Japanese Language Stack Exchange
Japanese Language Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [ambiguous-relative-clauses]

Relative clauses (連体修飾節/関係節) that have more than one possible interpretation, like 紹介する人.

Japanese relative clauses work by pulling out a noun to be modified and removing the accompanying particle (が/を/に/へ/etc). This sometimes results in ambiguous relative clauses. They typically happen when a verb takes two or more human arguments (e.g., AがXをBにあげる, AがBをCに紹介する, AがBを好きになる, AがXをBに食べさせる):

プレゼントをあげる人

  • the person who gives the present to someone (the giver)
  • the person who someone gives the present to (the receiver)

In relative clauses, は becomes が, which is another source of ambiguous relative clauses:

太郎が好きな人

  • someone who likes Taro
  • someone who Taro likes

This tag is for questions around this problem.

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Ambiguity when describing with verbs, e.g. 酒を飲ませる人

Here's a small thing I never thought about for too long as I always kinda dismissed it due to the context usually being clear enough, but now I've gotten curious and I figured I'd ask away: Let's take the example from the thread title「酒を飲ませる人」: Can…
Boolicious
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が in subordinate clauses

Since you can't use は in subordinate clauses, it looks to me like が is forced to take on both roles, so how would we distinguish them? For example, if we have the sentence 僕が好きな動物 how do we distinguish between "animal that I like" and "animal that…
Museum of Truisms
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Does 考えさせられる小説 make sense?

Something I learned early on when I learnt the causative-passive was that the sentences also make sense when you drop the causative-passive, e.g. 私はパンを食べさせられた。 私はパンを食べた。 Basically, "it's just a nuance". Someone (possibly unnamed) made you do the…
hgiesel
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Clarification about how 惚れた should be translated

There is sentence 「だがまあ、惚れた女を一途に見守っている男の邪魔をするのは無粋と言うものだ」 which I rougly translated as "However, as they say, it's rude to disturb a man who is earnestly watching over loved woman". But this translation is due to context, which suggests that it is…
sklott
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Relative Clause Ambiguous

After looking through a few questions on here, I came across the idea of the following being ambiguous. 私が好きな人 Apparently this can have the double meaning of 'the person I like' and 'the person who likes me'. Grammatically, I don't understand how…
AMathsStudent1
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Question about 変な奴だって思う子がいたら

Im reading a manga called Yotsubato and this phrase occurs when Yotsuba dad is talking to a girl witch is his neighbour. He says: 変な奴だって思う子がいたら. The meaning is: If you see a girl that makes you think... "It's a weirdo!" So, my question is, why the…
せいのしん
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Parsing the sentence 書く人物の顔が頭に入っていないと効果はない

This sentence is from Death Note, specifically on how to use it. This sentence is written in-universe using English. It states, “This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person’s face in their mind when writing his/her (the…
Von D
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Modifying nouns (how to know if a modified noun is the object or the subject?)

晩ご飯を食べなかったボブは、映画で見た銀行に行った。 Bangohan o tabenakatta bobu wa, eiga de mita ginkou ni itta. This means "Bob, who didn't eat dinner, went to the bank HE saw at the movie." What if I want to say "Bob, who didn't eat dinner, went to the bank I saw at…
Dekiru
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Which subject does かわいい describe in this example?

笑顔が無邪気でかわいい子 Hi. Does this clause here mean a child with an innocent and cute smile or a cute child with an innocent smile? Thank you
Tung
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Is どんなことでも失敗したら a whole clause or two separate clauses?

Is the sentence どんなことでも失敗したら、人のせいにしてはなりません。read as: [どんなことでも][失敗したら]、人のせいにしてはなりません。 = [No matter what][if you fail], don't blame people. or [どんなことでも失敗したら]、人のせいにしてはなりません。 = [No matter how you fail], don't blame people. ? Providing the reason with…
raruna
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Looking for help understanding a passage

I'm looking for some help understanding the passage below. I've highlighted in bold the parts that have me a bit…
hockiefan52
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The meaning of ”あれは魔術師に与えられた祝福”

I translated the sentence "あれは魔術師に与えられた祝福” to something along the line of "That is something that was given a blessing by a sorcerer" but in the translation that I compared it to, the translator translated it to "That is a blessing to sorcerer"…
Minh Nguyen
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Who's going what in 「溺愛する一人息子」

I'm referring to the following sentence, where I've placed the topic in brackets: （お婆は）溺愛する一人息子の又八が唆されて村を出たと思い込み、武蔵を激しく憎み命を奪うために旅を続ける。 I'm unsure as to who's actually doing the 溺愛： お婆は息子を溺愛する？それとも息子はお婆を溺愛する？ Furthermore, would it make any…
gav.newalkar
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A question about 受け身 in 連体形

I saw this paragraph in news 19日、殺人未遂の疑いで逮捕された、仙台市内に住む 大学生 佐々木楓容疑者24歳。刺した相手は、44歳年上の交際相手の男性でした I know 刺した相手 refers to the person who was stabbed. But I don’t know why the sentence uses 刺した instead of 刺された? As my understanding, the victim is the…
CN.hitori
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How is 好き used in "僕が好きなのは "

I was reading an example sentence: 僕が好きなのは日本料理ではなくタイ料理だ Here, I understand that 僕 is the subject in the first part of the sentence 僕が好きなのは. But as I understand the sentence as a whole, it means that: I like not Japanese dishes but Thai…
firuvi
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