I swear, the more I learn about Japanese, the more my idea of how language in general works gets turned on its head 
But hey, that’s part of the fun!
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I guess that in this case, it’s more that the definition of ‘completeness’ differs, very possibly because Japanese has a lot more implicit default interpretation strategies that don’t need to be invoked by the presence of a particular verb.
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Wow, thank you for finding that article about 体言止め. To be honest this question of why sentences sometimes end with a noun has been bugging me for the longest time and now I finally have a word for it and a reason why it happens.
While, like others have pointed out, it’s technically incorrect to stick です directly to the plain form of the verb, you can do this with ～んです - although if I’m not mistaken it has different nuance.
so from what has been explained to me, んです and んだ are used when you want to present information or explanations. It has the connotation of giving someone new info or setting up a sentence to explain something or give directions. Its a really hard thing to explain cause english doesn’t do it much. It’s like if you call somewhere and the first thing you tell them is the reason you are calling. Ex: calling a doctor and saying “I’m calling to set up my next appointment.” You would use んです instead of just です at the end of the sentence.
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Definitely a different grammar point. The ん is a contraction of の, functioning as a nominaliser, offering a sort of “explanatory” quality to the preceding sentence.
You don’t use んです as you would a regular copula. It doesn’t directly combine with a noun, with nouns (and な-adjectives, which are also nouns anyway) you insert the copula な in between, which is then nominalised by the ん/の. With い-adjectives and verbs, you just directly nominalise the preceding word.
You can also see it directly following a negative or negative copula, even as だ:
名人じゃないんだ - [it’s because] I’m not an expert
猫だったんだ - [it’s because] it was a cat
So while the だ/です in there is a copula, it’s applied to the (nominalised) preceding phrase, including the copula in that preceding phrase if there is one.
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To anyone interested in this topic I can recommend the book “Making Sense Of Japanese” from Jay Rubin.
Actually I am recommending it to everyone.
It is one of my favourite books.
He translated many books from Haruki Murakami to English.
From the book:
- Wa and Ga (that’s the killer chapter, nobody will ever be able to explain wa and ga like he did
) - Yaru, Ageru, Sashiageru, Kudasaru, Kureru
- Morau, Itadaku
- The Causative
- The Passives, Passivation, and the Passive- Causative
- Kara Da, Wake Da, No Da
- Hodo
- Shiru and Wakaru
- Tsumori (with perfect tense!)
- Kimeru, Kimaru
- Warning, This Language Works Backwards (yes!)
- The Pleasures of Reading Japanese
- Aru vs. De Aru
- Go Jump in the Lake, But Be Sure to Come Back
- Fiddler’s Three = Three Fiddlers?
- Eating in the Wrong Direction
- Anticipation, or: Progressive Simplification, or: Analyzing Upside- Down Sentences
If anyone posted about this book already, I am sorry.
After reading it, I felt it is OK to skip some of the postings…
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Yes, that’s right. I only referred to the “attaching です to the plain form of verb” part (even though it’s kind of OT for the OP question), and that was the closest thing I knew that actually works 
It indeed is different grammar point, and has explanatory function, but I think I also encountered it used to make the sentence polite - like when the speaker forgot to use ます form of verb, and hurriedly sticked ～んです at the end to fix that
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I’ll be honest about how I feel about Jay Rubin: he’s often associated with Cure Dolly, and because I find many of her ideas controversial or very different from the Japanese teaching mainstream, I tend to be suspicious of them. Now, some people find Cure Dolly’s explanations very intuitive, and good for them! Perhaps it’s the same with Rubin, or he’s even better. Also, there’s no guarantee that the mainstream has the best approach, though it’s helpful to know mainstream terminology because that helps you understand what people educated by the mainstream mean. I just wanted to be upfront in any case by prefacing my post with this.
Now then, the reason I’m here…
Out of curiosity, have you heard of this explanation?
This ‘five differences’ explanation dates from 1996, and was explained by a Japanese linguist in a book. This is the explanation I used to learn how to differentiate the two particles, even if it didn’t clear all my doubts straightaway, and I soon discovered that using the right particle was more a matter of spotting contextual clues and being aware of typical usage.
The translation in the post that I linked to isn’t mine, and I frankly don’t like it, but it’s mostly comprehensible, so I’m leaving it there. If you want, I can try to translate the Japanese article myself, though there are definitely going to be a few technical terms that I’ll get stuck on.
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Jay Rubin uses pretty mainstream terminology for stuff (conjugation, passive form, transitive/intransitive verbs, etc.), and unlike Cure Dolly he isn’t just outright dismissive of other sources or even textbooks even if he might have a slightly different take. Now what I think people like about his explaining は and が, as one example, that I think helps people, and textbooks don’t always cover this well at first, is how は and が throw emphasis on different parts of a sentence and are used to answer different types of questions.Though I will say, using Japanese Ammo with Misa, that she also uses a similar method of trying to highlight how the usage of them are different.
