Recently we learned the concise endings of sentences that were introduced in the section 20 of Minnano Nihongo. The followings are review about use of concise endings;
<1> Concise ending is used for casual conversation with your friends and family members often with some final particles describing friendliness (-yo, -ne, -yone, and so on) at the end.
<2> Concise ending is used for formal writings such as newspapers, technical reports, contract documents, and so on. The important difference from <1> is that final particles describing friendliness are not used.
<3> CE is used when studying Japanese grammar because of its conciseness to save your time and spaces on notebook.
<4> CE is used when you talk to yourself and write a diary.
<1> through <4> about concise ending are all about sentences’ endings. But not only for sentence endings, but concise endings are also used in the middle of a sentence. It is a kind of nested complex sentences using verbs of speaking and thinking. Today, we are going to learn such sentences with a verb of thinking, “Omou/Omoimasu (think)”. As a preparation, look at the following English sentence.
– I think that it’s going to rain soon.
= [Subject]+[Perceptual Verb]+that+[Subject]+[Predicate]
As you know, “that” in the above sentence can be omitted, probably because of the linearity of language (Though I am not good at English grammar). When you say “think”, people can expect what is coming next. It is a nested [Subject]+[Predicate] structure, even if “that” is omitted. Then what about Japanese?
– Watashi wa Mousugu Ame ga Furu to Omoimasu. (I think that it’s going to rain soon.)
In the case of Japanese, a nested [Subject]+[Predicate] structure is placed before the Verb. In terms of the linearity of language, you need to know where the end of the nested [Subject]+[Predicate] structure is. The end is marked by “to”. This “to” cannot be omitted.
The examples shown below are classified with type of “nested” predicates
<Verb; present-positive> — furu
– Watashi wa Mousugu Ame ga Furu to Omoimasu. (I think it’s going to rain soon.)
<Verb; present-negative> — furanai
– Watashi wa Ame wa* Furanai to Omoimasu. (I don’t think it’s going to rain.)
<Verb; past-positive> — futta
– (Watashi wa) Kinou Ame ga futta to Omoimasu. (I think it rained yesterday.)
<Verb; past-negative> — furanakatta
– (Watashiha wa) Kinou Ame wa Furanakatta to Omoimasu. (I don’t think it rained yesterday.)
<I-adj; present-positive > — Atsui
– Watashi wa Ashita Atusi to Omoimasu. (I think it’s going to be hot tomorrow.)
<I-adj; present-negative > — Atsukunai
– Watashi wa Ashita Son’nani Atsukunai to Omoimasu. (I don’t think it’s going to be that hot tomorrow.)
<I-adj; past-positive > — Atsukatta
– (Watashi wa ) Kinou wa Atsukatta to Omoimasu. (I think it was hot yesterday.)
<I-adj; > — Atskunakatta
– (Watashi wa ) Kinou wa Son’nani Atsukunakatta to Omoimasu. (I don’t think it was that hot yesterday.)
<Na-adj; present-positive > — Kireida
– Watashi wa Sono Heya wa Kireida to Omoimasu. (I think that room is clean.)
<Na-adj; present-negative > — Kireidewanai (Kireijanai)
– Watashi wa Sono Heya wa Kireidewanai to Omoimasu. (I don’t think that room is clean.)
<Na-adj; past-positive > — Kireidatta
– (Watashi wa ) Sono Heya wa Kireidatta to Omoimasu. (I think that room was clean.)
<Na-adj; past-negative > — Kireidewanakatta (Kireijanakatta)
– (Watashi wa ) Sono Heya wa Kireidewanakatta to Omoimasu. (I don’t think that room was clean.)
* What we are learning here is NOT “wa-ga construction”. In the construction below;
[Subject1] {[Subject2]+[Predicate2]} to Omoimasu.
Subject markers “wa” or “ga” is selected independently for each of Subject1 and Subject2.
This post was written with reference to the exercise A1 on Section21 of “Minna no Nihongo (2nd Edition)” published by “3A Corporation”