6 ms·
This is awesome! I've always wanted to try this. The only real complaint I have is that "da" is not actually a copula in the strictest sense. It's a contract
by mikekchar 7y ago
This is awesome! I've always wanted to try this. The only real complaint I have is that "da" is not actually a copula in the strictest sense. It's a contraction of "de aru". Similarly "na" is not a modifier. It's a contraction of "ni aru". "aru" is the verb which is the closest you get to a copula in Japanese - it means "it exists" for non-animate noun-phrases.
So if you say "sakana da", it does mean "It is fish", but so does just "sakana". The copula is implied. The "da" is completely optional and is actually only added for emphasis -- the literal translation is kind of like "That it is fish exists". In literary Japanese you would say "sakana de aru", "de" being the particle that links a verb the the means with which the verb is executed. For example "basu de iku" means "will go by bus" -- bus is the means by which we will go. In "sakana de aru" or "sakana da" we are basically saying that "fish" is the means of its existence.
The "na" modifier is also interesting. It is really "ni aru" where "ni" is essentially the "direction" in which something exists. "Something like a fish" would be "sakana no you". If you want to say "It is a fragrance something like a fish" you could say "sakana no you na kaori". Although I'm not aware of any modern Japanese that would express it like this, this is equivalent to "sakana no you ni aru kaori" -- "It is a fragrance that exists in the direction like a fish". Hopefully you can understand.
The interesting part of this is that adding "ni aru" to the end of a noun phrase just turns it into a verb phrase. And the even more interesting bit is that the only thing that can modify a noun phrase is a verb phrase.
But, you may have heard of "i-adjectives" -- these are adjectives that end in i. In actuality, these are not adjectives! They are verb phrases! So the word "cute" is "kawaii". However, the actual word is "kawai" and the inflection is "i". That's why when you want to say "not cute" it becomes "kawaiku nai" -- the "i" turns into "ku" because you are inflecting a verb.
This in turn is why you modify nouns directly with "i-adjectives". "kawai sakana", or "cute fish". Other adjectives are actually noun phrases in Japanese. "yumei na sakana" or "famous fish". This is, again, exactly the same as "yumei ni aru sakana" -- "The fish exists in the direction of fame".
So the rules are even simpler than presented in this blog post.
By the way, for anyone trying to learn Japanese and who wants to go beyond phrase-book level: learn plain form first and polite form later (if ever). Japanese makes absolutely no sense if you learn polite form first. It's incredibly logical (even the polite form extensions) if you start with plain form.
- krackers 7y agoAnother one of your posts I remember learning a lot from: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13906535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13906535 Do you have any recommendations for material that teaches Japanese in this manner? I've found few resources that actually go into etymology like you have shown.
- glandium 7y agoNot GP, but I was in that thread. The most extensive non-Japanese book I know of is Grammaire japonaise systématique by Reiko Shimamori. As you may guess from the title, it's in French.
- krackers 7y ago>As you may guess from the title, it's in French. Unfortunately that would leave me with the issue of now learning 2 languages. Interestingly enough the best (and only) resource I've been able to find for content like GP is https://www.japanesewithanime.com/ https://www.japanesewithanime.com/ which – far from what I originally imagined given the domain name – actually has in-depth explanations of both grammar and etymology (see: [1], [2]) replete with references to research articles in JP linguistics. [1] https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2019/12/rentaikei.html https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2019/12/rentaikei.html [2] https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2019/12/kanou-doushi.html#vs-potential-form https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2019/12/kanou-doushi.html#...
- mikekchar 7y agoAlthough not taught in this manner, I learned all of my basic grammar from http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar (Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar). I've seen a lot of text books, but for me this was by far the best. There is a famouse Japanese grammar book that's written in Japanese and starts out writing with simple grammar to kind of bootstrap you, but I can't remember what it's called. However,most of the stuff like the above that I learned actually comes from an NHK programme, "Kotoba man". It went into the history of vocabulary and grammar and after I watched as many episodes as I could find, the structure of the language really started to make sense to me. I think part of the problem is that most prescriptive grammars for language are subtly incorrect. For example, what part of language is blue in "I am blue"? What part of the language is it when in "Blue is my favorite colour"? If they are different parts of language, what is the difference in meaning between the two? What if you said, "I am painting"? Or if you said "Painting is my favourite hobby"? What is the difference in meaning between the 2 uses (if any)? Is there a difference in the meaning of "am" between "I am blue" and "I am painting"? I think if you follow the prescriptive grammar of English, it will force you to answer the questions in different ways than your intuitive (internal) ideas. Or at least it did for me. Studying that sort of sentence in English helped me to study similar sentences in Japanese and puzzle out similar insights (or at least as imagined by me). YMMV ;-)