I will say it’s still an interesting read based on his experience as a translator and there are some good nuggets of info in there. It wasn’t mindblowing to me, but it was worth the price of a couple bucks for a cheap, used copy.
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BTW there’s a free preview available on Google Books if you want to check it out @Jonapedia
If you scroll a bit you can read some of the section on は and が there. Like I said, may not be anything mindblowing depending on your level, but I can see how his explanation would definitely provide some extra clarity beyond what is usually the simplified explanation that some teachers give at first to learners saying “は marks the topic and が marks the subject” and then just kinda act like you just almost randomly choose one or the other (my first informal-style Japanese class had a native-speaker teacher essentially teach it this way).
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this discussion has gotten pretty philosophical…
if you ask them, they may believe that it ought to be there, but then they’ve probably been explicitly taught at school that it’s an omission. I bet if you could look into what their brains were doing when they actually talk, the copula never factors into it…
saying the copula is default and gets omitted basically comes down to “what makes analysis easier”
the so called sentence fragments are still considered a type of sentence, it’s just that how it gets taught at school is usually very limited…
the cambridge dictionary defines a sentence as
a group of words, usually containing a verb, that expresses a thought in the form of a statement, question, instruction, or exclamation and starts with a capital letter when written:
and the mirriam-webster says
a word, clause, or phrase or a group of clauses or phrases forming a syntactic unit which expresses an assertion, a question, a command, a wish, an exclamation, or the performance of an action, that in writing usually begins with a capital letter and concludes with appropriate end punctuation, and that in speaking is distinguished by characteristic patterns of stress, pitch, and pauses
in addition, there’s a few methods for classifying sentences in linguistics since the traditional one is a bit too limiting - much like in japanese, we leave information implicit all the time in western languages (though not to the same extent).
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As far as I’m aware in English though, they’re considered incomplete sentences, and by extension not technically grammatically valid to use on their own even if they are generally accepted as such.
Though now that I’m thinking about it, that distinction seems purely academic and completely pointless, because what’s generally accepted is what’s going to shape how you use and interpret a language more so than official grammatical definitions.
The extent is exactly what I still occasionally struggle with. I thought we left a lot unsaid in Western languages, but Japanese has really showed me that’s not at all the case.
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on what basis are you calling them not grammatical? it’s still a sentence…(although not a clause)
incidentally they also get called minor or irregular sentences. I prefer that nomenclature 
I’m firmly a descriptivist. if enough people use it, it’s grammatical
I’ll stop derailing now…
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That’s jsut how I’ve always interpreted “incomplete sentence”, and many sources I’ve seen on writing have mentioned them as writing mistakes to be corrected. That said, extending that to “ungrammatical” is definitely an assumption on my part.
Yeah, I’m inclined to agree.
And honestly, in my view, so are prescriptivists, they’re just a lot slower to come to the same conclusion…
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Here’s my translation attempt. I honestly can’t believe I finally decided to do this, but here we go.
For once, I’ll be making allowances so the translation will sound more natural, even if some literal meaning is lost. I’ve also been forced to change some grammatical features (e.g. swapping passive and active voices) in order to maintain a similar word order and style:
[Preliminary note: the more I read, the more irritated I get by the use of 主格 in this article, and the more certain I am that the author was just using the wrong term. As such, I will be assuming that – based on context – the author intended to use 主語 in most cases, which I will translate as ‘(grammatical) subject’. If ‘nominative case’ fits better at any point, I’ll go back to that, but for the most part, ‘subject’ seems more accurate.]
Using「は」and「が」Appropriately
The things that have been constructed as explanations of means of using the particles「は」and「が」appropriately have been classified into five categories and summarised by Noda Hisashi.
（1）The method of discerning appropriate usage based on whether the information is new or old
In conversation and from context, the standard is that if the noun in the nominative case is unknown (= new information), one expresses that using「が」; if it is known (= old information), one expresses it using「は」.
・鈴木さんは校長です。Suzuki-san is the principal.（Because Suzuki-san is ‘known’, one expresses that by attaching「 は」.）
・鈴木さんが校長です。Suzuki-san is the principal.（Because who the principal is ‘unknown’, one expresses that by attaching「が」to「鈴木さん」.）
[Note: I may have over-interpreted some sentences in this first section in order to preserve the sense of 表す, but the truth is that I don’t think there’s any one specific thing – indicated by ‘that’ or ‘it’ in my translation – to be expressed. Rather, the idea is that one should speak/express one’s thoughts using the appropriate particle in each case.]
