is by saying that any -te form can connect to any predicate (grammatically). Their concept of predicate involves three types -- verbal (分かる, 食べる, etc.), adjectival (高い, 食べない, 生きたい, おもしろい, etc.) and nominal + copula (先生だ, 元気だ, etc.)

A -te form indicates actualization or realization -- that is, an actual state or a completed/started action. (which makes sense given its て's origin as the 連用形 of つ)

Quote:I'd like to know how Thora, yudantaiteki, and others analyzed the grammar of 亭主元気で留守がいい. If you still have a little interest in it, can you let me know how you parsed it (if you use grammar to analyze a sentence, of course)?

I've asked you three times to say what it means in English and you still haven't done it, or explained why you won't do it. It's getting pretty annoying. You just keep saying it's simple, but it's not. Do you just want me to humble myself and say that yes, I've been studying for a long time and I still don't understand the meaning of your "simple" sentence?

The way JSL explains things, the -te form で here can only connect to a predicate, not just a noun. Therefore it has to connect to いい and not 留守, because here 留守 is not a predicate (it's just a nominal). However, it's also OK to view it as connecting to the whole phrase 留守がいい. Therefore, the situation 亭主元気 being actualized, we can say that 留守がいい. This can either be hypothetical or in response to a real situation.

But the problem is that I really need to know what the sentence means to see if my interpretation is correct. Grammar alone doesn't always let you parse a sentence, it only gives you possibilities. You also need to combine it with semantic information in most cases, and contextual and maybe cultural information, to figure out what the actual meaning is.

In this case:
明け方やっとはって電話へ行き、留守のだんなに連絡しました

Here's my interpretation:

行き is connecting to 連絡しました; this is the use of the -te form (or -masu stem) to describe sequential actions.

Now this is a little more complicated because JSL analyzes 留守のだんな as a modifying sentence + nominal, so this is actually the predicate 留守だ modifying だんな (with だ changed to の to satisfy grammatical requirements). Therefore, if you're analyzing this sentence grammatically, when you get to 行き, you have two choices of predicate to connect it to -- the 留守だ modifying だんな, or the 連絡しました at the end of the sentence. If you want it to connect to 留守だ then you have to say that the modifier for だんな is (at least) 電話へ行き留守だ, which doesn't make very much sense (to me).

NB: JSL does not treat ず except in the phrase ずに; as it is a primarily spoken language textbook it doesn't treat mostly written forms.

(BTW, I've been working on a "new" grammar guide based on a combination of JSL and DBJG plus my own experience; I don't know if I'll ever actually post any of it, but it will probably come under just as much criticism as these things

pm215 Wrote:And to go back to the original place we came in, I still think that people who want to know "what's this strange use of the masu-stem in the middle of this sentence?" will already have a reasonable grasp of the uses of -te, so the best way to explain it to them is to describe it as a formal/written equivalent using masu-stem. (To some extent this is assuming that the student has picked up the concept without necessarily knowing the label 連用形.)

Only to make it even harder for individuals such as me to learn. Using silly names and hiding the complexity of the language has only hurt me in the long run. Words like te-form and masu-form are easy to remember, but they have no meaning and don't tell you how or when the forms are used.

Some examples:
"Why call it the te-form when these types of verbs get a de? And why do they get de?"

"Conjugate to the "stem" (masu-form) and append -tai." "Why is the "stem" used and not the te-form or ta-form?" "You just need to memorize the rule" "Like rules for -nagara, -kata, -yasui, -nikui, -sugiru, -nasai, -ni iku, etc.? I think there is something you are not telling me."

"So I can connect to two casual sentences by using the "stem" or the te-form on the first sentence. If I use the first, the sentence is more formal. However, if both sentence are formal I can only connect them with the te-form?" (cue confusion)

Also I don't understand why everyone want to use silly names and hide the complexity of Japanese, but doesn't accept it when teaching other languages. My English teacher never hesitated to make us memorize forms of irregular verbs (present, preterite, pluperfect) and expected us to learn a three page list of when to use different prepositions (in, to, from, etc.). My French teacher simply explained what accusative and dative meant and carried on with introducing verbs that took such objects.

The Japanese labels aren't much better, though. They're a total mess for classical Japanese; they're a little better in modern but not a whole lot. 未然形, in particular, is a long-standing fudge.

JSL attempts to create new grammatical terms that are more accurate than either the standard JP terms or the Latin-derived English terms, but that's the only book I know of that does that.

My bias in favour of terms like 'te-form' is largely because I'm usually using them in discussions like ones on this forum, where the person I'm talking to is looking for help with a specific facet of grammar, and where we don't necessarily have an ongoing longer term discussion, so I can't rely on any kind of shared terminology for these things. If you're writing a textbook or teaching a class you can feel free to use what labels you like (as yudantaiteki says JSL does, for instance).

