Zorlee wrote:

Another one, if you guys have the time:

草原で草食動物が草を食べ、その草食動物を肉食動物が食べる。
Herbivores eat grass on the plain and carnivores eat herbivores.

This is actually a great example sentence to show how loose sentence structure is in Japanese.  Normally (or rather, in a textbook) you expect [actor] が [acted upon] を [verb], but that's not what we see here.  It seems obviously for reasons of emphasis in this case.

After all, the only really rigid rule is that the verb comes at the end of the sentence (with the exception of sentence ending particles and words that connect two sentences together).

Last edited by Tzadeck (2009 October 05, 7:03 am)

Well, but even that shows an underlying structure with the predicate at the end -- お前、何言ってんだ？  (The ultimate predicate here being のだ)

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2009 October 05, 7:50 am)

pm215 wrote:

yudantaiteki wrote:

Well, but even that shows an underlying structure with the predicate at the end -- お前、何言ってんだ？  (The ultimate predicate here being のだ)

I know what you mean, but if you're not careful then the 'rule' devolves into saying "the predicate is at the end if you rearrange things so the predicate is at the end"...

It's not that circular because there are cases in which you can't switch the order.  For instance, it's OK to say 見た-あの映画。  I think we are "justified" in saying this is an inversion of a normal sentence pattern because when you try to embed this in a longer phrase you cannot switch the order -- for instance, あの映画を見たのを忘れた。  You can't move the 見た here.

Zarxrax wrote:

”す　りゅぼーびゆ”

Someone keeps putting this phrase at the end of her mails, but she said she can't explain it to me in English. I didn't have any luck with google, or any dictionaries that I tried.

I've never heard or read it either. Looks and sounds really obscure... Maybe she can explain it to you in Japanese?

edit: I searched for "りゅぼうび" to see if anything would come up and got:
http://www.google.co.jp/search?hl=ja&am … lr=lang_ja

Not sure if that helps though. Good luck

Last edited by Nuriko (2009 October 11, 4:05 pm)

Zarxrax wrote:

Ok I think she's telling me that phrase came from Russian, so never mind I guess :p

She said that too?  On one of those pages I found, it said it came from Russian as well.

sethg wrote:

This is an example sentence I found: 君に手伝ってもらわねばならない. - I need your help.

Can somebody pick this apart for me?

What's happening with the odd もらう conjugation for the ば conditional? Is that just a colloquial shortcut? Shouldn't it formally be もらわなければ? And does the ならない kind of act like いけない here?

Thanks!

Technically ね in ねば is the conditional form of a negative auxiliary verb ぬ, which is a formal/classical/written version of ない. So ねばならない is a more formal/written version of なければならない/ないといけない. You can add more formality by using ねばならぬ, though it'd sound too stiff in most situations. The sentence means "We'd like you to help us."

Nuriko wrote:

Any advice on deciding when to pronounce 上下 as うえした or じょうげ based on context？

The following iKnow sentences are examples of how differently they are used.  They are a bit different, but I'm not going to let my mind set it in stone just basing it off of these examples. 

彼は上下おそろいの服を着ていますね。＜ーーーうえした
彼は旗を上下に動かした。　＜ーーーじょうげ

Examples with pronunciations I am not sure of:
上下で曲を選んで
その人のくちびるは上下に広がって、(I'm reading The Witches by Roald Dahl in Japanese, and the witches in the book have mouths that grow wide from top to bottom as they smile and their lips resemble raw meat... love this book)

edit: Seconds after posting this, I came across another one in the dictionary:
口の中の前面に並んだ上下4枚ずつの歯.

うえした is rarer than じょうげ. One of the examples where 上下 is almost always read as うえした is 上下になる (upside down). 上下 in 上下おそろいの服 is often pronounced うえした too, but I don't know if じょうげおそろいのふく is wrong in standard Japanese grammar. I've heard native speakers say it that way, but it could be regional and/or non-standard.

Sometimes うえした and じょうげ are interchangeable, e.g., 上下を入れ替える. But I couldn't come up with usages of 上下 where うえした is definitely better except for 上下になる (upside down) and 上下おそろい. It might be better to err on the safe side, i.e., always read 上下 as じょうげ if you're not sure.

Here's a comprehensive list of readings of 上下: http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/kmr_tds/36418365.html Readings other than じょうげ and うえした are quite rare, so I think it'd be better to learn them when you come across them in native materials.

SammyB wrote:

Quick question, this sentence from Core2000 got me thinking:

この町は人口が増えた。

Isn't it also possible to express this as:

この町の人口が増えた。

Why would you choose one over the other? Is it just to do with emphasis?

