Sentence structure

In addition to knowing which word classes are used in a language‚ we can also look at languages in terms of how sentences are structured. The most simplistic categorisa-tion of languages in this respect is by looking at the “Subject‚ Object and Verb” ordering.

This categorisation looks at how languages order these three words classes‚ leading to the conclusions that English‚ for instance‚ is an SVO language‚ while Japanese is an SOV language: in English‚ most sentences are of the form “we do something”‚

where the subject (“we”) precedes the verb (“do”) which in turn precedes the object (“something”) for that verb. Japanese‚ in contrast‚ follows a different ordering: most sentences are of the form “we‚ something do” (with the comma added purely for ease of reading) where the subject precedes the object for the verb‚ after which the actual verb is used. There are also VSO languages‚ such as formal Arabic or Welsh‚ where the sentence structure is predominantly “do‚ we‚ something” and VOS languages‚

such as Malagasi (used in Madagascar) and Fijian (used in Fiji) where the structure is predominantly “do something‚ we”.

However‚ while this terminology allows us to broadly categorise languages‚

based on what the ‘typically used’ pa ern looks like‚ it doesn’t tell us anything about how correct or incorrect sentences are if they do not adhere to these S/V/O “rules”.

For instance‚ while “we ate some cake” is a normal English sentence‚ a slightly less conventional but still grammatically perfectly valid English sentence could be “cake;

36 The syntax — § 1.5 Sentence structure

we ate some”. This sentence does not fall in the SVO category that is associated with English‚ but that doesn’t mean it’s an incorrect sentence — it just means the SVO label doesn’t tell the whole story. This becomes particularly apparent when we look at what “minimal sentences” may look like in different languages.

In English‚ a minimal sentence (that is‚ one that isn’t considered an expression like “hi!” or “hmm”) consists of a subject and a verb: “I ate” or “she runs” are examples of minimal sentences. Trying to shorten a sentence further — without making the sentence context sensitive — yields broken English‚ which is arguably simply not English. This notion of context is important: if we are asked “How many cookies are left?” and we answer with “four”‚ then this “four” is technically a sentence comprised of a single word‚ and sounds natural. However‚ if we were to use the sentence “four.”

on its own‚ it is impossible to tell what we mean by it. This means that while English is an SVO language‚ it’s really an SV(O) language: you need an S‚ you need a V‚ and if you use an O‚ it comes last‚ but you’re not obliged to have one.

When we look at Japanese we see the S/V/O category crumbling even fur-ther. Rather than just being an SOV language‚ it’s actually an (S)(O)V language: You need a verb‚ but you don’t need a subject or object at all to form a correct minimal sentence in Japanese. While in English saying “ate” is considered not enough in-formation to make sense of‚ Japanese is a language in which competent listeners or readers fill in these blanks themselves‚ choosing which subject and object make the most sense‚ given what they know about the speaker. This is what makes Japanese hard: most of the time‚ in every day Japanese‚ subjects and objects will be omi ed left and right because‚ as a competent listener‚ you should know what they should have been — Japanese relies heavily on people’s ability to guess what someone else is talking about‚ something which can only come through regular exposure to‚ and use of‚ the language.

1.5.1 Word order

While it’s all well and good to know that minimal Japanese is an (S)(O)V language‚

it’s also important to know that in Japanese‚ grammar is put directly into the sen-tence through the use of particles. While in English grammar only becomes appar-ent through the positioning of words‚ in Japanese words are “tagged”‚ as it were‚ with their grammatical role. To illustrate this‚ an example sentence:

昨日

kinou wa inu ga watashi no gohan o tabemashita.

This sentence is composed of several “blocks”: 昨日は‚ ‘kinou wa’‚ indicates the noun ‘kinou’ (“yesterday”) as context. In 犬が‚ ‘inu ga’‚ the noun ‘inu’ (“dog”) is marked as verb actor‚ in 私の‚ ‘watashi no’‚ the noun ‘watashi’ (“I”/“me”) is made

The syntax — § 1.5 Sentence structure 37

genitive (forming “my”) and linked to ご飯を‚ ‘gohan o’‚ the noun ‘gohan’ (“dinner”) marked as direct verb object‚ with the final word ‘tabemashita’ being the past tense of the verb “eat”:

“Yesterday‚ (a/my/our) dog ate my dinner.”

In English‚ there is very li le position variation possible in this sentence: “A dog ate my dinner‚ yesterday” is still okay‚ but rearranging the sentence to read “Yes-terday‚ my dinner ate a dog” completely changes the meaning of the sentence from something unfortunate to something unse ling. In Japanese‚ the explicit presence of grammar markers in a sentence means that rearranging the “blocks” doesn’t change the meaning of the sentence at all:

昨日は私のご飯を犬が食べました。

kinou wa watashi no gohan o inu ga tabemashita.

“Yesterday: my dinner‚ (a/my/our) dog ate.”

私のご飯を、昨日は、犬が食べました。

watashi no gohan o‚ kinou wa‚ inu ga tabemashita.

“My dinner — yesterday — (a/my/our) dog ate.”

昨日は犬が食べました、私のご飯を。

kinou wa inu ga tabemashita‚ watashi no gohan o.

