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Sentence Fragments -
02-28-2011, 10:50 PM
This is a song lyrics I am using for a translation assignment. I was wondering if the examples below would be considered fragments, since the verb comes first.
Ex.I think the singer switched the verb and noun phrase so that the "ta" and "ka" rhymed and fit into the music. Am I right in assuming that it would equivalent to "We ran. In the rain" ? also in this part, would the bolded phrases be similar fragments? jibun no subete wo yuruseru kurai ni The song is "Tomorrow" by Shimokawa Mikuni Thanks in advanced for those who are kind enough to reply 
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02-28-2011, 11:12 PM
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02-28-2011, 11:17 PM
Yes
futari de nigebasho sagashite hashitta tenki ame no naka supposed to be... tenki ame no naka futari de nigebasho sagashite hashitta tatoeba nanika wo ushinau toshite mo mamotte ikanakya hitotsu dake wa suppose to be... hitotsu dake wa mamotte ikanakya Sounds like how Yoda talks 
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03-01-2011, 03:54 AM
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1. Japanese word order is considerably more flexible than beginning Japanese students are often lead to believe. 2. It's fairly meaningless and unproductive to analayze and discuss grammar used in creative writing as song lyrics. If one wants to study grammar, do so using non-creative writings. 3. If one insists on using song lyrics to study Japanese despite my advice against it, at least be informed that one should not treat each "physical" line as if it were an independent phrase or sentence.
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03-02-2011, 01:55 AM
Thanks for the responses. I get that line by line translations don't work, and thanks to kyle and yssync, I understand each stanza is one clause.
masaegu, thanks for your pointers, and yes I study Japanese (very slowly) using non-creative examples. However, this assignment was to explore how song lyrics still communicate meaning despite breaking grammatical norms, hency my asking if the song lyrics I chose broke any conventional rules. I get that Japanese has a flexible grammar, but one can only flex it so far before it becomes unintelligible. Fragments are incomplete sentences, but they often communicate their intended message because they still follow certain grammar rules. But changing the syntax too much could make it become nonsense. From what I can gather, the 天気あめの中 is a relative clause, and can be removed from the main clause, allowing it to be put at the end. But, would it be ungrammatical, unintelligible, and/or a different meaning if the singer sung the line elsewhere? Ex: 1. 天気あめの中二人で逃げ場所探して走った 2. 二人で天気あめの中逃げ場所探して走った 3. 二人で逃げ場所探して天気あめの中走った What about 走った. Would the phrase be unintelligble if it were not at the end? I suppose my questions are more linguistically centred, so if I am being annoying with it, do forgive me.
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03-02-2011, 02:07 AM
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03-02-2011, 02:27 AM
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I mean, think about this sentence in English: "I went there—uh, to the store." Now, would you call that sentence grammatical? I would. But how do you diagram it grammatically? The same goes for: "To the store. I went to the store." Again, grammatical? Do you call that first fragment "grammatical"? It's definitely not how you would write an essay or formal/official/high-level/scientific writing. But books are full of phrases like that, and conversation is, too. Similarly, with Japanese, the "correct" order of a sentence might be 郵便局に行きました。I went to the post office. But you will hear, all the time, something like 行きました、郵便局に。 I'd call these both grammatical, but others would say the second isn't because you wouldn't write like that in an essay for school or whatever. But it's still how people talk all the time. So I guess what I'm getting at is that your assignment probably expects you to look for places where a song deviates from the textbook grammar you have been taught. Maybe also look at girl rock songs to see if there are any females dropping ぼく or something, which might be considered "ungrammatical" by some.
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03-02-2011, 02:53 AM
All those are grammatically fine in English.
"I went there—uh, to the store." The pause there is fine. "I went there" is linguistically sound because of a noun and verb phrase. "To the store" is fine because it's a prepositional phrase and it follows the rule of a preposition+noun phrase. I can actually make a tree diagram of that sentence. But an English speaker wouldn't say "Store the went, uh, I there to." It breaks linguistic patterns and the diagram would be really messy. As for "行きました、郵便局に" notice the comma (or pause in conversation) breaks the verb and noun phrase, but the particle remains with the noun. And yes, the assignment is basically having me look for patterns in language syntax flexibility. My Japanese is basic, because I have been studying it linguistically in tandem with other languages, and I only started "really learning" Japanese for communication last summer, when I studied in Osaka, researching Japanese educational practices.
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03-02-2011, 03:04 AM
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I bristle at people suggesting Japanese songs are "ungrammatical" for the same reason that I would bristle at someone saying English songs are "ungrammatical." They don't follow the formalized patterns acceptable in "textbook correct writing," but they're still "grammatical" in that everyone can understand it (99% of the time). Quote:
Yeah, there's a crapload of syntax flexibility. I just wouldn't call any of it "ungrammatical."
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