42 CHAPTER 1. THE SYNTAX
1.5.2 Emphasis.
Another feature of languages is where emphasis lies in a sentence. In En-
glish, we tend to put the most pressing bit of information early in the sen-
tence, and then say whatever is further relevant to this information later
in the sentence. The previous sentence is a good example of this: the main
point is that ”important information comes early”, which is found earlier
in the sentence than the additional information. In Japanese, things are the
other way around: the more important the information is, the later it will
be placed in a sentence.
A rather simple example is the following pair of sentences:”I fell off my bike while riding home today.”kyou wa jitensha de kaerichuu de korondeshimaimasita.While the English sentence is up front with the emphasis, namely
that we fell off our bike, the Japanese sentence doesn’t actually tell you
what happened until the very last word, ’korondeshimaimashita’ – ”(I) (re-
greĴably/unfortunately) fell down”.
Being unfamiliar with this difference in emphasis (point, then de-
tails, in English vs. details, then point, in Japanee) can lead to confusion
when dealing with words that rely on this difference in what is the core in-
formation, and what is additional details, such as indicating simultaneous
actions: in English, ”while”. If someone asks ”what are you doing?” and
we answer with ”eating some dinner while watching TV”, then the main
activity is eating dinner. The ”watching TV” is additional information, but
not strictly speaking required for the answer to be complete. In Japanese,
with the same core information and details used, the placement is opposite:
the Japanese answer ”terebi o minagara, gohan o tabemasu” lists ”watch-
ing TV” first (’terebi o mi-’), then adds the marker for simultaneous action
(’nagara’) and then concludes with ”eating dinner” (’gohan o tabemasu’).
Both in English and Japanese, the concise answer would simply have been
”eating dinner”, or ”gohan o tabemasu”.
Another, more common, example is the use of ”rather”: ”I would
rather have X than Y” is a well known sentence paĴern in English, listing
the thing with most preference first. This becomes even more obvious in
the shortened paĴern, ”I would rather have X”. In Japanese, the ’rather’