（2）The method of discerning appropriate usage based on whether the sentence is phenomenological or evaluative
A sentence that describes a phenomenon as is, without adding the speaker’s subjective assessment, is called a ‘phenomenological sentence’, and「が」is attached to the subject. In contrast to this, a sentence in which the speaker adds subjective assessments to a phenomenon and describes it is called an ‘evaluative sentence’, and「は」is attached to the subject. This is a method of discerning appropriate usage on the basis of the above.
・（looking at a dog before one’s eyes）犬が寝そべっている。The dog is sleeping flopped down on its belly.（phenomenological sentence）
・（pointing at an umbrella that seems to have been taken by someone else by mistake）それは私の傘です。That is my umbrella.（evaluative sentence）
（3）The method of discerning appropriate usage based on the point up to which the subject is relevant – up to the end of the sentence, or only within a single phrase
When the subject is relevant up to the end of the sentence, one uses「は」; when it is only relevant within a single phrase, one uses「が」. This method works on that basis.
・父が晩酌をするとき、つきあう。I keep my father company when he drinks during dinner.
・父は晩酌をするとき、冷や奴を食べる。When my father drinks during dinner, he eats chilled tofu.
（4）The method of discerning appropriate usage based on whether or not the nominative case expresses a contrastive meaning or an exclusive meaning
If the nominative case has, relative to some noun of the same type that does not appear in the sentence, a comparative meaning similar to ‘by comparison, it is […]’, then「は」is used（contrastive「は」）; when it has an exclusive meaning similar to ‘only this is […]’, then「が」is used（exclusive「が」／「が」of generalisation）. Discerning of appropriate usage is performed on this basis.
・犬は好きだが、猫は嫌いだ。While I like dogs, I dislike cats.（expresses a contrastive meaning）
・ 私が責任者だ。I am the person in charge.（expresses that among those present here, it is not someone else, but ‘I’ who is the person in charge）
（5）The method of discerning appropriate usage based on whether the sentence designates something (指定文) or formulates a proposition (措定文)
The predicate of「貴乃花は横綱だ」=‘Takanohana is the yokozuna’ expresses the nature of the noun that acts as the subject, and the sentence cannot be reformulated as「横綱が貴乃花だ」. Such sentences are called「措定文」, and「は」is used in such sentences. In contrast,「鈴木さんはあの人だ」=‘Suzuki-san is that person’ expresses that the noun in the predicate and the noun that acts as the subject are the same thing, and it is possible to reformulate is as「あの人が鈴木さんだ」. Such sentences are called「指定文」or「同定文」(‘statements of identification’), and in such sentences,「は」and「が」can both be used.
・地球は、太陽系の惑星だ。The Earth is a planet of the solar system.（措定文）
・あの人の趣味は、勉強だ。That person’s hobby is studying.（指定文）
Sorry about the late reply. I was a little busy, as you can see.
Thanks for all the effort you put into explaining how Rubin goes about things and for providing that link. I took a quick look, and while I probably won’t buy the book, I see what you mean about not just sticking to tired explanations and making an attempt to adapt things to what readers are likely to be familiar with.
This is something I heard a long time ago, actually, but yeah, maybe it’s not such a common thing in textbooks. The first resources I used when I was just dabbling in Japanese (and not formally studying it) were books that seemed to target specific parts of Japanese grammar and websites, after all.
I wouldn’t be so sure, if only because I think one still notices a difference upon hearing the copula. However, yes, perhaps it isn’t necessary to meaning and only provides extra confirmation or an additional nuance that doesn’t strictly speaking fall under a copula’s functions.
Or we could say that it relates to what is standard or well accepted.
What I thought about that^ was effectively this:
But see
I’m a prescriptivist. The reason being that I believe that standards are needed, if only for the purposes of teaching and communicating with as wide as audience as possible. I don’t think that any sort of usage should be imposed on a population, but the fact is, primarily due to various social phenomena, at least one of the possibilities is going to given a place of honour as the ‘standard’, and people who fail to be at least capable of using that standard when such usage is expected are doomed to be shunned by the most prestigious circles of society, or to at the very least be completely misunderstood.
The reason I can’t embrace descriptivism wholeheartedly is that if I had been a descriptivist, none of you would be able to understand a single one of my sentences right now. Wha’ u wld see ah, wld be liddis. No standud gramma, esp if I spell duh way I pronouns n yous SMS language. Laki I dun use Hokkien, oderwise y’all liak bo kyou. That or I would appear intellectually challenged. I’m from a country where there’s supposed to be a standard, but very few people are capable of imitating it with any respectable level of consistency, and the end result is that people who visit us tend to have trouble understanding us, and it’s pretty clear that some people think we speak English very poorly even though, ironically, a good number of people write very proficiently in English. If we used ‘enough people use it’ as the standard, Singlish would be a completely different dialect by now, no one would speak standard English, and no tourist would be capable of communicating with anyone in Singapore. A bare minimum of prescriptivism is necessary, especially in a globalised world where people have to be able to stand on the world stage and receive a modicum of respect when communicating their ideas. I would quite happily leave usage to its business otherwise. And that is also why in every language I learn, I have two boxes in my head: one for perfectly standard usage, and one for all other contemporary usage I need to know in order to fit in socially.
