Japanese is what's called an SOV-language. That stands for Subject-Object-Verb, and it means that in a standard Japanese sentence, the subject comes first, followed by the object, followed by the verb. For example, 猫は魚を食べる "cat fish eat", which means "cats eat fish". Actually, SOV is part of a broader language classification system (English is SVO for example) invented by westerners and it doesn't really capture Japanese sentence order at all since Japanese doesn't really have "subjects" in the first place. Another way of thinking of Japanese is AAV, which stands for Adverb-Adverb-Verb. And that's what I'm describing in this article.
This model I'm describing isn't 100% accurate: you can easily cook up counterexample sentences. However, the same can be said about the SOV model. You can just as easily cook up sentences which defy SOV-order. A model isn't always intended to capture something perfectly-- it's only intended to give us a kind of "bird's eye view". You can read more about this in my article, Models Of Reality.
AAV is simple: you treat everything as an adverb, except the verb at the end. The way verbs and adverbs interact is, a verb declares some action, and an adverb makes it more specific. For example, "I ran" is a very general sentence in the verb "to run". "I ran quickly" is more specific because of the adverb "quickly". If you said "I ran quickly homeward", very little has been left to the imagination.
One of the key properties of adverbs is that they can be removed without making the sentence ungrammatical. Now in Japanese, everything but the final verb can be removed and left up to context. See where I'm going? (Note, I'm ignoring verb-less sentences like "kawaii!" If you don't like that, too bad, cuz the SOV model ignores 'em too!)
The Adverb Model states simply that everything which isn't the final verb of a verb clause, is an adverb. It may be modifying the final verb, or it may be modifying another adverb. For the sake of this model, particles are treated as case markers, ie, 私を is considered a single word and would be romanized "watashiwo" instead of "watashi wo". Don't worry, SOV does this too! Let's build up a sentence using AAV to get a sense how it works.
食べる。 "Eats." A very general sentence, which isn't even possible in English, where subjects are mandatory.
魚を食べる。 "Eats fish." Here the word 魚を is considered an adverb which modifies the verb 食べる by specifying what exactly is being eaten. The key property of adverbs is satisfied: remove the "adverb" and the sentence remains grammatical.
猫は魚を食べる。 "Cats eat fish." Now we've nailed the verb down even more with the adverb 猫は. Don't think of it like an English subject. In fact, think of it like "Catly eat fish." I know that doesn't make any sense in English, but that's cuz English and Japanese are different languages.
AN ADVANCED EXAMPLE
ドアを開けた途端、猫が外に飛び出して高い木に登った。
"As soon as I opened the door, the cat flew outside and climbed a tall tree."
First, 途端, normally considered a noun, means something like "as soon as". In AAV, this 途端 is considered an adverb and it's modifying the verb 登る, "to climb". 開ける, "to open", is a verb, modified by the "adverb" ドアを, to create the compound verb-clause "to open the door". This whole verb-clause is then treated as an adverb which modifies the 途端 adverb. (Yes, adverbs can modify other adverbs, as in English "I ran most quickly.") The resulting adverb-clause, ドアを開けた途端, means something like "as soon as (I) opened the door", and it's still modifying 登る.
Now we have the sentence ドアを開けた途端、登った。 "As soon as (I) opened the door, (someone) climbed." But what did they climb? The verb's not specific enough. To specify that they climbed a tree, we use the adverb 木に, and to emphasize it's a tall tree, we'll use the "adverb" 高い to modify the "adverb" 木に to get 高い木に, "up a tall tree". Modify this with the "adverb" 飛び出して to indicate the action was done after somehow flying/leaping.. and use the adverb 外に "outside" to make the flying/leaping more specific. Specify who flew by using the "adverb" 猫が. That gives us the full sentence.
FURTHER READING
Read about Japanese words which resemble English words, but only by coincidence and not by actual etymology. Japanese False Cognates. These are useful because, while they're still as easy as English borrow words, they give a much more authentic flavor of Japanese.
Read about the endless war between kanji and romaji. Oh the humanity!
For some interesting observations about the connection between working out and learning a new tongue, read Exercise and Language Learning.
