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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Last edited by Tobberoth (2009 December 28, 7:10 pm)

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

Last edited by magamo (2009 December 29, 1:52 pm)