Making Sense of Japanese Grammar

60. Reality consists of continuous-grade scales; language makes things discrete

60 Reality consists of continuous-grade scales; language makes things discrete By now, we have appealed to the concept of scale more than once. It is time to articulate this more clearly. A variety of linguistic phenomena makes sense when we take into account the concept of scale and prototypes. Reality may be said to consist of continuous-grade scales. For example, even though a year is conventionally divided into four seasons, there is little or no physical difference between the last day of summer and the first day of fall. We might in fact have fall days which look like summer. In other words, a year is a continuous-grade scale. Nevertheless, we divide the year into seasons. This is possible because we know that, in the northern hemisphere, most days around January or February are typically winter-like, with low temperatures and snow, while most days around July and August are typically summer-like, with high temperatures, high humidity, and afternoon thunderstorms. A year, then, contains seasonal prototypes. It is on the basis of these prototypes that we conceive of discrete categories. Transitivity Scale Similar cognitive processes operate throughout language. The transitivity scale is one of them. As we saw in Unit 26, there are some very transitive verbs. At the other end of the scale, there are some very intransitive verbs. Between these two ends, there are verbs of different degrees of transitivity. They, along with the prototypical ones, form a continuum. Each language draws a line somewhere to form conceptually discrete categories. Thus in Japanese, stative verbs such as iru “to need” and wakaru “to understand” are classified as intransitive verbs, while their English counterparts “need” and “understand” are classified as transitive verbs. Various grammatical operations, such as the choice of a particle or the number of noun phrases associated with a verb, are determined on the basis of membership in one of these discrete categories. Apparent discreteness of the classification should not mislead you into believing that things are either black or white. There is a large gray area near the borderline. Prototypical verbs behave as expected of their class, but near the borderline, things are more fluid. For instance, of the verbs iru “to need” and wakaru “to understand,” the second is slightly more transitive, so that, depending 156 on the other elements in the environment, it can function as a transitive verb: Anata-no koto-o wakaroo-to shita. “I tried to understand you.” In this case, the intention to bring about change makes the verb more transitive. Nominal Continuum The nominal continuum (proper nouns, common nouns, attributive nouns, and na-nouns) is another case in point. As we saw in Unit 40, the difference between attributive abstract no-nouns like byooki-no “sick” and na-nouns like kenkoo-na “healthy” is very subtle, and there are borderline nouns that behave as both na- and no-nouns, as shown below: iro-iro-{na/no} kuni “various countries” dokutoku-{na/no} seikaku “unique character” -ni and -de Another example is the choice of the particles -ni and -de (see Unit 24), which are typically distinguished as in the following: Toshokan-ni iru. “I am in the library.” (placement) Toshokan-de hirune-suru. “I take a nap in the library.” (activity) A verb such as tomeru “to stop,” which borders placement and activity, can appear with either of the two particles, with slightly different meanings: Eki-no mae-ni ootobai-o tometa. “I parked the motorcycle in front of the station.” (placement) Eki-no mae-de ootobai-o tometa. “I stopped the motorcycle in front of the station.” (temporary action) 157 Or, some borderline activity verbs like umareru “to be born” and ryuukoo-suru “to go around/to be fashionable,” which normally appear with -de, can appear with -ni when describing historical events from a long time ago. This is because such events lose the vividness of a recent event: Kirisuto-wa Betsurehemu-ni umareta. “Jesus was born in Bethlehem.” Juuhasseiki-goro asagao-zukuri-ga Edo-no machi-ni ryuukoo-shite-ita. “Growing morning glories was popular in the city of Edo around the 18th century.” Checking your comprehension: Can you explain why the verb wakaru “to understand” take -o in the following sentence? Watashi-no kimochi-o wakatte-kudasai. “Please understand my feelings.” 158 For related topics, see also Units 24, 26, 27, and 40. ...