Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 11:43:42 MST
Newsgroups: sci.lang.japan
Subject: Re: Cases in Japanese (Was: Re: THE QUICK AND DIRTY ...)
Organization: Brigham Young University, Provo UT USA
From: luke@newt.ee.byu.edu (David Luke)

In article <2623@usna.NAVY.MIL> wdw@math2.sma.usna.navy.MIL (Wm. Douglas Withers -- math  FACULTY <wdw@sma.usna.navy.mil>) writes:
>In article <1993Jan11.124944.25230@Csli.Stanford.EDU> hiraga@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Yuzuru Hiraga) writes:

>>In article <2594@usna.NAVY.MIL> wdw@math2.sma.usna.navy.MIL (Wm. Douglas Withers -- math  FACULTY <wdw@sma.usna.navy.mil>) writes:
>>>1.  I suggest a better sentence to play with than `Boku wa unagi da' is
>>>`Sakana wa unagi ga ii.'  For this one, it's difficult to see any other
>>>particle that could replace `wa'....
>>
>>>3.  The topic specified by `wa'  can have its case specified by including
>>>another particle: `niwa', `ewa', etc.  The catch:  `gawa' and `owa' always
>>>contract back to just `wa.'  Same for `mo.'
>>
>>I don't get the point (or rather, the relevance) of this.
>>And can you provide an example that can be characterized as "owa"?
>
>"Ringo wa boku ga tabeta."  This means the same (denotatively, but not
>connotatively) as "Ringo o boku ga tabeta."  My way of looking at this
>sentence is that it is a compulsory contraction of "Ringo owa boku ga tabeta."
>Also you could perhaps use the advertisements "Boonasu wa nantoka-ginkoo e".

You don't even have to work so hard at it.  "Waka o kakimasu ka?" "Haiku
wa kakimasu ga..." Incidentally, old Japanese kept "wa" with "wo".  The
most famous example which comes to mind is Fujiwara Michinaga's "Kono
yo wo ba" tanka.

>>I may be a bit stringent on what counts as a "literal" translation.
>>And it is the kind of intuitive "guts" feeling of a native speaker
>>that's troubling me, so it's difficult to explain.
>>Let's see.  I'll have less trouble admitting "As for me, [it's] eel" as
>>a literal translation for "boku niwa unagi da".
>>The "as for" construct, on the other hand, is not a universal means
>>for translating "wa".  For example, translating "boku wa kimi ga suki da"
>>as "As for me, I like you" is not at all becoming -- a plain "I like you"
>>is more fitting.

>Actually, if I were to translate "suki" literally, I would not use "like";
>it's the wrong part of speech.  A  l i t e r a l  translation of
>"Boku wa kimi ga suki da" would be "As for me, you are liked."  This is

Here we run into problems for which there are not agreed-upon answers.
It is my opinion that your above translation is the most literal, but
many grammarians would argue that "suki da" is a transitive verb and
that "kimi ga" is the direct object.  (See, for example, Kuno)  (There
is evidence that this is true (or at least that it is becoming true) in
the increased usage of the "--- o suki da" (and "--- o kirai") 
construction, particulary in the Kanto area.)  Anyway, this would make
the literal translation "I like you."

All of the above is somewhat tangential to the question of the translation
of "Boku wa unagi da."  IMO the best translation is "I'll have eel",
where the "da" is the often-used substitution of "da" for an understood
predicate.  Thus "boku wa unagi da" is ellipsis for "Boky wa unagi ni
shimasu."  This solves the problems of exactly what case is implied by
the "wa".

> Takakunai.
> Takaku wa nai.

>"It's not expensive."
>"Expensive, it's not."

Or, for spoken English, "It's not _expensive_." with the emphasis on
"expensive" and no usual-sentence-ending drop in pitch, thus implying an
unspoken "but, ..."

>>BTW: does "As for fish, eel is good." count as a proper or good
>>English sentence?

>It actually doesn't sound too bad to me.  Offhand I can't think a smoother
>way to express this idea.

There's too much implied from the previous conversation to give one best
English translation.  "What do you want for dinner?  I was thinking some
kind of fish."  "If we're having fish, I'd like eel"  There's one 
possibility.  Or, "For every kind of food, there are certain foods that
are best for your health.  For fish, eel is best."  Many other "best"
translations are possible, given some context.
-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  David Luke                      "There's nothing worse than a brilliant     |
|  luke@wombat.ee.byu.edu           image of a fuzzy concept."                 |
|                                                               -- Ansel Adams |
Newsgroups: sci.lang.japan