Monday 24 November 2014

It is not unnatural (as Tom Jones didn't sing)

This week I was completely baffled by a textbook reading. As such, I've been spending a lot of time today trying to puzzle out the intricacies of this page. Perhaps too much. I ended up trying to do a full-on analysis, which is hindered by never having really studied syntax, let alone Japanese linguistics. However, I did end up with a complicated table that I thought I'd share. Maybe someone will appreciate it.

The brackets (「 and 」) indicate the start and end of distinct grammatical elements. I've put things in different columns to indicate how deeply nested a particular phrase is.

English Grammar




それが

This NP





普通だ
Is ordinary VP



と思っている

Are thinking VP



日本人


Japanese people NP




Of PRT

習慣



Custom NP
からすると




From the
perspective of
PP



その時


This time NP



一回かぎり


Once and for all AVP





お礼
Politeness NP



だけ

Only AVP





By PP




(topic) PRT

もの足りなさ



Insufficiency NP




(obj.) PRT

感じる




To feel VP




this case PRT




(Emph.) PRT

無理はない



Is not unnatural VP

From the point of view of the cultures of the Japanese people, for whom this* is usual, it is not unnatural to feel the inadequacy of only a single expression of gratitude once-and-for-all on this occasion.**

* that is, repeating your thanks on several occasions

** that is, having done someone a favour

More naturally: From the point of view of the cultures of the Japanese people, for whom this is usual, it's natural to feel that thanking someone only once for a favour is insufficient.

I hope, glancing at the nested clauses and intricacies of this particular sentence, you can have a little insight into what I'm doing, and perhaps feel a smidgen of pity. Right, back to work...

6 comments:

  1. ... if I wrote a sentence with that many nested clauses, I'd get back Comments and Highlighter Marks indicating I shoudl make things clearer...

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    Replies
    1. I feel like, if someone who enjoys Lovecraft's writing thinks your prose style is clunky, things have gone too far.

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  2. In the original translation, does 'once and for all' mean the same as 'a single' .
    can they not have 'feel the inadequacy of only a single expression of gratitude on ONE occasion? in Japanese sentence?

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    Replies
    1. So the usual form omits a useful kanji - you can also write it as 一回限り, which may be helpful to you?

      It means something like "to a maximum of one time", which I think has a more generous feel than 一回丈 ("once only"). I get the impression it's a bit like the difference between 就 and 才? So one feels like you're suggesting that something is a lot, and the other implies it's not very much, even though the amount is the same? But I'm not an expert...

      I think you could write the sentence using 一回丈, but you'd need to rearrange it and probably add more words to compensate - I'm honestly not sure how though. Maybe 一回丈お礼を言うのもの足りなさ and so on. But it's probably wrong...

      Sorry!

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    2. For example, you also use 見渡す限り to mean "as far as the eye can see", or "to the limits of surveying-the-scene". It seems to have a sense of being a bit amount.

      Maybe the first one is better interpreted as "only once, and to the biggest extent possible"? So we would say "once and for all" in English.

      I dunno...

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    3. hmmm...even more puzzled...but thanks for the explanations:0

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