Yes, many Japanese sentences are formed that way. You'll find, if you study Japanese, that your English sentence structure will be affected, at least for a time. I remember a bunch of us would start saying things like, "It's hot today, huh." This was the English equivalent to "kyou wa atsui (desu) nee"! Life imitates studies...
In Japanese, word order is basically free (as long as the predicate is at the end) with particles indicating the function a word has in a sentence. Recall that Latin is similar - because each word conjugates it doesn't matter where you put it, you know what its grammatical relationship is with all the other words in the sentence due to how it is conjugated. Japanese, lacking conjugations like Latin, uses these particles (WHEN NECESSARY!!!) to indicate function. It's something akin to the differences between a stack-based language like FORTH ("Japanese like") than an interpreted language like PERL ("English like). You put a word out there and then tack on a marker to tell you what the word's doing.
Example:
kyou, Akiko, sushi tabemashita. (Today, Akiko, sushi ate). Nothing wrong with this sentence - it is spoken style.
kyou Akiko wani tabemashita. (today, Akiko, alligator, ate) WHO did the eating here? That's why you need particles! We don't know, without particles, if Akiko ate alligator or if the alligator ate Akiko. This is the function they serve.
The best "translation" of the particle 'wa' is "as for" or "at least". "Wa" connotes no selection and some comparison. It is saying "at least regarding this matter (and I'm not responsible for any other)..." Or: "As for (this matter) and none other."
Sometimes, it has a strong connotation of comparison. It's opposite is the particle "mo" which connotes inclusion. "nihongo mo hanasemasu" (I speak Japanese too/as well) vs. "nihongo wa hanasemasu" (Japanese, at least, I speak).
It is interesting to compare it with 'ga' (probably the most difficult of these particles for English speakers to grasp). "nihongo ga ii desu" (*Japanese* is good) vs. "nihongo wa ii desu" (Japanese, at least/compared to other alternatives, is good). The difference in these two sentences would mostly be carried by changes in emphasis in English.
I speak Japanese and I have a few comments on your post. I edit the "Japanese in depth" newspaper column published monthly by the Daily Yomiuri (http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/200 61026TDY15001.htm -- a link to an article about particles). The author is my boss Shigekatsu Yamauchi, also author of Step Up Nihongo (which I edited) the Japanese learning system (textbooks, online study materials, videos, etc.).
> Other cool tidbits of info regarding Japanese - > Verbs always come at the end. Like Yoda-speak.
This is particularly true in the "gaijingo" that foreigners speak with their teachers, but in actual real life it's more complicated. Yes, verbals come at the end of the predicate, but casual speech is very frequently marked by inverted sentence order. For instance, "mita yo, eiga" (I saw it, you know, the movie (we were talking about)." In polite speech (to a boss, a teacher) one wouldn't speak this way, of course.
Also, the way you've constructed your "tidbit" it sounds like you could be saying that "verbs" come at the ends of all sentences. This is most emphatically not the case. Japanese sentences can end in any of three different predicates: nominal, verbal or adjectival. "Totemo atsui desu ne" (It's very hot, isn't it?) has no "verb" in it (though the English translation has a verb because every English sentence must have a verb). Nominal predicate example: "sono hito wa kirei desu." (I consider 'kirei' and the other so-called "na-adjectives" to be nouns (I prefer to call them nominals) but that's another discussion). "That person (we both know of) is beautiful."
> Since verbs always come at the end, they use single syllables > called particles (I think) to denote what is the subject, what > is the object, etc, since those (subject/object/etc) can go > anywhere in the sentence. They also use a particle for topic, > which is why it's so central to their grammar.
Yes, they are called "particles." But there are many different kinds of particles and not all of them are single syllables. Several phrase particles are multiple syllables for instance. These go at the ends of "sentences" and impart nuance.
By using the words "subject" and "object" you are introducing into Japanese very western concepts of grammar. There is no "subject" or "object" in Japanese. These concepts are alien to Japanese as they were created in a linguistic environment where the languages being studied were all European. All European languages have subjects and objects. When linguists first started studying Japanese they asked silly questions like, "what is your 'be verb'?" "Where is the subject in this sentence?" Unfortunately, Japanese scholars didn't say, "'be verb'? We don't have one, nor do we need one!" Nor did they say, "Subject? We don't do that!" Instead, we have textbooks that say that the copula "da/desu" is the "be verb" and that "ga marks the subject, (w)o the object," etc. These are oversimplifications that obscure and make the language unnecessarily hard to learn. Particles consistently offer the most difficulty to students of Japanese (as articles are the hardest for students of English).