This model I'm describing isn't 100% accurate: you can easily cook up counterexample sentences. However, the same can be said about the SOV model. You can just as easily cook up sentences which defy SOV-order. A model isn't always intended to capture something perfectly-- it's only intended to give us a kind of "bird's eye view". You can read more about this in my article, Models Of Reality.
AAV is simple: you treat everything as an adverb, except the verb at the end. The way verbs and adverbs interact is, a verb declares some action, and an adverb makes it more specific. For example, "I ran" is a very general sentence in the verb "to run". "I ran quickly" is more specific because of the adverb "quickly". If you said "I ran quickly homeward", very little has been left to the imagination.
One of the key properties of adverbs is that they can be removed without making the sentence ungrammatical. Now in Japanese, everything but the final verb can be removed and left up to context. See where I'm going? (Note, I'm ignoring verb-less sentences like "kawaii!" If you don't like that, too bad, cuz the SOV model ignores 'em too!)
The Adverb Model states simply that everything which isn't the final verb of a verb clause, is an adverb. It may be modifying the final verb, or it may be modifying another adverb. For the sake of this model, particles are treated as case markers, ie, 私を is considered a single word and would be romanized "watashiwo" instead of "watashi wo". Don't worry, SOV does this too! Let's build up a sentence using AAV to get a sense how it works.
食べる。 "Eats." A very general sentence, which isn't even possible in English, where subjects are mandatory.
魚を食べる。 "Eats fish." Here the word 魚を is considered an adverb which modifies the verb 食べる by specifying what exactly is being eaten. The key property of adverbs is satisfied: remove the "adverb" and the sentence remains grammatical.
猫は魚を食べる。 "Cats eat fish." Now we've nailed the verb down even more with the adverb 猫は. Don't think of it like an English subject. In fact, think of it like "Catly eat fish." I know that doesn't make any sense in English, but that's cuz English and Japanese are different languages.
AN ADVANCED EXAMPLE
ドアを開けた途端、猫が外に飛び出して高い木に登った。
"As soon as I opened the door, the cat flew outside and climbed a tall tree."
First, 途端, normally considered a noun, means something like "as soon as". In AAV, this 途端 is considered an adverb and it's modifying the verb 登る, "to climb". 開ける, "to open", is a verb, modified by the "adverb" ドアを, to create the compound verb-clause "to open the door". This whole verb-clause is then treated as an adverb which modifies the 途端 adverb. (Yes, adverbs can modify other adverbs, as in English "I ran most quickly.") The resulting adverb-clause, ドアを開けた途端, means something like "as soon as (I) opened the door", and it's still modifying 登る.
Now we have the sentence ドアを開けた途端、登った。 "As soon as (I) opened the door, (someone) climbed." But what did they climb? The verb's not specific enough. To specify that they climbed a tree, we use the adverb 木に, and to emphasize it's a tall tree, we'll use the "adverb" 高い to modify the "adverb" 木に to get 高い木に, "up a tall tree". Modify this with the "adverb" 飛び出して to indicate the action was done after somehow flying/leaping.. and use the adverb 外に "outside" to make the flying/leaping more specific. Specify who flew by using the "adverb" 猫が. That gives us the full sentence.
FURTHER READING
Read about Japanese words which resemble English words, but only by coincidence and not by actual etymology. Japanese False Cognates. These are useful because, while they're still as easy as English borrow words, they give a much more authentic flavor of Japanese.
Read about the endless war between kanji and romaji. Oh the humanity!
For some interesting observations about the connection between working out and learning a new tongue, read Exercise and Language Learning.
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3 comments:
So...where does the "but I didn't care" part come into play? Did you leave something out?
Whoops, yeah the original sentence had tacked on "が気にも留めなかった" at the end.
This is very interesting. Among linguists, I've usually heard Japanese described as having Topic-Comment syntax, as opposed to English et al which are subject-object (don't remember if that's the exact term). So if you said something like 今日は 天気が良いです "today the weather is good", you're really saying something more like "Topic: Today, Comment: Weather good", or "As for today, the weather is good".
It's a little more specific than your AAV model, and likewise it doesn't capture every possible sentence, but I wanted to point it out.
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