I'm not sure you can always figure out kanji usage of older writers like Akutagawa -- remember that in the 1920's, there was no Touyou or Jouyou list or any sort of official standards on how to write words, so there was more freedom in which words to use.  Kanjigen lists both くら（い） and やみ as readings for both 暗 and 闇, so it's very possible that the kanji choice was essentially random.  It's possible there was some reason, but there's probably no way to figure it out now.

(くらやみ may be a newer word but くれやみ, which is essentially the same thing, is much older.  The Koujien has a quote from the　栄華物語, which is Heian period.)

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2009 December 20, 7:10 am)

Hello!

A quick particle question.
Sentences from AAP:

冷たいものが飲みたい。

コーヒーを飲みたいんです。

The first sentence is from the が section, where the book says が is used to indicate the object of adjectives of desire (欲しい) + verbs in たい form.

The second sentence is from the を section, saying that を is used with verbs to indicate wishes or desires ending in たい/たがる.

What's the difference? There's probably some nuances in there, but I don't get it!
Thanks!

brandon7s wrote:

「今後ともよろしくお願いします。」
I look forward to working with you in the future.

What is the purpose of とも? I've not run across this word, if it is a word, before, and I am finding too many definitions to understand how it applies.

It's a set expression basically saying that you hope for continuing good relations  - whether it's work, friendship, customer, etc. Sometimes people say it with も instead of とも to sound less formal (also これから instead of 今後):  これからもよろしくお願いします。

So you might think of 今後とも　literally as "in the future as well" or "after this also", but it just means "from now on" or "after this".  In other sentences, you'll see 今後　without とも,　but it still has the meaning of "in the future", "next", "from now on" etc.

Zorlee wrote:

冷たいものが飲みたい。       コーヒーを飲みたいんです。

The first sentence is from the が section, where the book says が is used to indicate the object of adjectives of desire (欲しい) + verbs in たい form.

The second sentence is from the を section, saying that を is used with verbs to indicate wishes or desires ending in たい/たがる.

It's correct - it just sounds a bit confusing b/c there's overlap.

With a transitive Vたい with a direct object, you can use either を　or が:   コーヒー　を/が　飲みたい    Some people refer to this as turning the direct object into a が　subject. I think this is awkward. Just think of が as just highlighting that something is desired. I think that's the only difference.

Intransitive verbs don't have a direct objects, so you don't need to worry about it.
      学生になりたい　　　　　　　二本へ行きたい                  公園を歩きたい

Certain expressions require が　(～が欲しい、～が好き). You just need to make note of them as you learn them. In some cases it's b/c personal emotions/desires are involved and in other cases its just how the language evolved. (After awhile they'll start sounding strange with を.)

3rd person Vたがる　requires を. (I dunno why - maybe b/c the desire is less immediate/personal when you're talking about 3rd parties?)

Thora wrote:

Zorlee wrote:

冷たいものが飲みたい。       コーヒーを飲みたいんです。

The first sentence is from the が section, where the book says が is used to indicate the object of adjectives of desire (欲しい) + verbs in たい form.

The second sentence is from the を section, saying that を is used with verbs to indicate wishes or desires ending in たい/たがる.

It's correct - it just sounds a bit confusing b/c there's overlap.

With a transitive Vたい with a direct object, you can use either を　or が:   コーヒー　を/が　飲みたい    Some people refer to this as turning the direct object into a が　subject. I think this is awkward. Just think of が as just highlighting that something is desired. I think that's the only difference.

Intransitive verbs don't have a direct objects, so you don't need to worry about it.
      学生になりたい　　　　　　　二本へ行きたい                  公園を歩きたい

Certain expressions require が　(～が欲しい、～が好き). You just need to make note of them as you learn them. In some cases it's b/c personal emotions/desires are involved and in other cases its just how the language evolved. (After awhile they'll start sounding strange with を.)

3rd person Vたがる　requires を. (I dunno why - maybe b/c the desire is less immediate/personal when you're talking about 3rd parties?)

Thank you for your answer!
But isn't 公園を歩きたい incorrect? I mean, using を with an intransitive verb?
Anyway, thank you!

Thora wrote:

3rd person Vたがる　requires を. (I dunno why - maybe b/c the desire is less immediate/personal when you're talking about 3rd parties?)

Simple answer: otherwise 「コーヒーが飲みたがる」suggests you have unusually thirsty coffee.

The in-depth answer, exploring the mysteries of noun roles in Japanese, the difference between 消える／消す, why ～が分かる instead of ～を分る, and just what 楽しむ means begins with this: がる and たい have different theta-grids.

Yeah, real clear, right?  Well, I only dabble in linguistics, but sometimes that dabbling pays off.  In this case, we're looking at the relationship between the thematic roles and theta roles of nouns.  That relationship is the theta-grid, and it's determined (primarily) by the verb.

Noun roles are the difference between "you drive car" and "car drives you."  Thematic roles are the underlying meaning, theta roles are how the grammar expresses them.

For example, in English the surface roles are marked by subject and direct object position.  In Japanese 「お前が車を運転する」「車がお前を運転する」the surface roles are marked by が and を.

The thematic roles are agent and patient.  The agent carries out an action, the patient is affected by an action.  Thus, "you(agent) drive car(patient)" and "car(agent) drives you(patient)."  Since thematic roles express meaning, they correspond across translation--at least usually.

Now consider "I(agent/patient) look at the sky(theme)" 「僕は(agent/patient/topic)空を(theme)見上げる。」.  I'm going to blithely ignore "topic," and point out two things.  First, one noun phrase can take on multiple roles--this is a reflexive: looking is something you do (agent) which affects yourself (patient).  Second, the "theme" role which describes "what is observed" by verbs of observation, emotion, etc.  Themes aren't affected by the action.  (Sorry, that's not a very good definition.  Hopefully the following examples will clear it up.)