I don't think this is 'hiding the complexity of Japanese' at all; it's just tagging a particular feature of it with a specific (and reasonably easily understood) label so I can talk about it reasonably concisely and clearly.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I've asked you three times to say what it means in English and you still haven't done it, or explained why you won't do it. It's getting pretty annoying. You just keep saying it's simple, but it's not. Do you just want me to humble myself and say that yes, I've been studying for a long time and I still don't understand the meaning of your "simple" sentence?

Noooo! I didn't mean such a thing! zigmonty already found an answer by googling it, and he said he was able to guess pretty close. And others including you said there weren't confusing grammar points there. I also analyzed its grammatical structure, and pm215 got the right parsing as well. So I was thinking it was already done. (The first reply to your request was a SERIOUS typo, so I edited it. I'm sorry again if it offended you. I just wanted to wait for Aijin's answer.)

So as I already posted, in my opinion, it's analyzed as 亭主は(元気で留守)がいい, i.e., 元気で is linked to 留守. And 元気 here means something along the line of "work hard (to put food on the table/bring us money/to pay the bills)." The reason 留守 is good is that the speaker doesn't have a romantic feeling for him any more. And if I'm understanding the JSL's terminology right, 留守 is considered a nominal. But my understanding is that it's more like the stem of na adjective 留守な or, put in JSL terminology, a nominal predicate without a copula, though it doesn't make much sense. I see it being connected to by 元気で.

So a rough translation preserving Japanese grammatical structure is something like

"Speaking of a husband, a good one works hard to pay the bills and doesn't come home (so I'm free all day!)," "An ideal husband is a hard worker who doesn't come home," etc. (I think I'm losing the original structure here...)

[Edit] Ah, and 元気 has a positive connotation, so he doesn't complain and is probably enjoying his life too.

It may be a little difficult to associate 元気 with work hard if you're not familiar with the connotation that "being energetic" can evoke a workaholic Japanese business person when talking about middle age guys. But it's not a particularly difficult sentence native speakers would fail to get the meaning of. How deeply one should think of its implication is another story though.

Obviously you can make it more idiomatic in English. But my English skill isn't good enough to carry the same momentum probably coming from the use of 留守 linked to by 元気で. It's really a catchy, clever phrase which got super popular quickly. And its rhythm makes it very memorable and addictive.

Thanks for explaining JSL's terminology and explanation. It seems it's based on a very anti-形容動詞 theory, which is actually one of popular theories in Japan. That was interesting.

pm215 Wrote:Wanna bet? :-) Anyway, I think (1) is "it was when father was away picking up mother in the car", ie the person who's away is 父親. In (2) I think the father is still the one who's away, and the speaker is doing the 連絡. In (3) I think the speaker is the person going to the phone (and also doing the 連絡) and the だんな is the one who's away.

That's almost the same as my parsing. (3) seems to be an easy one, and it's "行き -> 連絡した" done by the same person. But what I initially thought of (1) was that 行き was linking to 留守 because if it were 父親が母親を車で迎えに行き、そして私も偶然留守の時であった, then 行き connects to あった (or 時?) so the speaker was the person who was referred to by 留守. Reading your parsing, it seems like you can see it as 行き vaguely modifying the whole set of 留守の時 as a clause as if the 行き is kind of an adverbial. The meaning doesn't change though. Your interpretation of (2) is the same as mine. But I also thought it could be the farther who did the 連絡 in a rare situation, though It'd be a bad kind of writing which could cause a misunderstanding without further context.

pm215 Wrote:So I definitely don't think you can connect it in the sense that the verb modifies the noun. But you can basically link a set of clauses together, and the one at the end could be an adj-na or a noun. So you end up with a combined sentence unit which either modifies something (eg 時 in your (1)) or is the entire sentence (in your (3)). And the difference between (1) and (3) is just a question of which level of thing we're connecting together (ie in (3) 行き is linking up to 連絡しました).

(I'm going to call 留守 a noun here since it's modifying the following noun with の rather than な. I'm not sure if that's a particularly sensible or defensible definition, but hopefully it doesn't matter too much here.)

Ooh, I see.

As for 留守, my gut tells me it can be either a noun or a na adjective like this:

留守の人 -> A person who is in the state of 留守. So 留守 is a noun.
留守な人 -> A person who tends to be 留守 or a person whose character is stereotyped as 留守. So 留守 is more like na adjective. This has an informal feel to my ear.

The original 亭主 sentence and its variations were all talking about what kind of husband is considered good. And because doing the 留守 thing is one of the stated conditions that make a husband good, I was thinking it must be 留守 as in 留守な亭主, which means almost the same as 留守がちな亭主.