Other examples I have come across recently would be:彼は様子が変だ。　as opposed to: 彼の様子がおかしい。

この町の is ok, but the nuance is slightly different. It's really difficult to explain the difference because translations would be the same. If you're asked to describe your home town and want to say "The population of this city has increased," then you say この町は人口が増えた. If you're talking about the growing population of a certain city and if someone asks which city it is, then you say この町の人口が増えた. You'll see the former more often when the sentence is followed by something like でも他の町は人口が減った。, 他の町では廃墟が増えた。, 隣の町は逆に人口が減った。etc.

The meaning and usage of は/が isn't still fully explained by linguists; Japanese professors in Japanese universities can't explain it well either. So if you run into a sentence that can't be understood by the usual explanations found in popular Japanese textbooks, you might want to give up analyzing it and accept it as it is. That kind of sentence can never be learned out of context.

The same goes for 彼は様子が変だ vs. 彼の様子が変だ. I think you need more exposure to real, native materials if you don't understand the difference intuitively.

As for 私は髪が長いです and 私の髪が長いです, the former can carry most of the possible nuances of "I have long hair" while the latter is most likely "MY hair is long."

Last edited by magamo (2009 October 15, 7:50 am)

two questions from the same story. 猫が鼠を追い掛けるわけ.

すると神様は、
「遅かったね。残念だけど、昨日決まったよ」
と、言うではありませんか。

i know it means "神様 said...", but, i can't understand what the "言うではありませんか" is supposed to mean. why is it in negative form? what's that か doing there?

「鼠め、よくもだましたな！」

i really don't get what this is supposed to mean at all...

すると神様は、
「遅かったね。残念だけど、昨日決まったよ」
と、言うではありませんか。

-> and isn't that when the god(s) said 「⋯」.
(That's when the god(s) said, 「⋯」. Could you believe it?)

「鼠め、よくもだましたな！」

-> Mouse, how dare you trick me!

ocircle wrote:

すると神様は、
「遅かったね。残念だけど、昨日決まったよ」
と、言うではありませんか。

-> and isn't that when the god(s) said 「⋯」.
(That's when the god(s) said, 「⋯」. Could you believe it?)

I think it may be more like "If you do that, won't the gods say blah blah blah?"  Although without more context it's hard to know what that すると means exactly.  (I think that because it's 言う rather than 言った, though, this is going to be something that the god would say or usually says rather than something that they did say.)

もう一軒 is "another bar."

And speaking more generally, 軒 is the counter for buildings.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2009 October 15, 3:01 pm)

magamo wrote:

すると神様は、
「遅かったね。残念だけど、昨日決まったよ」
と、言うではありませんか。

The すると in his example should be "And...," not "If (omitted subject) does,." This is very clear from the narrative speech style of the sentences, and native speakers wouldn't take the すると as "if..."

You're right, I should have clicked on the original link to see the context -- this すると is at the beginning of the sentence; it's not a fragment, so it does indeed mean "and then...".

Seeing the whole context, the 言うではありませんか is past (sort of a narrative present) and it's a device of the narrator.

I apologize for posting without reading the context...

As for 軒, it sure is a counter for houses, stores, and the like. But when you're asking "もう一軒はしごする？" or something along the line, it'd never be referring to a house. It always refers to a bar, pub, restaurant, etc. in that kind of situation.

Right, I just wanted to point out the basis of the idiom.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2009 October 15, 3:34 pm)

Zarxrax wrote:

Ok I think she's telling me that phrase came from Russian, so never mind I guess :p

If it's from Russian, then it means "with love".  "С любовью" originally.

cmertb wrote:

Can't make heads or tails of this:

自分は愛されているんだっていう実感を与えてやるのが大切なんです！

I guess I'm confused mostly by the だっていう construct, I'm not sure how to tie the two parts of the sentence together.

大切なんです (It's important) 与えてやるのが (to give) 実感を (a sense) っていう (that is something like) 自分は愛されているんだ ("I am loved"). Does this make sense?

By the way, from the word choice, the sentence sounds like the speaker is talking to parents or pet owners and implying that it's important to make their kids confident (if the listeners are parents) by making them realize someone loves them. If it's about romantic relationships, the speaker is most likely a disgusting guy who looks down on girls or a woman who manipulates men.

Last edited by magamo (2009 October 15, 4:56 pm)

自分は愛されているんだっていう実感を与えてやるのが大切なんです！

The subject, object and verb must be confusing to spot in this sentence:
S/O/V: 自分は/愛されているんだっていう実感を与えてやるのが/大切なんです！

Let's make it English (SVO):
As for myself / what's important is / Give the feeling of being able to say one is(or: you are) loved.

Last edited by ocircle (2009 October 15, 6:52 pm)