Questions tagged [cleft-sentences]
分裂文. Sentences "clefted" into two parts. In Japanese, these commonly take the the form 〜のは〜だ or 〜のが〜だ, putting focus on the precopular constituent.
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I don't understand what のも means in 生まれたのも育ったのも京都なんですよ
Here's the sentence in question:
生まれたのも育ったのも京都なんですよ
I thought using の in a sentence signified possession (e.g. 私の本 [My book]). If I interpret the sentence as such, it doesn't make any sense.
Then I ...
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How to appropriately pair tenses in subordinate and main clauses?
Consider the following combination. Which is the correct one?
テレビが私の国で 《できた》 のは１９６０ 《です》。
テレビが私の国で 《できる》 のは１９６０ 《です》。
テレビが私の国で 《できた》 のは１９６０ 《でした》。
テレビが私の国で 《できる》 のは１９６０ 《でした》。
Note: The important ...
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Plain Verb followed by がよい
Recently I am reading 走れメロス, and there is a sentence pattern that I am not familiar with (Group 2). Compare the following sentence groups:
Group 1
訪ねて行くのが楽しみである。
疑うのが、正当の心構えなのだと、...
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votes
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Varying word order for stylistic effect
Sometimes, for stylistic or rhetorical effect, one wants to delay mentioning a word/concept until the end of a sentence. For example, it's often best to save the punchline for the very end:
I was ...
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Most natural way to write sentences of the type "A verbs that B verbs that C verbs that..."
A)
I think the typical way to say
Tanaka said that Yamata knows where the building is
in Japanese is
田中さんは山田さんが建物はどこか知っていると言った
Maybe it's more natural to say "the building's location" ...
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が vs. は in のが/のは...である cleft-sentence structure
The following is a sentence from the Japanese Wikipedia article about Berlin:
ベルリンという名称が歴史的文書で最も古く遡れるのが1244年である。
I understand the sentence, but I would have expected 遡れるのは here instead of 遡れるのが, ...
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