Your idea of calling it a "topic marker" isn't bad - but "subject" is a term you should avoid because it carries with it all sorts of context that is alien to Japanese. I assume you are speaking of the particle "wa." "Wa" means, "at least," "as for," and carries a feeling of comparison within it. I would contend that calling it a "topic marker" tends to obscure these other functions, which makes it harder to understand when and why Japanese use the particle.
Regarding "object" you must be referring to "(w)o." "O" (as it is pronounced) includes a clear nuance of selection, as among several choices. "Object" clearly lacks a connotation as it is a function of positioning in a sentence. Additionally, "o" can mark things that we wouldn't consider "objects" in European languages.
OTOH, this sounds to me, like the very predictable scenario of "the uncuttable budget". Having lived in Japan for 3 years I learned that government budgets, once granted, are inviolable for *eternity*. Why do you think they still do MagLev research in spite of every one else in the world having long since abandoned it? The budget for MagLev research is uncuttable. Until that money can be absorbed by another department in some face-saving way, MagLev research will continue.
Probably there's a budget item somewhere that planned for a certain amount of money to be spent on computer-based weather prediction. This budget is now uncuttable. Any bureaucrat who does not spend their full budget is toast - he (most likely it's a 'he') will never be allowed into a position of budgetary authority again.
If you go to the Ministry of Finance without having spent all your budget you run the significant risk of having it cut the next year. This is a "career-limiting move." Since bureaucrats cannot, at least as a practical matter, be fired by the Prime Minister (remember Reagan firing all the air traffic controllers?) these budgets exist for all time.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, many Japanese sentences are formed that way. You'll find, if you study Japanese, that your English sentence structure will be affected, at least for a time. I remember a bunch of us would start saying things like, "It's hot today, huh." This was the English equivalent to "kyou wa atsui (desu) nee"! Life imitates studies ...
o m.cgi/
In Japanese, word order is basically free (as long as the predicate is at the end) with particles indicating the function a word has in a sentence. Recall that Latin is similar - because each word conjugates it doesn't matter where you put it, you know what its grammatical relationship is with all the other words in the sentence due to how it is conjugated. Japanese, lacking conjugations like Latin, uses these particles (WHEN NECESSARY!!!) to indicate function. It's something akin to the differences between a stack-based language like FORTH ("Japanese like") than an interpreted language like PERL ("English like). You put a word out there and then tack on a marker to tell you what the word's doing.
Example:
kyou, Akiko, sushi tabemashita. (Today, Akiko, sushi ate).
Nothing wrong with this sentence - it is spoken style.
kyou Akiko wani tabemashita. (today, Akiko, alligator, ate)
WHO did the eating here? That's why you need particles! We don't know, without particles, if Akiko ate alligator or if the alligator ate Akiko. This is the function they serve.
jvp
--
learn japanese: http://learnjapanese.poddedcell.net/cgi-bin/blosx
Actually, japanese people pronounce "vee" as "bu-ee" (as in "boo-ee"). It's quite annoying because my last name has a 'v' in it! lol
o m.cgi/
jvp
--
learn japanese with SUN: http://learnjapanese.poddedcell.net/cgi-bin/blosx
The best "translation" of the particle 'wa' is "as for" or "at least". "Wa" connotes no selection and some comparison. It is saying "at least regarding this matter (and I'm not responsible for any other) ..." Or: "As for (this matter) and none other."
3 8&op=Reply&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&p id=16834624 in reply to deadcatx.
Sometimes, it has a strong connotation of comparison. It's opposite is the particle "mo" which connotes inclusion. "nihongo mo hanasemasu" (I speak Japanese too/as well) vs. "nihongo wa hanasemasu" (Japanese, at least, I speak).
It is interesting to compare it with 'ga' (probably the most difficult of these particles for English speakers to grasp). "nihongo ga ii desu" (*Japanese* is good) vs. "nihongo wa ii desu" (Japanese, at least/compared to other alternatives, is good). The difference in these two sentences would mostly be carried by changes in emphasis in English.
