Japanese Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the Japanese language. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I'm used to seeing ほとんどのX to mean 'most X'. Sometimes I see Xのほとんど like in this question. Are both forms equally valid? do they have exactly the same meaning? For example is there any difference between the following:
ほとんどの果物は丸い。
果物のほとんどは丸い。
Most fruits are round.
Edit: I'm failing to see how this is a duplicate of a question I already added a link to. If I'm missing something please let me know.
It would indeed be tempting to say that these two constructions are effectively one and the same, but there are some instances where you simply cannot use them interchangeably. The subtle nuances are easier to grasp when they are translated into English.
[Grammatical]: ほとんどの果物は丸い。
= Most fruits are round. [adjective-ish]
[Grammatical]: 果物のほとんどは丸い。
= Fruits are almost always / in most cases round. [adverb-ish]
With this in mind, let's take a look at the following example:
[Grammatical]: ... その原因のほとんどは運転手のミスである。
= They are almost always / in most cases caused by ... [adverb-ish]
In this specific instance though, you cannot switch the words around and use the adjective-ish construction ほとんどのX:
[NOT grammatical]: ほとんどのその原因は運転手のミスである。
= Most their causes are ... [adjective-ish]
It is the word その [its/that/their] that makes this adjective-ish construction impossible here.
Bear with me here, as I have intentionally used clumsy English phrasing "most their causes are" for the sake of better capturing the feel of the Japanese sentence.
I'm guessing my question is very difficult to answer. そうかもしれませんね・・・＾＾ I think リンゴのほとんどを食べた could have a different meaning from ほとんどのリンゴを食べた... (though they can mean the same thing, too, of course) and, ほとんどの人は～、ほとんどの場合は～ sound okay but 人のほとんどは～、場合のほとんどは～ sound unnatural to me (but why?)