Particle (Japanese)
Particles havea basic grammatical functionin the Japanese language . In Japanese they are called joshi ( Japanese j , "auxiliary words") or, after the four most common particles, tenioha (てnach を は ). They are basically used as post positions , i.e. they come after the word or part of a sentence whose grammatical function they determine more precisely.
A distinction must first be made between sentence constituent particles on the one hand, which characterize the individual sentence constituents according to subject, direct object, goal of a movement, owner of a thing and other criteria, functions that have cases and prepositions in German . On the other hand are the final particles , which are after the predicate at the end of a main or subordinate clause . This second type of particle marks questions and the different types of subordinate clauses ( relative clause , conditional clause , temporal clause , etc.). They correspond to conjunctions .
This distinction is crucial because there are a number of particles that have very different meanings depending on their use as part of a sentence or final particle. In the example sentence
- 朝 の 七 時 に 何 を し た の。 asa no shichi-ji ni nani o shita no. "What did you do at seven in the morning?"
the particle の no occurs first as a “possessive” particle, which is used to define “7 o'clock” more closely by “morning”, and again at the end of the sentence as a colloquial question particle.
This article is devoted exclusively to the constituent parts of the sentence; for the final particles see Japanese grammar .
list
Bullet particles
The most important bullet points are と to for a complete list, や ya for an incomplete list and か ka with the meaning "or". This category also includes な ど nado , which is appended to the last link of an incomplete list with the meaning “for example” or “and so on”.
Case particles and post positions
The case particles and postpositions take on the tasks of cases and prepositions in European languages. They follow the noun directly.
| は wa (character actually stands for the syllable ha ) | subject |
| が ga | Subject in the subordinate clause |
| Subject not mentioned before | |
| の no | Possessive (genitive) |
| Subject of an attributive sentence (alternative to が ga ) | |
| に ni | Specification of the recipient |
| Indication of the agent in the passive and verbs of receiving ( from whom? ) | |
| Specification of the movement goal ( where to? ) (Partly alternative to へ e , the character actually stands for the syllable he ) | |
| Place ( where? ) (For some verbs) | |
| Specification of a point in time | |
| Adverbialization | |
| を o (character used to represent the non-existent syllable wo ) | Accusative object |
| で de | Place ( where? ) (For most verbs) |
| Instrumental (with what? ) | |
| Statement of the reason ( why? ) | |
| と to | Comitive ( with whom? ) Is used for people |
| へ e (character actually stands for the syllable he ) | Indication of the direction of movement ( where to? ) |
| か ら kara | Specification of the starting point ( from when / where? ) |
| ま で made | Specification of the destination ( until when / where to? ) |
| よ り yori | Specification of the comparison partner |
Modal particles
The modal particles follow the case particles / postpositions. The case particle が ga is always omitted, を o is retained in rare cases before も mo . The modal particles は wa and も mo are mutually exclusive.
は wa identifies the topic or serves as a contrast.
も mo means "also".
orthography
Japanese particles have been written with hiragana in modern Japanese since 1946, before katakana was used, especially in official texts. A number of particles also have Kanji spellings, but these are only used in sophisticated specialist literature.
A historical spelling has been preserved for the particles を , へ and は , but nowadays they are not spoken as wo , he and ha , but as o , e and wa . In this article, the particles are transmitted according to their pronunciation, as is standard in the Hepburn system .
Subject and subject: は ( wa ) and が ( ga )
The distinction between は wa and が ga is complex enough in its details to give rise to some linguistic debates. Therefore, reference is made here to the additional works by (Shibatani 1990) and (Kuno 1973) (see bibliography).
For the sake of simplicity, both are referred to here as topic particles ( wa ) and subject particles ( ga ). In the first approximation, the difference between wa and ga is a question of focus: wa puts the emphasis on the action of the sentence, i.e. on the predicate , while ga draws attention to the subject. This very theoretical definition will be explained in the following by means of examples.
wa as a topic article
One use of wa is to set a new topic in the discourse. The subject here is what the sentence itself and also the following sentences refer to. The corresponding construction in German is to drag a certain part of the sentence in front of the verb to the first position in the sentence, or a phrase like "what concerns XY, ...".
- 竜 也 く ん は 大学生 だ。
- Tatsuya-kun wa daigakusei there
- Tatsuya is a student.
In this simple example, the subject is rendered in German simply by making Tatsuya the subject. Other examples are more complicated.
