Using the free sample pages from bookwalker, I printed out a few first pages of books I’ve read and have been working on non-exhaustively analyzing them. Lately at work I spend some time each shift out counting customers so we don’t go over capacity, and when it’s slow I have little to do. I can’t read a book, and I can’t do flashcards on my phone, but there is a clipboard out there. (None of my coworkers read Japanese, and a clipboard makes anything look official, right? Not that they would mind either way. )
コンビニ人間 attempt
I started with コンビニ人間. I’ll put the blank page below for easier reading than the marked copy, and also in case anyone wants to do something before seeing my attempt.
What came to mind at first was just breaking down the sentences into: nouns (including noun phrases), verbs, particles, adverbs, etc. After doing it on paper, I marked up a digital copy as it’s easier to see.
- nouns (including noun phrases) in red boxes
- an orange line marks where the main noun (that is being modified) starts
- verbs (including all conjugation bits) and the copula with blue lines
- particles with dark purple dots
- adverbs with light purple lines
- adjectives (not in noun phrases) with yellow lines (I only had one)
I chose not to break down the noun phrases at this point. Marking any one thing in more than one way made the page a real mess.
There were a couple of parts I was confused about! When I read the sentence, I understood what was being said, but when it came down to marking it as one thing or another, my brain faltered.
Some of my doubts
- I decided 整然 was an adverb here, taking と, but I decided 勝手に was an adverb all together (including the particle). I am not sure why.
- ため is listed as a noun and an adverb depending on what it’s modifying, and here I think it’s modifying a verb, so I made it an adverb… And the stuff in front of it I guess stands alone? Even though it’s kind of modifying ため, no? (This is one of those things where in plain reading it wouldn’t bother me so long as I understood the sentence, but in analyzing it makes my brain hurt.)
- I assume in the grammar point verbと, the と still counts as a particle, right?
- Things with the nominalizer の, I marked の as the main noun being modified… I guess?
Those are only the things I have noticed enough to have doubts about. I bet there are things I’m simply messing up or overlooking, so if you see anything, please let me know!
Finally, I thought the most fun part of this page with its many, often long noun phrases was finding the main noun and figuring out what all modified it. Thus, I tried taking out all the modification, including the stray adverbs. I instead put words like ‘this,’ ‘that,’ ‘these,’ ‘those.’ Where I needed a modifier (like ‘my’) to have the sentence make sense in English, I kept it or added it in.
Rough English meaning stripped of modifiers
Convenience stores are full of noises. This noise, and that voice. That shout, and this noise. This noise, that noise, and the other noise. They all mixed together, became “the convenience store noise,” and were (constantly) brushing at my eardrums.
At that noise, I lifted my head. It was because there were a lot of those customers that I reacted, my body moving that way. After confirming that, I returned my gaze to my hands.
While gathering information from these noises, my body lined up those onigiri. At this time, it was onigiri, sandwiches, and salads. On the other side, that Sugawara-san was checking goods with a scanner. I lined up that food in that way. This mentaiko cheese in two rows in the middle, that tuna mayo to the sides in two rows, and that other onigiri on the end. Since speed was of the essence, those rules gave my body directions without me (hardly) using my brain.
A few days later, the final (?) marked-up page:
Note: For the clause ending in ため in column 7, I made the whole thing a noun phrase, with ため as the main noun. The whole thing is acting as an adverb, so I also put a little purple line by ため. Not a perfect solution, but it will do.
Thank you for any feedback! I’m doing this for a little brain exercise during dull moments, but I’d be happy to learn more about how this stuff works.