Making Sense of Japanese Grammar

38. The particle -no mediates a wide range of relationships. Mekishiko-jin-no tomodachi, for instance, means either “a friend of a Mexican” or “a friend who is Mexican”

38 The particle -no mediates a wide range of relationships. Mekishiko-jin-no tomodachi, for instance, means either “a friend of a Mexican” or “a friend who is Mexican” As we have seen in Units 34 and 37, the particle -no makes the preceding noun or noun phrase the modifier of the following noun. Many resulting noun phrases resemble the English possessive construction containing a possessive -’s or -s’. Hiroko-no kutsu “Hiroko’s shoes” Kyooto-no chikatetsu “Kyoto’s subway” kinoo-no shinbun “yesterday’s newspaper” daigaku-no gakuchoo “university president” Nihon-no terebi “Japanese TV” The relation between the modifying noun and the modified head noun is not uniform, however. Just as the English possessive construction covers a range of relationships wider than the possessive relationship (“yesterday” in “yesterday’s newspaper,” for instance, is not the owner of a newspaper), the Japanese use of -no ranges over diverse relationships. Take, for example, the following: Arabia-go-no sensei “teacher of Arabic” In this, Arabia-go “Arabic language” certainly modifies sensei 92 “teacher,” but the relationship between the two nouns is not that of “belonging.” Arabia-go, unlike Hiroko “Hiroko” or Kyooto “Kyoto” is not an entity which can possess or contain sensei. Rather, Arabia-go is the target of the activity which sensei carries out. Although the particle -no mediates various relationships, each of the above expressions has one English counterpart. An identical expression containing the particle -no, however, may have more than one English counterpart depending on the nature of the nouns involved, as in the following case: Indo-jin-no tomodachi “a friend of an Indian” or “a friend who is Indian” The expression Indo-jin “Indian” can mean either a specific Indian who has a friend or can be interpreted as a feature of a friend. Hence, we get the two interpretations. Likewise the following expressions have two interpretations each: tomodachi-no isha “a friend’s physician” or “a physician who is a friend” isha-no hahaoya “a physician’s mother” or “a mother who is a physician” Checking your comprehension: The following expression has two meanings. What are they? isha-no tomodachi Only one interpretation is available for each of the following expressions. Can you explain why? watashi-no daigaku “my university” tomodachi-no Roshia-jin “a Russian who is a friend” 93 For related topics, see also Units 34 and 37. ...