The sentence 僕 は 鰻 だ ( boku wa unagi da ) uses the same grammatical structure, A は B だ , but here not in the sense of A is B, then the translation would be “I am an eel”. Instead, it is a colloquial abbreviation with the meaning "As for me, I'll take the eel" when ordering in the restaurant. This can be compared to "Imbissbuden-German", "I am the currywurst and it is the fries."
Decisive is the difference between は and が at subordinate clause constructions. The subject of the main clause is always marked with は , subjects in subordinate clauses are marked with が . Therefore, there is a phrase with は beginning of the sentence and this is followed by a subordinate clause, the phrase refers to は to the entire set, and not only in the subordinate clause.
- 私 は 探 し た 財 布 を 盗 ん だ。
- watashi wa sagashita saifu o nusunda.
I stole the wallet I was looking for.
- 私 が 探 し た 財 布 を 盗 ん だ。
- watashi ga sagashita saifu o nusunda.
(He) stole the wallet I was looking for.
Since no topic is marked in the second example sentence, the subject of the main sentence, i.e. the thief, is the same as the person who was last talked about. The subject of the main clause is missing in the Japanese clause, so the German translation has an "er" in brackets.
Questions
There are two possibilities when formulating questions with question words. In the first, the topic is left undefined, the question is used to ask for a topic. Therefore, the particle が ga is always used after the question word in such sentences . The same goes for statements that do not specify exactly who it is about (anyone).
- 誰 が こ の ケ ー キ を 食 べ ま し た か。
- dare ga kono kēki o tabemashita ka?
- Who ate this cake?
However, a topic can also be set in the question, in this case the topic, together with the particle wa , comes before the question word.
- こ の ケ ー キ は 誰 が 食 べ ま し た か。
- kono kēki wa dare ga tabemashita ka?
- Who ate this cake?
The difference lies in the emphasis: the first question emphasizes that the questioner wants to find out the culprit, the second formulation emphasizes that it is precisely this cake and not another.
Contrasting wa
Another use of wa is to delimit two different topics from one another and to contrast them, comparable to the German “but” and “however”.
- レ モ ン は す っ ぱ い ， オ レ ン ジ は 甘 い。
- remon wa suppai, orenji wa amai.
- Lemons are sour, oranges are sweet.
In practice, thematic and contrasting wa differ only in nuances. The contrastive use is usually given when, as in the example above, there are several wa in a sentence. The following example (according to Kuno) should illustrate the difference.
- 僕 が 知 っ て い る 人 は 誰 も 来 な か っ た。
-
boku ga shitte iru hito wa daremo konakatta
- None of the people I know came.
- (There were a lot of people there, but) nobody I know was there.
In the first interpretation, a thematic wa is assumed, with “people I know” ( boku ga shitte iru hito ) being regarded as the theme of the predicate “nobody came”. The connotation of the sentence would be that I expected someone from my circle of acquaintances to show up, but that was not the case.
In the second interpretation with the contrastive wa , a counterpoint is made to a previous statement or an implicit assumption, namely that a larger number of people has come. Therefore it would have been expected that someone the speaker knew would also come. In fact, none of these people came.
ga
The subject particle ga creates a relationship between predicate and subject. In the connotation, the subject is separated from other possible things that are in the conversation and expressed that the statement relates exclusively to this subject. This connotation does not exist in German, here it has to be expressed by an additional description.
- 桃子 が ピ ザ を 注 文 し た。
- Momoko ga piza o chūmon shita.
- Momoko ordered (the) pizza. (from those present)
ga as an object particle
In intransitive verbs, ga is used to mark the object; the use of o here is purely colloquial.
- 太郎 は フ ラ ン ス 語 が 出来 る。
- Tarō wa furansu-go ga dekiru.
- Tarō can speak French.
Location indicator: ni and de
Both ni and de are used to mark a location. ni is used exclusively for static verbs such as iru (to be), aru (to have, to be present) and sumu (to live), de only for action verbs such as suru (to do).
Static:
- Nihon ni sumu. "I live in Japan."
- Gakkō ni iru. "I'm at school."
Dynamic:
- Daidokoro de ryōri o tsukuru. "Im cooking in the kitchen."
bibliography
- Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.): Subject and topic (pp. 417-444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4 .
- Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
- Katsuki-Pestemer, Noriko (2003): Japanese Postpositions: Theory and Practice. Munich: LINCOM. ISBN 3-89586-855-8
- Katsuki-Pestemer, Noriko (2004): Basic Japanese studies 1. Troisdorf: Bildungsverlag EINS.
- Katsuki-Pestemer, Noriko (2006): Basic Japanese studies 2. Troisdorf: Bildungsverlag EINS. ISBN 3-427-00921-1