From: hiraga@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Yuzuru Hiraga)
Subject: Re: Cases in Japanese (Was: Re: THE QUICK AND DIRTY ...)
Organization: Stanford University CSLI
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 01:49:02 GMT

In article <1993Jan05.231550.21920@gibdo.engr.washington.edu> tvp@gibdo.engr.washington.edu (Tad Perry) writes:
>In article <1993Jan5.213455.9422@Csli.Stanford.EDU> hiraga@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Yuzuru Hiraga) writes:
>>Some mapping of particles with common traditional cases are as follows:
>>
>>	Nominative (subject):		-wa, -ga
>>	Accusative (direct object):	-wo
>>	Dative (indirect object):	-ni
>>	Possesive:			-no
>>	Locative:			-de
>
>The above is more or less correct, but I don't think I agree that "wa"
>confers nominative case. I don't know what it should be called, but as
>I stated in my guide, I think it clears out understood information and
>replaces it. In *most* cases the information in question is indeed
>nominative information, but "wa" is not restricted to placement after
>only subjects by any means. (Although the clear tendency is
>interesting.)  ...

I concur with Tad that my table is by no means complete.
It was only meant as a cursive characterization -- and there are
many cases that are not covered (eg. "ga" can be an accusative,
as in "boku wa anata ga/wo sukida").
After all (mumble), didn't I put an "immediate caveat" in? (mumble)
and retain "QUICK AND DIRTY" in the subject heading? (mumble) --
... and you've forced me to confess again that I'm no linguistics expert ;-)

So... WHERE ARE THE EXPERTS (when we need them)??


But one problem needs be settled:
>...That's why "wa"
>is often literally translated using "as for ...", because the
>corresponding English conveys some of the feeling of contrast....

This raises the question of whether the initial poster, Peter Kell's
point that "For me, eel" as a literal translation of "boku wa unagi da"
is, after all, correct (and that I was mistaken).
I'll have to think it over, but here are some preliminary observations:

* "For me, eel" is not a complete sentence (this sentence no verb :-);
  while "boku wa unagi da" is.  At least something has to be done
  about the auxiliary verb "da".
* To complete the sentence, we must substitute the subject as in:
  "for me, it is eel" or "for me, I'll have eel" (bit redundant)
  which makes "for me" a (detached) preposition phrase.
  "For me is eel" is ungrammatical, I suppose.
* "Boku wa unagi da" taken out of context has a correct nominative
  reading of "I'm an eel".  That is, the sentence is ambiguous.
  And as stated earlier (in the "I'm Keats" example), this kind of
  mis-utterance is actually made by native Japanese speakers,
  which favor the point that they are implicitly regarded as nominatives.
* Dative-favored reading: think it as an ellipsis of "ni": "[ni]wa" or
  "[nitotte]wa": "Boku [nitotte]wa unagi da" -- more completely,
  "boku [nitotte]wa unagi [ga tabetai mono]da".
  However, such ellipsis can't be universal.
  For example, as an answer to "How do you find this book?" --
  "Boku niwa muzukasii" (It's hard for me).  In this case, ellipsis
  won't work.  "Boku wa muzukasii" is unacceptable: literally,
  it would mean "I'm difficult/impossible".
* Nominative-favored reading: supply a verb phrase, eg.
  "Boku wa unagi [wo tabetai no]da."
  This seems more natural, although it may shift the meaning a little.
* Slightly shifting the context, replace "wa" with "ga":
  "Boku ga unagi da" -- which is also acceptable in a similar vein
  as in response to questions like "Who of you ordered eel?".
  This also has a literal reading of (adding a definitive sense)
  "I'm the eel."
  So actually, it's not a problem confined to "wa".
+ After all, the classic grammatical cases are obsolete, or can't
  be applied to Japanese :-)

And so on.
Welcome to the bottomless swamp of linguistic scrutiny!! :-)

>However, it is more likely that "-wa" has nothing to do with case at all.

I think that's going a bit too extreme.
"wa" nevertheless is confined to certain cases (i.e., it can't be
ANY case).
More on this later.  (if ever ;-)

-Yuzuru Hiraga
Newsgroups: sci.lang.japan