According to yudantaiteki, basically JSL only allows links to nominal predicates in our 留守 sentences. So it'd be hard to justify te form's linking to 留守 in 亭主元気で留守がいい. And if I understand its explanation correctly, こないで in 亭主は帰ってこないで留守がいい would connect to the whole set of 留守がいい rather than 留守 because it's just a nominal.

But pm215 says he thinks it's ok to connect a noun, so he parsed them as (元気で留守)がいい and (帰ってこないで留守)がいい, which I did too.

The thing is that, as I said, I did it because the 留守 is kind of like the stem of a na adjective or a nominal predicate without a copula. I thought this was right because I feel like 留守 here has the sense of 留守な, which is very na adjective-ish.

I really don't know how things like this can be handled very well. It'd be easy if we could say te form could connect to a nominal (or a noun). But I kind of feel like there must be at least a little feel of being a predicate.

yudantaiteki Wrote:(BTW, I've been working on a "new" grammar guide based on a combination of JSL and DBJG plus my own experience; I don't know if I'll ever actually post any of it, but it will probably come under just as much criticism as these things smile

Ooh, I'd love to see it.

[Edit] Fixed the translations of the 亭主 sentence.

It's funny. I keep hearing "After a certain point, you don't need a textbook anymore, just go out and 'Encounter the Language,'" (whatever that means.) But this thread has totally disabused me of that notion. (It has been a very interesting read, by the way, and very informative.)

But more than a textbook, what I need is a posse that includes a few professors who specialize in the Japanese language and maybe a theoretical linguist or two to hang out with. >_>a Maybe I can get them to work for beer.

My first inkling that I was in trouble grammatically was when I picked up a N2/N1 reading prep book that had a warm-up chapter on 連体修飾　（れんたいしゅうしょく）, and it took me half an hour to figure out just what the heck was going on.

Of course, once I figured out what they were talking about, which had to do with noun modifiers, I gave myself a dope slap, because it was basic stuff. But I had gotten snagged on the Terminology Wall. I don't own any 国語 books besides a 小学生dictionary, and all of my books are geared to students of Japanese as a Second Language. None of my grammar dictionaries were any help at all, either.

So yeah, I suppose some sort of resource that helps with the grammar terms would be lovely. I find the more I learn, the more ignorant I become.

EDIT: if anyone has any suggestions for good grammar books that explain these sorts of terms-- they can be in 日本語 or　英語, I don't care either way, I'd love to see them. (I already have the 日本語文型辞典... it's okay, but it omits stuff.)

Thank you magamo for this explanation, it does provide an interesting point on grammar that is universally omitted by all books I've come across.

However the rest of this discussion is way above my limit for daily amount of information/grammar, thats why I'll pretend it doesn't exist the same way I pretend grammar doesn't exist when I speak Japanese

magamo Wrote:So as I already posted, in my opinion, it's analyzed as 亭主は(元気で留守)がいい, i.e., 元気で is linked to 留守. And 元気 here means something along the line of "work hard (to put food on the table/bring us money/to pay the bills)." The reason 留守 is good is that the speaker doesn't have a romantic feeling for him any more. And if I'm understanding the JSL's terminology right, 留守 is considered a nominal. But my understanding is that it's more like the stem of na adjective 留守な or, put in JSL terminology, a nominal predicate without a copula, though it doesn't make much sense. I see it being connected to by 元気で.

NominalがPredicate is a tough issue because there are some so called "na-adjectives" that can't go in there, like *きれいがいい, but then others can, like 元気がいい. Although words don't have to be only one word class.

Quote:"Speaking of a husband, a good one works hard to pay the bills and doesn't come home (so I'm free all day!)," "An ideal husband is a hard worker who doesn't come home," etc. (I think I'm losing the original structure here...)

Does 亭主は留守がいい make any sense?

Quote:Thanks for explaining JSL's terminology and explanation. It seems it's based on a very anti-形容動詞 theory, which is actually one of popular theories in Japan. That was interesting.

Overall I like it, although it has a hard time explaining why 親切 and 先生 are both nominals but can't always go in the same constructions. I've been trying to develop a theory of "predicate position nominals" and "noun-position nominals" or something like that but I'm really not sure.

As for 留守, my gut tells me it can be either a noun or a na adjective like this:

Quote:According to yudantaiteki, basically JSL only allows links to nominal predicates in our 留守 sentences. So it'd be hard to justify te form's linking to 留守 in 亭主元気で留守がいい. And if I understand its explanation correctly, こないで in 亭主は帰ってこないで留守がいい would connect to the whole set of 留守がいい rather than 留守 because it's just a nominal.

That's the way I understand the explanation in JSL. Otherwise you would have to say something like こないで留守するのがいい or something like that.

