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From: rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.lang
Subject: Re: words order in English and Japanese
Message-ID: <3800@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: 4 Feb 88 16:13:52 GMT
References: <1671@russell.STANFORD.EDU> <7390003@hpfclp.HP.COM>
Reply-To: rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik)
Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle
Lines: 21
Summary: Japanese is no more vague than any other language.

In article <7390003@hpfclp.HP.COM> fritz@hpfclp.HP.COM (Gary Fritz) writes:
>
>I have been studying Japanese for well over a year now, and if there is
>one thing that is clear to me, it is that Japanese excells at vagueness
>and expression of one's mood.  Many times my teacher (who speaks excellent
>English) has tried and failed to explain the subtleties involved in 
>seemingly unimportant changes of phrasing.  It appears that Japanese

I think that your problem with Japanese is the same one faced by all
language learners.  There is nothing special about Japanese.  Have you
ever tried to explain English to a Japanese or Russian speaker ;-?  Try
explaining the difference between "John likes to ski" and "John likes
skiing".  How about the distinction between "Eve gave Adam an apple" and
"Eve gave an apple to Adam"?  There are reasons why English makes a
distinction between these constructions, but they are not readily
apparent, even to those well-versed in grammatical theory.
-- 
Rick Wojcik   csnet:  rwojcik@boeing.com	   
              uucp:  {uw-june  uw-beaver!ssc-vax}!bcsaic!rwojcik 
address:  P.O. Box 24346, MS 7L-64, Seattle, WA 98124-0346
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