“Yesterday (a/my/our) dog ate; my dinner.”

食べました、犬が、私のご飯を、昨日は。

tabemashita‚ inu ga‚ watashi no gohan o‚ kinou wa.

“Ate‚ a dog (did)‚ my dinner‚ yesterday.”

All of these are perfectly valid sentences in Japanese‚ because all the words with meaning are explicitly tagged with the role they play in the sentence. While some of these sentences will sound more usual than others‚ they all mean the same thing. However‚ once we start moving the particles around‚ pairing them with words from different blocks‚ the same problem arises as we saw for English:

昨日は(犬が)(私のご飯を)食べました。

kinou wa inu ga watashi no gohan o tabemashita

“Yesterday‚ (a/my/our) dog ate my dinner.”

38 The syntax — § 1.5 Sentence structure

昨日は(ご飯が)(私の犬を)食べました。

kinou wa gohan ga watashi no inu o tabemashita

“Yesterday‚ (the) dinner ate my dog.”

In summary‚ it is not so much word order that inherently gives meaning to a sentence in Japanese‚ but the ‘semantic blocks’ of words‚ paired with specific par-ticles. Their combination tells you what the block means‚ and what role it plays in a sentence. As long as the pairings are preserved‚ you can order these blocks in any way you like and maintain the same sentence meaning. Which blocks go where‚ fi-nally‚ depends entirely on what you believe is the most important bit of the sentence‚

as is highlighted in the next section.

1.5.2 Emphasis

Another feature of languages is where emphasis lies in a sentence. In English‚ we tend to put the most pressing bit of information early in the sentence‚ and then say whatever is further relevant to this information later in the sentence. The previous sentence is a good example of this: the main point is that “important information comes early”‚ which is found earlier in the sentence than the additional information.

In Japanese‚ things are the other way around: the more important the information is‚

the later it will be placed in a sentence.

A rather simple example is the following pair of sentences:

“I fell off my bike while riding home today.”

今日

きょう

は自転車

じてんしゃ

で帰

かえ

り 中

ちゅう

で転

ころ

んでしまいました。

kyou wa jitensha de kaerichuu de korondeshimaimashita.

While the English sentence is up front with the emphasis‚ namely that we fell off our bike‚ the Japanese sentence doesn’t actually tell you what happened until the very last word‚ ‘korondeshimaimashita’ — “(I) (regre ably/unfortunately) fell down”.

Being unfamiliar with this difference in emphasis (point‚ then details in En-glish vs. details‚ then point in Japanese) can lead to confusion when dealing with words in which this ordering is important‚ such as indicating simultaneous actions:

in English‚ “while”. If someone asks “what are you doing?” and we answer with “eat-ing some dinner while watch“eat-ing TV”‚ then the main activity is eat“eat-ing dinner. The

“watching TV” is additional information‚ but not strictly speaking required for the an-swer to be complete. In Japanese‚ with the same core information and details used‚

the placement is opposite: the Japanese answer “terebi o minagara‚ gohan o tabe-masu” lists “watching TV” first (‘terebi o mi-’)‚ then adds the marker for simultaneous action (‘nagara’) and then concludes with “eating dinner” (‘gohan o tabemasu’). Both

The syntax — § 1.6 Pitch and accents 39

in English and Japanese‚ the concise answer would simply have been “eating dinner”‚

or “gohan o tabemasu”.

Another‚ more common example is the use of “rather”: “I would rather have X than Y” is a well known sentence pa ern in English‚ listing the thing with most preference first. This becomes even more obvious in the shortened pa ern‚ “I would rather have X”. In Japanese‚ the ‘rather’ construction uses the particle ‘yori’ and‚ like before‚ the order is quite opposite:

Y yori X no hou ga ii to omoimasu

Trying to project the way ‘rather’ works in English onto what ‘yori’ means can easily lead to confusion: the English word ‘rather’ assumes that the most important bit is on the left‚ so if we think ‘yori’ does the same — because we know it can be translated as ‘rather’ — we might mistakenly believe that this sentence says “I would rather have Y than X”‚ instead of what it really means‚ “I would rather have X than Y”.

While potentially confusing at first‚ this reversal of placement for emphasis becomes more intuitive the more one practises Japanese.

However‚ having important information at the end of a sentence leads to a unique problem when interpreting or translating Japanese: how does one deal with trailing sentences? In English‚ when the la er part of a sentence is left off‚ the most important information has already been presented‚ so when the sentence is cut off we might be missing the details‚ but only the details. In Japanese‚ and other languages where more important information comes later in the sentence‚ leaving off the la er part of a sentence leaves a reader or listener with the details‚ but no knowledge of what these details actually apply to!

While‚ of course‚ this doesn’t lead to problems for people who grew up using a language in which emphasis comes later in a sentence‚ this ‘feature’ can be a great pain for people who grew up with “important bits first”. To them‚ it feels very much like the language is based on the concept of “filling in the blanks”‚ without any indication of what can be used to fill them in. Sadly‚ this too can only be remedied through continued exposure to‚ in this case‚ Japanese‚ so that one becomes intuitively familiar with which words might be implied if they’re left off.