Quote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:(BTW, I've been working on a "new" grammar guide based on a combination of JSL and DBJG plus my own experience; I don't know if I'll ever actually post any of it, but it will probably come under just as much criticism as these things smile

Ooh, I'd love to see it.

Hmm, maybe someday. I wanted to get a good amount ready before I started posting any of it.

yudantaiteki Wrote:The Japanese labels aren't much better, though. They're a total mess for classical Japanese; they're a little better in modern but not a whole lot.

I haven't learnt classical Japanese for more than a few months, but I'll have to ask, why do you think so? So far the whole system seems pretty logical to me. Are there any pitfalls I have to look out for?

magamo Wrote:So those words you see as adverbials are more akin to sentence structure AしてBする or Aし、Bする. If you think about it, Aし(て) in Aし(て)Bする is kind of like an adverbial, especially when the implied relation is not chronological order, isn't it?

Yes, i don't know if i am using the terms correctly, but i see those as adverbial uses of て form, in that it forms a clause that is modifying the rest of the sentence. We have a sign on a door at work "注意をして出ましょう". Clearly this doesn't mean be careful, then stop being careful and exit. It isn't two actions in sequence, it's "exit carefully". "注意をせずに出ます" is just the opposite. If, on the other hand, they are clearly two actions in sequence, then it's just a list of actions.

This is just the ad hoc rationalisation of a learner. Thinking like that has helped me parse those structures in a way that makes sense to my english brain. I have no idea if that's how japanese people see it or if it has any correctness to it.

magamo Wrote:So as I already posted, in my opinion, it's analyzed as 亭主は(元気で留守)がいい

My brain sees it as grammatically ambiguous. I could read it either as 亭主は(元気で留守)がいい (husbands are best lively and away) or 亭主は元気で(留守がいい) (husband is lively and best away). OK, so crap translation aside, why is it obvious that it should be parsed the first way, other than that way makes more sense as an idiom? Just because it's obvious to a native speaker which way it should be interpreted, that doesn't mean it's obvious from grammar alone. "Time flies like an arrow" right?

It *is* an idiom. Just because it has correct grammar and its true meaning logically follows from its literal meaning doesn't mean it's not an idiom. "A stitch in time saves nine" is an idiom. No native speaker understands what it means by literally thinking of someone sowing up a tear. It is a single sentence-sized word in the mind of a native speaker, with instant recognition of meaning. Once you know what it's supposed to mean, it appears obvious, but it isn't. It usually has to be explained to kids.

The cultural difference isn't in the meaning of the word 元気, it's in the entire concept that it is best for a husband to purely be a breadwinner and never see his family. While i am sure there are dysfunctional western families with wives who hold similar views, it isn't a commonly held view. Even in sitcoms that make fun of dysfunctional families, jokes that it would be better if the husband didn't come home are very rare. So although i could more or less parse it grammatically, it still didn't really make any sense to me. The more succinct something is, the more it relies on the mind of the listener/reader to fill in their own cultural biases to resolve intrinsic ambiguity.

(Note that i'm not saying all japanese people hold those views, but it is in the japanese consciousness enough for that to be a popular saying.)

Evil_Dragon Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:The Japanese labels aren't much better, though. They're a total mess for classical Japanese; they're a little better in modern but not a whole lot.

I haven't learnt classical Japanese for more than a few months, but I'll have to ask, why do you think so? So far the whole system seems pretty logical to me. Are there any pitfalls I have to look out for?

There are a few things:
1. The 未然形 is supposedly "imperfective" but imperfective has nothing to do with causative or passive.
2. The derivation of the 未然形 forms of the classical types are inconsistent and have all kinds of strange exceptions (this is complicated and I can't explain it well)
3. The 終止形 is supposedly a sentence-ending form but then you have things coming after it such as べし and めり, but then those have strange exceptions for ラ変 verbs
4. The 已然形 form is used as the 係り結び for こそ, which seems to have little to do with any idea of 仮定.
5. The 連体形 form does not always connect to nouns; the other main usage of it is to nominalize the sentence (like modern の).

There are probably other issues too -- some of the forms work OK, others don't -- it's kind of a complicated issue, though, and beyond the scope of this thread, I think, since not too many people know classical.

zigmonty:

Quote:We have a sign on a door at work "注意をして出ましょう". Clearly this doesn't mean be careful, then stop being careful and exit. It isn't two actions in sequence, it's "exit carefully".

This is why I like JSL's description of -te forms -- in this case, the 注意をする is actualized, then the next action occurs -- "actualization" does not mean that the action stops before the next one occurs. This also explains things like 遅れて来ました. Often these are explained as adverbial; I think this is more confusing but whatever makes people understand it is fine.