See my post in this thread for more on Japanese not having a "subject" or "object": http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2063
jvp
I speak Japanese and I have a few comments on your post. I edit the "Japanese in depth" newspaper column published monthly by the Daily Yomiuri (http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/200 61026TDY15001.htm -- a link to an article about particles). The author is my boss Shigekatsu Yamauchi, also author of Step Up Nihongo (which I edited) the Japanese learning system (textbooks, online study materials, videos, etc.).
> Other cool tidbits of info regarding Japanese -
> Verbs always come at the end. Like Yoda-speak.
This is particularly true in the "gaijingo" that foreigners speak with their teachers, but in actual real life it's more complicated. Yes, verbals come at the end of the predicate, but casual speech is very frequently marked by inverted sentence order. For instance, "mita yo, eiga" (I saw it, you know, the movie (we were talking about)." In polite speech (to a boss, a teacher) one wouldn't speak this way, of course.
Also, the way you've constructed your "tidbit" it sounds like you could be saying that "verbs" come at the ends of all sentences. This is most emphatically not the case. Japanese sentences can end in any of three different predicates: nominal, verbal or adjectival. "Totemo atsui desu ne" (It's very hot, isn't it?) has no "verb" in it (though the English translation has a verb because every English sentence must have a verb). Nominal predicate example: "sono hito wa kirei desu." (I consider 'kirei' and the other so-called "na-adjectives" to be nouns (I prefer to call them nominals) but that's another discussion). "That person (we both know of) is beautiful."
> Since verbs always come at the end, they use single syllables
> called particles (I think) to denote what is the subject, what
> is the object, etc, since those (subject/object/etc) can go
> anywhere in the sentence. They also use a particle for topic,
> which is why it's so central to their grammar.
Yes, they are called "particles." But there are many different kinds of particles and not all of them are single syllables. Several phrase particles are multiple syllables for instance. These go at the ends of "sentences" and impart nuance.
By using the words "subject" and "object" you are introducing into Japanese very western concepts of grammar. There is no "subject" or "object" in Japanese. These concepts are alien to Japanese as they were created in a linguistic environment where the languages being studied were all European. All European languages have subjects and objects. When linguists first started studying Japanese they asked silly questions like, "what is your 'be verb'?" "Where is the subject in this sentence?" Unfortunately, Japanese scholars didn't say, "'be verb'? We don't have one, nor do we need one!" Nor did they say, "Subject? We don't do that!" Instead, we have textbooks that say that the copula "da/desu" is the "be verb" and that "ga marks the subject, (w)o the object," etc. These are oversimplifications that obscure and make the language unnecessarily hard to learn. Particles consistently offer the most difficulty to students of Japanese (as articles are the hardest for students of English).
Your idea of calling it a "topic marker" isn't bad - but "subject" is a term you should avoid because it carries with it all sorts of context that is alien to Japanese. I assume you are speaking of the particle "wa." "Wa" means, "at least," "as for," and carries a feeling of comparison within it. I would contend that calling it a "topic marker" tends to obscure these other functions, which makes it harder to understand when and why Japanese use the particle.
Regarding "object" you must be referring to "(w)o." "O" (as it is pronounced) includes a clear nuance of selection, as among several choices. "Object" clearly lacks a connotation as it is a function of positioning in a sentence. Additionally, "o" can mark things that we wouldn't consider "objects" in European languages.
> In fact, the c
OTOH, this sounds to me, like the very predictable scenario of "the uncuttable budget". Having lived in Japan for 3 years I learned that government budgets, once granted, are inviolable for *eternity*. Why do you think they still do MagLev research in spite of every one else in the world having long since abandoned it? The budget for MagLev research is uncuttable. Until that money can be absorbed by another department in some face-saving way, MagLev research will continue.
Probably there's a budget item somewhere that planned for a certain amount of money to be spent on computer-based weather prediction. This budget is now uncuttable. Any bureaucrat who does not spend their full budget is toast - he (most likely it's a 'he') will never be allowed into a position of budgetary authority again.
If you go to the Ministry of Finance without having spent all your budget you run the significant risk of having it cut the next year. This is a "career-limiting move." Since bureaucrats cannot, at least as a practical matter, be fired by the Prime Minister (remember Reagan firing all the air traffic controllers?) these budgets exist for all time.