Talk:Japanese grammar/Archive 2

message: Can someone explain the illustration on the right of the page to me? Is it some kind of calligraphy style? It seems to be very ugly and also it is totally unreadable. --DannyWilde 07:57, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I can read the third character, "go", meaning language... otherwise, it is totally unreadable. --AKismet 16:27, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: The explanation is on the image page. The illustration says 日本語文法, or "nihongo bunpō," in a cursive handwriting style. Fg2 20:39, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like some kind of nasty scribble, probably generated by a computer, rather than "cursive handwriting style" to me. I'm not an expert in Japanese calligraphy, but the thing just seems so ugly and unreadable I find it hard to believe it is a worthwhile piece of calligraphy. One of my neighbours runs a calligraphy school, so maybe I'll show it to her and see what she thinks. --DannyWilde 22:06, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Readability is not the point of calligraphy. In extreme cases, even the writer can't read it... Fg2 03:26, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your input, but I continue to wonder if this is a worthwhile piece of calligraphy. I know a small amount about the different Chinese calligraphy styles, and I contributed quite a lot to several of the Wikipedia articles on them (grass script, shodo, running script, edomoji, etc.), but I'm definitely not an expert. Even so, my uneducated eye says "Hmm" about this one. --DannyWilde 03:44, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Indeed, UNreadability often seems to be the point. But even (perhaps especially?) at its most illegible there is an ineffable characteristic of artistry. I agree with DannyWilde's comment (further) above: this thing was most likely created on a computer. And not, I would add, by someone who particularly knew what they were doing. RJCraig 08:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

text: "Nasty" is the word for it. A friend I showed it to asked 「なにそれ、タイ語？」("What is that, Thai?") Anyone want to be "bold" and try replacing it? RJCraig 03:10, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: (In case it wasn't clear from the quote, the friend I mentioned is a native Japanese speaker. RJCraig 08:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Nobody else has commented, so let me say that that is much better. I suggest replacing the current thing. --DannyWilde 15:15, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Even though I was "watching" this page, I didn't notice your comment until now; sorry. Shall we do it, then? RJCraig 11:12, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds OK to me. Fg2 11:16, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

text: So it's done, then. Cheers. RJCraig 20:39, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Illustration

message: To pitch in my ¥2, I second Rodasmith's suggestion to split the Particles section off to its own page.  Eiríkr Útlendi 23:54, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For what it's worth, the current separate Japanese particles page is being cleaned up at the moment.  Content from the section here will be folded in as we go.  Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 16:59, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the tag. People are working on improving both this article and the article on particles, so everybody is informed and we don't need the tag anymore. As for the merge: The article on particles and the section here use a different method: The separate article is a huge list that mentiones all particles one by one. The section here tries to group them by usage and leaves out the less common ones. Both approaches have their value. The article is great if you want to look up the usage of one specific particle, the section here is great for getting the larger picture. The problem with merging both is that either one approach is lost, or the article will be very, very long and bulky. Probably we can fix this with two separate articles: Japanese particle and List of Japanese particles, the first giving the introduction and the latter listing all of them with their individual usage. -- Mkill 20:00, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The big picture is appropriate for an encyclopedia article, but Wiktionary seems like a better place to look up a single Japanese particle. I propose that the big picture of Japanese particles move to the Japanese particles page and individual particles move to Wiktionary. See, for example, the entry I just created at wikt:ばかり. How does that sound? The Rod (☎ Smith) 05:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Particles split 

message: The verb conjugation table has the rule for generating the volitional form of Group 1 verbs as: "imperf. + う(u)". The example given, 書く -> 書こう, is correct, but the rule is wrong because the imperfective form of 書く is not 書こ, but 書か (as given by the rule for imperfective forms and in all other examples of the imperfective form of 書く in the conjugation table).  Other references I've seen either define the volitional form of Group 1 verbs by a romaji rule (replace -u by -ou) or via an intermediate お-row stem.  Any suggestions?  --Frentos 07:37, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The rule is correct.  As explained in the histrical note, Group 1 verbs ware 4-row conjugation verbs and the volitional form of 書く was written as 書かう.  Over the time, the pronunciation had shifted from -au to -ō and now they are 5-row conjugation verbs.  I have added -o forms to Group 1 verbs. --Kusunose 12:07, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems a shame.  It's commendable from the point of view of classical Japanese, but conjugation using the imperfective is now ambiguous for modern Japanese.  Hopefully any confused readers will stumble across the verb conjugation page where the rules are less ambiguous :-). --Frentos 02:31, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I wonder if adding these forms to the table is the right way to go.  Specifically, the かこ and つかお forms are not the 未然形 in any other context than when followed by the 助動詞 "う".  Perhaps a footnote for the irregular 五段-ness of verbs like 書く and 使う would be more appropriate?  Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 17:03, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in Group 1 volitional conjugation 

message: Why are English names used in the example Japanese sentences? This seems to be a habit borrowed from many teach yourself Japanese books. Can I suggest the names are changed to Japanese names? This would also avoid the argument on how to write "Mary" in katakana! --Auximines 21:37, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea.  I'll do that now.  Exploding Boy 21:44, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mary and John

message: "Japanese is neither topic-prominent, nor subject-prominent...? As far as I get it IS a topic-prominent language, and this is in contradiction with the Topic-prominent_language article. nihil 06:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not topic-prominent? 

message: For the Brave: maybe mention double ga & double wa constructions? such as,
* watashi-ga karupisu-ga nomitai.
* Ken-wa Jun-wa kirai da.
There is obviously a problem calling ga a subject marker when it has other functions. For more info, see:
* Ono, T., Thompson, S., & Suzuki, R. (2000). The pragmatic nature of the so-called subject marker ga in Japanese: Evidence from conversation. Discourse Studies, 2, 55-84.  
peace – ishwar  (speak) 16:25, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: double ga & wa

message: In the verbs section of "conjugable words" there is a list of different classifications and how they function. Is it perhaps worth noting that some verbs like kekkon suru and shinu are not used in the continuous when refering to the state of being dead, or being married? They are used in the past form to indicate that the instentaneous action which created the continuous state which is now in effect in fact happened. I might be wrong here, or this might already have been said in the article in a way that I just didn't catch. Anyone? --zeigfreid
:... considering the number of Google hits I'm getting for お前はすでに死んでいる and お前はもう死んでいる, I'm pretty sure 死ぬ, at least, is actually a "punctual" verb (although I would have called it an "inceptive" verb to differentiate it from 打っている, which is really a horse of a different color). — on that note, looking at the "punctual" entry, I see am knowing for 知っている. Does anyone actually consider I am knowing something to be acceptable English? I'm not aware of any dialects in which it is.  –Aponar Kestrel (talk) 05:10, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Marriage

message: Very good and thorough. But comments:
*An infobox connecting all of the articles concerning the Japanese language would be useful.
*The article is very long. Suggest explaining the basics in this article and having sub-articles with full details + all of the examples (the examples are what really lengthen it).
*Punctuation needs to be mentioned briefly.
Other than these few points, the article looks great. It just needs a little polish for FA. (I would like to see why it failed the first time if anyone can fix that link)
In any case, a defo good article. Excellent job guys.
--SeizureDog 06:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Good article comments