Japanese Language Stack Exchange
Japanese Language Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [relative-clauses]

連体修飾節（関係節）. A type of subordinate clause which modifies a noun phrase.

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How does the の work in 「日本人の知らない日本語」?

I've read that 日本人の知らない日本語 translates to: "Japanese (language) that Japanese (people) don't know". But I don't understand how or what the の does in that sentence. If I'm not mistaken 知らない日本語 could mean "Japanese language that (x) don't know" or…
dotnetN00b
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"太ってる猫" vs "太った猫"

I saw this sentence and its translation in a textbook 彼女は太った猫が好きじゃない。 She doesn't like fat cats I was under the impression that 「太ってる猫」 means something like “cat that is in the state of becoming fat”, which basically means “fat”, so I was…
Pacerier
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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 words are intentionally bracketed for the sake of…
Friendly Ghost
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What are the general principles of using verbs to modify nouns (e.g. 焦げるトースト/焦げたトースト)?

In all the time I've studied the language, I've never heard or seen anybody even hint at whether the principles from a given language (like using “burnt toast” vs. “burning toast”) carry over, or if the language has its rules with how that works.…
Roy Fuentes
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Relative clauses distinguishing whom/with which/that

I love in Japanese, how adjectival clauses are just added in front of nouns like adjectives. The pizza that I ate = 私が食べたピザ But last night I became confused... In english we have words to link the clause to the main sentence (my grammar knowledge…
rewolf
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Are Japanese modifiers "greedy", "anti-greedy", or do they mean whatever people choose them to mean?

(I'm a beginner. I just started learning Japanese about a month before I wrote this.) The Japanese Wikipedia article 飛べない鳥, which corresponds to the English Wikipedia article Flightless bird, has the…
edom
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How does the present tense work in a relative clause?

そんなわけで、まだ日も暮れない夕方の通学路を、駅に向かってゆっくりと歩く俺と加藤。 I encountered this quote in a light novel and am stuck on how to interpret it. It feels like 歩く should be "walking" in this context, but it is not 歩いている. The sentence does not seem to express future or…
Joe
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relative clauses without verbs

I read a sentence in Naruto that challenged some of my ideas about how Japanese works, and I'd like to try and clear this up. I can only assume that アナタがピンチの時 means "when you're in a pinch". First of all, it looks like a relative clause modifying…
Axe
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Relative clauses types and confusion

I was reading Japanese:Revised edition by Shoichi Iwasaki And he talks about 4 types of relative clauses. A)“Cased Head” Type (Relative Clause): the head noun bears some case relation to the predicate in the modifying…
Splikie
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How to unambiguously express sentences with lots of relative propositions?

Background, problem statement Very often, I find myself in situations where I have to build structurally complex sentences in Japanese, and find myself struggling, trying to put all I want to say in a single sentence. As far as the other languages I…
Axioplase
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What is the difference between using ている、ていた、た in relative clauses?

I remember seeing in the thread before that there was no difference between ている and た. So then what would be the difference between the usage of them in these sentences below? 最後に立っていたものが勝者だ 最後に立っているものが勝者だ 最後に立ったものが勝者だ All the above are from…
bobbinonzeocean
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「悪気があっての答え」 vs 「悪気がある答え」

Hi all I was wondering what is the difference between these two sentences: 「決して悪気があっての回答ではないです。」 「決して悪気がある回答ではないです。」 I can't really make out the gist of the meaning of 「あっての」. WWWJDIC's explanation of 「あっての」 is "which can exist solely due to the…
Pacerier
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Does Japanese mark restrictive and non-restrictive relatives differently?

I was wondering whether Japanese distinguishes restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses in some way, either structurally or prosodically. English, for example, marks the distinction prosodically by inserting pauses for non-restrictive…
schoekling
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Rules governing formation of adjectival and genitive modifications for Noun-Phrase

The following was observed in sawa's answer to "Can ごとに be replaced by それぞれ in this question?": 　◯　正月はそれぞれの家が門松を立てる。 　×　木村さんはそれぞれの会う人に挨拶している。 　◯　木村さんは会う人それぞれに挨拶している。 それぞれの会う人 is said to be an ungrammatical construction because it is modified from…
Flaw
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『僕だけがいない街』Is it grammatically correct?

I would like to know if the anime's title " boku dake ga inai machi " grammatically correct? It's quite confusing because the verb ”いる” in negative form, should be the last word as long as I know. 街 Is noun and its referred to location of the…
Alyazi A
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