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I don’t trust feelings when it comes to explaining grammar anymore 
For the longest time I thought it is superior to only learn grammar in Japanese and belittle everything written in English.
There is a problem in that way of thinking, it’s because some of the difficulties with for example ha and ga arise because it is something not existing in European languages, so these problems are not addressed by an explanation for Japanese natives.
(please don’t force to me to comment on Cure Dolly 
)
That is exactly the same pattern as the sentence:
ぼくはうなぎだ。
It is famous in Japan, because it does not mean “I am an eel”.
What does Jay Rubin say about it?
“We cannot repeat too often that wa NEVER marks the subject of a verb.
It doesn’t mark the object either. And it certainly doesn’t unpredictably “substitute” for other particles such as ga and o. All wa ever does is tell you, “I know not about others of this category we’ve been talking about, but as for this one…”. Wa tells you nothing about how its topic is going to relate to the upcoming information: it only tells you that some information is coming up that will be related somehow to the topic. In fact, the only way that you can tell whether wa marks an apparent subject or object (or anything else) in a sentence is in retrospect. But language doesn’t work in retrospect.
When a grammarian tells you that wa can mark the subject of a sentence, he is able to say that only because he has seen the rest of the sentence and knows how it turned out.
But when real, live Japanese people read or hear a wa topic at the beginning of a sentence, they have absolutely no idea what’s coming.”
りょくちゃは いい におい です。
There is something to be stated about “green tea”: The smell is good.
In a convention for translating Japanese to English this is expressed with:
As for green tea, the smell is good.
To make it sound smoother it is of course common to rephrase that to something like:
Green tea has a nice smell or whatever, but it looses the nuance it has in Japanese,
which does not always matter but sometimes it matters a lot!
ぼくはうなぎだ。
This doesn’t mean “I am an eel”.
It means:
As for me, that’s an eel.
Depending on the context (which we don’t know) it could mean the following in Japanese:
- sitting in an restaurant ordering, it is my turn:
“I take the eel” - fishing on a boat looking at the fish just caught:
“I caught an eel” - playing a drama in school talking about your roles:
“I am the eel”
The nuance it looses is and here is a certain danger:
きょうは いい におい です。
If you say that to your girlfriend, it sounds like:
As for today, the smell is good.
That’s not a compliment because it implies that it is a rare occasion and on other days she stinks.
It is a bit strange that many foreigners often start every other sentence with Watashi wa because they don’t know about this nuance and think it just means* “I am…”
But it doesn’t.
Jay Rubin:
“The next time you are tempted to say Watashi wa ikimashita, stop and think about whether you really want to proclaim to the world, “I know not what course others may have taken, but as for me, I went!””
But the most important thing he points out is in my opinion,
that he says it is never the question of either wa or ga because they are not something like a pair you have to choose one from but they are particles which serves entirely different functions.
On top of the fact that it is never either wa or ga he makes it clear that sometimes both could be wrong, depending on what you want to express.
Jay Rubin:
"The difference between wa and ga depends entirely on context. Neither is automatically “correct” outside of a context, any more than “a dog” is more correct than “the dog”.
/
“What question is this sentence the answer to?”
/
The Answers
- Ikimashita. “I went.”
- Watashi wa ikimashita. “Me? I went.”
- Watashi ga ikimashita. “I went.”
The Questions
- Do shimashita ka. “What did you do?” Or: Ikimashita ka. “Did you go?”
- Soshite,Yamamura- san wa? Do shimashita ka. “And now you, Mr. Yamamura. What did you do?”
- Dare ga ikimashita ka. “Who went?”
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I think the relevant question is “in speech, do you construct sentences with だ and then delete it, or do you add it in when you feel you need to”
when you consider how people first started describing what is standard/well accepted, I think it’s the same thing
Imma continue this bit in the POLLs
I liked the book and the ideas presented therein. My main issues are the decision to use Romaji and the fact that it’s not very rigorous. It’s more tailored to general audiences and I really wish he would have spent more time expanding each chapter.
That’s a straw man, my friend.
You can be descriptivist and still push for standardization.
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No worries and happy to provide the info. As to buying the book, a cheap, used copy is I think worth it, but I wouldn’t spend more than a few bucks. For the $3 I spent at a secondhand book store, I think I got at least enough value. I definitely would have been a bit disappointed in it paying full price.
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