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Are ...とか他の... and ...とかの他の... equivalent? What is the function of the first の in the latter example?

And why can't a の follow とか in ...とかその他...? Or can it?

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    It sounds like "this or that 'or something else' " but can you give the sentence and context this comes from?
    – Tim
    Commented Oct 8, 2012 at 1:23
  • 396 Google "verbatim" results for "とかのその他". Several are false positives because there's a comma or period midway, but there are still plenty of actual uses. I get several on twitter too.
    – melissa_boiko
    Commented Oct 17, 2012 at 17:23
  • @LeonardoBoiko Incomparable to 25,200,000 results for "とかの他の"
    – Philip Seyfi
    Commented Oct 19, 2012 at 20:23
  • @PhilipSeyfi Google overestimates hit counts on the first pages. Use verbatim search, and keep forwarding to the last page. I got 434, ending on page 44. google.com/… ideally someone should search on an actual linguistic corpus to make a comparison, but at any rate I think it's reasonable to say that there are real people producing both forms (see twitter results).
    – melissa_boiko
    Commented Oct 20, 2012 at 21:13

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I'm not answering this from a linguist perspective (I'm not a student of Japanese, just a native user). Just a warning.

It seems like these are mostly equivalent ways of saying the same thing, but some sound more natural/awkward than others. Whether to insert a の or not depends on the flow of a sentence, and to me a sentence with too many の (as in とかの他の) sounds very awkward at worst, if not used sparingly. It's almost like trying to put together a sentence while using ”well," "you know," or "um" while thinking what to say next. Doing so doesn't really go against grammar in loose ways but often kills the flow of sentence.

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  • This was my feeling also, which is why I was very surprised when I met とかの他の on a number of occasions (and then when I found numerous results when I Googled it).
    – Philip Seyfi
    Commented Oct 19, 2012 at 20:18
  • The reason is that の is very useful and there are a number of ways it can be used to connect things, making it very easy to overuse. I must admit I'm very guilty of constructing sentences with too many の myself, especially when I hastily write/say something just to make a point. And on the web, many people are just trying to communicate, not trying to write beautiful Japanese sentences. They do convey meaning perfectly; it just sound awkward in formal writings. The Japanese aren't good at saying (English) "No" explicitly in negotiations, but they do use の a lot in their language.
    – Taro Sato
    Commented Oct 19, 2012 at 20:37

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