[Lingtyp] Inquiry on Japanese grammar

Tasaku Tsunoda tsunoda at ninjal.ac.jp
Mon Dec 29 08:05:25 UTC 2014


Dear Philippe,


    Thank you for your response.


    It is not me who provided the translation "the apple that the brother
bought". I guess that translation was provided by the author whom Jianming
cited. I am afraid that translation is not accurate.
     Also, the way these examples are presented is different from the way I
do.


    In order to focus on the meaning and function of the verb for ‘come’, I
will use examples that do not involve an RC. (Hanako is a girl’s or a
woman’s name.)


(i)  Hanako=ga           ringo=o           kat-ta.
     Hanako=NOM       apple=ACC     buy-PST
     ‘Hanako bought an apple.’
(ii)  Hanako=ga           ki-ta.
      Hanako=NOM       come-PST
      ‘Hanako came.’
(iii)  Hanako=ga           ringo=o          kat-te           ki-ta.
      Hanakk=NOM        apple=ACC    buy-GNF       come-PST
      ‘Hanako bought an apple and came.’
 
Yes, the verb ki- ‘come’ clearly indicates a motion towards the speaker. It
is not obligatory. Even without it, the sentence sounds natural; see (i).
 
= precedes an enclitic.
- precedes a suffix, etc.
ACC: accusative. GNF: general nonfinite. NOM: nominative. PST: past.
 
    I hope this information is helpful.
 
Best wishes,
 
Tasaku Tsunoda
 
From:  Philippe Bourdin <pbourdin at yorku.ca>
Date:  2014年12月29日月曜日 15:29
To:  Tasaku Tsunoda <tsunoda at ninjal.ac.jp>
Subject:  Re: [Lingtyp] Inquiry on Japanese grammar

Dear Tasaku,

Sorry to bother you with what you will think is maybe a peripheral
issue, but I was wondering about the semantic contribution that the
ventive verb -ki- brings to the example you translated as "the apple
that the brother bought". Does it specifically refer to motion towards
the speaker (or, more loosely, his sphere of interest)? If not, is it
obligatory or does it simply make the sentence sound more natural? Could
itive -iku- be used instead and could it have semantic implications
other than reference to motion away from the speaker?

As you may have guessed, I'm a come/go aficionado and I know kuru and
iku lend themselves to uses that are very subtle, both semantically and
pragmatically.

Many thanks.

Philippe Bourdin
York University
Toronto



Tasaku Tsunoda wrote:
>  Dear Jianming,
> 
>      My  name is Tasaku Tsunoda, and I am a native speaker of Japanese.
> 
>      My responses are given below.
> 
>  From: Jianming Wu <wu.jianming2011 at gmail.com
>  <mailto:wu.jianming2011 at gmail.com>>
>  Date: 2014年12月28日日曜日 20:59
>  To: Jean-Christophe Verstraete
>  <jean-christophe.verstraete at arts.kuleuven.be
>  <mailto:jean-christophe.verstraete at arts.kuleuven.be>>
>  Cc: <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
>  <mailto:LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
>  Subject: [Lingtyp] Inquiry on Japanese grammar
> 
>  Dear typologists,
> 
>        The following two questions on Japanese grammar are from a
>  graduate stuent in my department. I am wondering if you may offer some
>  help for him.  Many thanks!
> 
> 
>  Best 
> 
> 
>  Jianming Wu
> 
> 
>  Institute of Linguisitcs,
> 
>  Shanghai International Studies University
> 
> 
> 
>  "  Hello! I am a graduate student at SISU. I have some questions about
>  Japanese linguistic facts as I couldn’t find relevant literature. I
>  will truly appreciate it if any typologists would kindly answer them
>  as below or point me to the relevant literature:
> 
>   
> 
>  1.         Relative clauses (RC) in Japanese can do without RC
>  markers. This has been testified by all the examples I have seen in
>  the Japanese RC literature. For instance:
> 
>   
> 
>  [*_RC *aniki-ga         katte-ki-ta __]            ringo
> 
>  brother-NOM buy-come-PAST gap  apple
> 
>  “The apple that the brother bought.”
> 
>   
> 
>  However, a Japanese native informant told me that it does not sound
>  natural to omit the RC marker ( な /na/) before the head noun.
>  Therefore, I wonder if the inconsistency is due to the stylistic
>  difference between the spoken and the written language.
> 
> 
>  => Japanese does not have any RC marker.
>      The sentence above is correct.
> 
>      The following book provides a detailed discussion of pre-nominal
>  clauses (or RCs) of Japanese.
> 
>  Matsumoto, Yoshiko. 1997. Noun-modifying constructions in Japanese[:]
>  A frame-semantic approach. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
> 
> 
>      I add the following for your information.
>      Japanese has no single word for 'brother'. It has /ani /'elder
>  brother' and /otooto/ 'younger brother'.
>      /Aniki/ literally means "elder brother". But it is often used in
>  some other contexts, e.g. referring to an older member in a gangsters'
>  group. So, I would not use /aniki/ in sentential examples like the above.
>      
> 
>   
> 
>  2.         According to Kamio (1977) and Ishizuka (2008),
>  demonstratives (Dem) can either precede or follow RCs in Japanese. See
>  below:
> 
>   
> 
>  (1)       
>  *Sono* [aniki-ga         katte-ki-ta__]              ringo
> (Kamio, 
>  1977)
> 
>  that brother-NOM buy-come-PAST gap   apple
> 
>  “That apple which the brother bought.”
> 
>  (2)       [minna-ga            __  sagasi-teiru]   *sono* ronbun
> 
>  everyone-NOM gap  look-for-ASP that paper
> 
>  “That paper which everyone is looking for.”
> 
>   
> 
>  Leaving aside the functional differences, I wonder if there is any
>  biased usage of either configuration (Dem-RC or RC-Dem). In a study
>  published in a Chinese journal (/Japanese Learning and Research/),
>  Sheng (2010: 86-94) has found a significant Dem post-positioning bias
>  in RCs in a Japanese corpus study. In fact, only 6 instances of Dem-RC
>  configuration were found. However, the corpus is based on Japanese
>  novels. I have talked to 2 participants after the experiment and they
>  admitted that either configuration (Dem-RC or RC-Dem) was equally
>  acceptable to them. So I wonder if the post-positioning bias reported
>  in Sheng (2010) is also due to the stylistic difference. I have been
>  trying to locate corpus studies based on the spoken Japanese that bear
>  on this question, but I couldn’t find any relevant literature in
>  English or Chinese.
> 
>   
> 
>  Thanks a lot!
> 
>  Lv Jun"
> 
>  => I do not know statistical studies or corpus studies of this issue.
>      At least, (1) is ambiguous. It can have two readings.
>      
>      Reading 1: that apple which ….
>                      "That" modifies "apple".
>      Reading 2: the apple which that elder brother …
>                       "That" modifies "elder brother".
> 
>      (2) is not ambiguous. It has only one reading.
> 
>      As far as I can see, there is no stylistic difference between (1)
>  and (2).
> 
>      The fact that (1) is ambiguous may be one of the reasons why
>  Dem-RC is infrequent.
> 
>      I hope the above information is of some use.
> 
>  Best wishes,
> 
>  Tasaku Tsunoda
> 
> 
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