ごんは、家に着くと、ウナギを家の外に置いて、言いました。
In this sentence, a fox called ごん has run all the way home to escape an angry fisherman who he stole an eel from.
Why is と the conditional used here? I could understand had it been たら because that one is like sequential, but と isn't is it? I thought that if you had a conditional with a past tense S2 (Sentence two) then it was meant to indicate a surprising result. What is と doing in this sentence?
Thankyou
ごんは、家に着いた (then what happened?) すると、ウナギを家の外に置いて、言いました。
と puts a little more emphasis on what happens next. It makes your narration sound vivid. It can also imply some kind of relation between two consecutive actions. e.g. causality or immediacy.
と seems very common in stories and novels. すると is also a conjunction.
I found an explanation in 庭三郎's 現代日本語文法概説
過去の事実を客観的に叙述するこの用法は、「～と」の基本的な用法の一つです。小説などで事態の描写に多く使われます。
(One of the basic usages of と is to narrate events in the past objectively. It's frequently used in descriptions in novels.)
「～と」は、同一主体の連続的な動作を描写することができますが、これは「～たら」にはない用法です。
船は、汽笛を鳴らすと、静かに岸壁を離れていった。（？たら） 彼女は、顔を上げると、きっぱりとこう言った。(と can be used to describe sequential actions of the same agent while たら cannot.)
豊田豊子 wrote a series of papers on と.
豊田豊子1978「接続助詞『と』の用法と機能(1)」『日本語学校論集』5
豊田豊子1979「発見の『と』」『日本語教育』36
豊田豊子1979「接続助詞『と』の用法と機能(Ⅲ)」『日本語学校論集』6
豊田豊子1982「接続助詞『と』の用法と機能(Ⅳ)」『日本語学校論集』9
豊田豊子1983「接続助詞『と』の用法と機能(Ⅴ)」『日本語学校論集』10
Both events in your sentence take place in the past and the application of 〜たら and 〜と is slightly different.
As Yang Muye says, と is often used in stories to objectively describe events and the conjunctive すると is often used to set up the scene for what happens next. Momotaro, the peach boy is sometimes given as an example of this use of と.
〜たら on the other hand cannot be used if the actor has control over the sequence of events which is the case here.
This use of と is different from the "conditional-と" which is used to mark a condition that brings about an uncontrollable event. In such cases S2 cannot be volitional and the following sentence (not set in the past) is ungrammatical:
今日、仕事が早く終わると君の家に寄るよ。*
Objectively is the operative word in all this. The following sentence is incorrect because the writer is too closely involved in the events:
私は家へ帰ると晩ご飯を作った。*
The て-form is more natural:
私は家へ帰ってから晩ご飯を作った。
And the following sentence is acceptable because even though the writer is describing his own activities, he has distanced himself from them:
去年、クリスマスの日に私の町のレストランがすべてしまっていた。私はその時、家へ帰ると自分で晩ご飯を作った。
Reference: A students' guide to Jpse Grammar by Naomi Hanaoka McGloin
I'm Japanese.
The differences between ば/と/たら are difficult.
Japanese also ask similar questions: http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1115354691
In short, "と" needs proof of happening for next sentence. "たら" don't need proof, wishful word also used after たら.
Assign these three sentence to variables for simplicity.
and then,
ごんは、家に着くと、ウナギを家の外に置いて、言いました。
can transform to
S1すると、 S2して、S3する。
Do S1, and then, do S2, and do S3.
Simply stated, there is little difference. But, と implies to us the "certainty of next sentence" after the former sentence, we can read it comfortably.
Here, this 接続助詞 "と" works not as conditional. It simply connects another sentence which happened immediately after that. Almost the same meaning as "すると" or "そして".
This site explains several uses of 接続助詞 "と":
http://blog.livedoor.jp/liangliangliaoba/archives/6029734.html
異なった主体が同時またはほぼ同時に起こる場合
- 学校につくと、ベルが鳴った。
- 家に帰ると日が暮れた。
- 道を右に曲がると、駅が見えた。
The last one translates not as "If I turned right, I saw a station", but as "I turned right, and then I saw a station." And so on.