In English, themes either end up in direct object position or marked with a preposition, usually "at" or "about."  In Japanese, they usually take が or を.

"Do you(patient) know him(theme)?"
「かれを(theme)知っている？」
"Do you(patient) understand the example(theme)?"
「例が(theme)分かる？」
"I(patient) like this one(theme)."
「これが(theme)好き。」

Now we can turn our attention to two areas I used to find confusing about Japanese.

First, "transitive/intransitive" verb pairs.  I'm no fan of those terms, preferring "other-verbs" and "self-verbs," which incidentally are pretty close to the Japanese terminology.

Other-verbs usually have the theta-grid 「(agent)が(patient)を」「彼が木を倒した。」
Their corresponding self-verbs have the theta grid 「(patient)が」「気が倒れた。」

Sometimes, you have verb pairs where both verbs are transitive.  Here's an example:
「(patient)が(theme)を知る」
「(agent)が(patient)に(theme)を知らす」
This follows the same sound pattern as the 「散る」「散らす」transitive/intransitive pair, and the same theta-grid pattern as the 「見る」「見せる」pair.

So, that's why I prefer the term "agent/patient-subject pairs".  Which raises the question.  Are there theme-subject verbs as well?

Yes.  That's the second point I had difficulty with.  Most of these verbs are adjectives--but they count because they establish theta-grids.  The most common (and only?) true verb in this category is 「(theme)が(patient)に分かる」.
「(theme)が綺麗。」
「(theme)が恐ろしい。」
「(theme)が楽しい。」
「(theme)が好き。」
「(theme)が欲しい。」

Which brings us to the たい form.  Like 欲しい, たい works with the theme role.  「牛乳が飲みたい」doesn't actually affect the milk, so milk doesn't take a patient role.  (Exception below.)

If you need to express the patient, the がる inflection changes the theta-grid to allow that.  「猫が牛乳を飲みたがる。」The ～い adjectives with ～み noun-forms (楽しみ、愛しみ、痛み、etc) have a somewhat archaic ～む verb form with the same meaning as がる. 

「犬が楽しむね。」

(This also suggests something like 「俺がこの猫に牛乳を飲みたがらせるぞ！」would bring the three thematic roles together, like English "I(agent)'ll make that cat(patient) want to drink milk(theme)," but I haven't seen it yet.)

So, that only leaves the mystery of the を～たい form.  I think it boils down to language drift and the fact that language isn't always logical.  「コーヒーを飲みたい」sounds enough like 「コーヒーを飲む」that now that 「度（た）い」isn't wandering around by itself anymore, people don't notice that they're basically saying 「コーヒーを度い」which would sound wrong--い-adjectives don't pair with を-marked nouns.

誘われる is the passive form of 誘う.
Plain form to passive form takes on an あ sound with れる
The あ sound that verbs ending with う takes is わ

誘われて is the て form of it

Thanks for the reply Smackle. I have not learned passive yet so that is why I got confused. Maybe I should focus more on Tae Kim's grammer guide before trying to understand sentences completely.

Zorlee wrote:

Another question here:

雑誌でパスタの店の広告を見た。今晩行ってみよう。

The 行ってみよう thing... When I meet the -てみる grammar, I don't know whether or not I should read it as 行って見る (go and have a look) or the "to try" てみる grammar  - 行ってみる (try to go?)
The KO2001 translation was "I shall go and have a look tonight", so I'm guessing 見る here.
But I don't know how to distinguish the differences between the two, when both are written in kana. Any tips here? Or am I off by a mile? (pm: does the duck quack? )

You could argue that it almost means the same thing in this case.  "Let's go have a look" and "Let's try to go" would have the same basic connotation here.  If you have to pick one, then "try to go" is closer, because they could have said 「見てみよう」 if they REALLY wanted to emphasize the looking part...

フラ・アンジェリコの受胎告知は最も有名は祭壇画の一つである。
The Annunciation by Fra Angelico is one of the most famous altarpieces

This is a sentence from Eijiro (ALC). I feel the second は might be a mistake. Wouldn't な be more natural?

Zorlee wrote:

Thank you guys for clearing it up!

Some もの questions:

考えてみれば、よくこんなに会社が大きくなったものだ。

そんな悪い人がいるものですか。

These unrelated sentences are sentences in the "All About Particles" book.
The first one is translated like this:
"If you think about it, it's remarkable that the company has gotten this big"

I don't understand the もの usage in either of the sentences. In addition - I don't get any "it's remarkable" feeling from the first sentence. Is this purely from context, or does もの imply something?

The "remarkable" comes from the よく -- you can see this in phrases like "よくいらっしゃいました" (polite phrase but literally it's like "amazing that you were able to come all this way").  It's probably also related to よく騙したな or その顔でよくそんな事が言えるな, etc.

The second one is sort of like "Are there really people who are that bad?"

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2009 December 26, 7:48 am)

Some attempts at usage explanations to go with the translations:

Zorlee wrote:

考えてみれば、よくこんなに会社が大きくなったものだ。

大辞林 defines this sense as (2)（「…ものだ」の形で）感動・詠嘆を表す。…なあ。
(although it's in the middle of a big long entry so unless you aleady know that's the meaning you want it's not very helpful :-)  I think the よく~ものだ kind of work together here.

そんな悪い人がいるものですか

I think this is the ものか that EDICT defines as "a rhetorical question indicating that the speaker believes the opposite is true" or what 大辞林 rather briefly gives as 否定を強調する.
Link to 庭三郎 on もの in case you haven't already found it.