SEC. 1. THE SIMPLE POSTPOSITION. Japanese postpositions correspond for the most part to English prepositions. But some words which we should call adverbs and conjunctions, and others for which English has no equivalents are included in this category, When suffixed to a verb or adjective, postpositions require such verb or adjective to be in one of the attributive forms, a general rule which is subject to exceptions mentioned in the course of the present chapter. Postpositions are of two kinds, simple and compound. The chief simple postpositions, with their most usual significations, are :— Ga, I "of," or the possessive case: Oishi ga fukushyū, "Õishi's revenge; "...ga tame ni, "for the sake of." II. Ga is also used, especially in low-class writings whose phrase ology approximates to that of the colloquial, as a sign of what we should call the nominative case: Sugiura Shi ga shōhai wo juyo su, "Mr. Sugiura distributed the prizes." III. When suffixed to the attributive form of a verb at the end of a clause, it has an adversative force generally best rendered by "yet," 66 but," or "still" prefixed to the following clause. (See wo, which is preferred by good writers to ga in such contexts.) Ka, an interrogative particle, generally corresponding to our point of interrogation, but sometimes only to an expression of uncertainty: Aru ka, "Is there?"; Nani ka, "Something or other"; Sono sō-dan no matomarishi to ka nite, kondo...................... "An agreement having, as it would seem, been arrived at, they are now.. —When repeated, ka usually corresponds to “either....................... or." Followed by wa at the end of a sentence, ka expresses a merely rhetorical question: Shika nomi ka wa, "Is it only so?" i.e., "Of course it is not only so."-When suffixed as it occasionally is to a gerund, ka combines with the gerundial termination te to signify "doubtless because," probably on account of." Thus:-Seifu mo koko ni miru tokoro arite ka, honjitsu no kanrei rannai ni aru gotoku torishimari-kisoku wo mōkeraretari, "The government too, doubtless having certain views on the subject, has drawn up regulations, as may be seen in the official column of our today's issue." 66 Kara, "from," "since": kore kara, "henceforward." Koso, a highly emphatic particle, corresponding to an unusually strong emphasis in English, or to an inversion. which puts at the beginning of the English sentence the word to which the writer desires to draw attention. In classical Japanese each of the indicative tenses of verbs and adjectives has a special form in e, called by Mr. Aston the "perfect," which is used instead of the conclusive or indefinite form at the end of any sentence or clause in which koso occurs, hayashi, etc. etc. hayakere (i.e. hayaku are) Examples of the use of these forms in e are occasionally met with in the modern written style, thus: Kyōhō wa shisei no tasuke koso sure (for indefinite shi), samatage wa seji, "A help, and not a hindrance, is what education will be to the administration."-Koso or ni koso is sometimes placed at the end of a sentence, to give an emphatic and exclamatory force to the whole, thus: Makoto ni aramahoshiki koto ni koso, "Ah! it is indeed a thing one would like to see happen." In.. such cases no change is produced in any verbal or adjective form. 66 99 66 Made, "till," as far as,' "down to," "to": Kore made, "Thus far," "hitherto." Such phrases as myōgonichi made, may signify either "till the day after to-morrow;" or by the day after to-morrow"; but the latter meaning is the more usual. Made sometimes has the exceptional signification of "only," "merely," thus: Kono dan kihō made, “ This just as an answer," "This may suffice as an answer." (Epistolary style). Mo, properly" also," "even"; but very frequently a mere expletive not needing to be translated: En-ryo mo naku, "Without [even] any feeling of diffidence." It is often used expletively between the two members of a compound verb: Yuki mo tsukanu uchi ni, “Before he had reached" (yuki-tsuku means "to arrive at a place one is going to "). Mo likewise serves to form the hypothetical concessive mood of verbs. mo repeated signifies "both": Mukashi mo ima mo, "Both in ancient and modern times." Motte, "thereby," "and thus." See wo motte, page 37. то 66 Nagara, suffixed to nouns, signifies "just as it is," without change," "tel quel," thus: Mendo nagara, "Tedious as it is," "though a bore." More often it follows verbs (always in the indefinite, not in the attributive form), and then has the sense of "while," "during," thus: yuki-nagara, "while going." Ni, “in,” “into," "to." Ni has a great number of idiomatic uses, of which the following are the most noteworthy-I. What in English is called the subject of a sentence is often marked by ni followed by wa or oite. This gives the expression an honorific tinge, which is generally emphasized by putting the verb in the potential form, it being considered more polite to say that such and such a thing is able to happen in a person, than bluntly to assert that the person did it. Thus :-Kaigunkyō ni wa sannuru mikka kikyō seraretari, "the Minister of Marine returned to Tōkyō on the 3rd instant." II. With a passive verb, ni corresponds to "by," denoting as it does the person by whom the action is performed: Zoku ni obiyakasaruru, "To be scared by thieves." III. With a causative verb, ni denotes the person who is caused to perform the action, thus: Iin ni koto wo giseshimuru, "To cause the committee to deliberate upon a matter," i.e. "To leave a matter to the committee to deliberate upon." IV. Following the attributive form of a verb at the end of a clause, ni serves to indicate a contrast or difference between two consecutive actions or states. 'Whereupon" or "on," prefixed to the following clause, is the most literal English rendering, thus: Suiren no tassha wo shite saguraseshi ni, ni-nan 66 ichi-jo no shikabane wo hiki-agetari, "They caused search to be made by competent divers, whereupon the bodies of two men and one woman were recovered." But more frequently ni in such contexts must be rendered by "but," there being hardly any difference between it and wo similarly placed, thus: Zenjitsu oyobi yokujitsu kōu narishi ni, kono hi nomi wa kinrai mare naru kōtenki nite, 66 ...... Both the day before and the day after were rainy; but on this day only was the weather finer than almost any we have had of late, and so V. Ni suffixed to nouns sometimes means "and besides," "and." VI. Ni sometimes follows a word which according to English ideas should be in the accusative case, as: Hito ni au, "To meet a person." VII. Suffixed to the indefinite form of the verb, ni signifies "in order to" "to": Tori ni yuku, “To go to fetch." Nite (sometimes corrupted into de) I. "by means of," "by," "with": Kore nite shiru-beshi, "It may be hereby known." II. "in," "at": Ōsaka nite, "at Ōsaka." N.B. The postposition nite must not be confounded with nite, the indefinite form of the verb naru, which signifies "being." Noof," or the possessive case, thus: Tokyo no jūmin, "the inhabitants of Tokyo"; boku no zonjiyori, "my humble opinion"; kuni wo osamuru no konnan, "the difficulty of governing the country"; kisha no tsūkō suru, "the passing of the train," "the train passing." In examples like the last, the word followed by no almost comes to correspond to our nominative or accusative rather than to our genitive case, and the noun to which it is suffixed must often be turned into the subject of a clause in English. Thus :Waga hai no tsune ni ikan to suru tokoro nari, "It is a thing which we constantly regret," Totsuzen dempō no kitaru |