128 CHAPTER 3. MORE GRAMMAR
ing ”should X be the case, then Y”. The following two example sentences
should illustrate this quite clearly:
”If (you) read Heidegger, (you)’ll understand.
literally: ”Should (you) read Heidegger, (you)’ll understand.””If (you) have money, (you) can buy delicious food.”
literally: ”Should (you) have money, (you) can buy delicious food.”It is important to note that, while usually these sentences are trans-
lated with ”if” or ”when” (because they sound more natural than ”should”),
the real meaning of the is not really ”if” or ”when”, but is really only
a hypothetical conditional ”supposing that ...” or ”should ....”. The danger
in using the word ”if” lies in the fact that it implies a more general kind
of truth (compare ”If it rains, we get wet” to ”assuming that it rains, we’ll
get wet”. The first states a truth under all circumstances, the second gives
a possible truth for only one instance), and ”when” carries the implication
that something will definitely happen, being only a maĴer of time before
it does. The implies neither of these things.
3.2.9 Commands.
There are two kinds of commands, namely imperative commands (things
one should do) and prohibitive commands (things one should not do).
There are a number of ways in which to issue imperative and prohibitive
commands, and we’ll look at them in order.
Imperative commands
Imperative commands are quite easy to form in Japanese: for verbs,
simply take the and you’re done. For verbs there is a bit of
choice, as one can either use the + , or the + , depending
on how strong the imperative should be.