Page 98 - Basic Japanese

2.14. Dropping subject nouns

In English, every normal sentence has a subject and a

predicate. If there is no logical subject, we stick one in
anyway: ‘IT rains’ (what rains?), ‘IT is John’ (what is John—

it?). Sentences that do not contain a subject are limited to
commands—‘Keep off the grass!’—in which a sort of ‘you’ is

understood, or to a special style reserved for postcards and
telegrams, for example, ‘Arrived safely. Wish you were

here.’ In Japanese, the normal sentence type contains a
predicate, Arimasu ‘There is (some),’ Kamera desu ‘(It) is a

camera’—and to this we may add a subject or a topic, but it
isn’t necessary unless we wish to be explicit. Since the topic

of a sentence is usually obvious in real conversation, the
Japanese often doesn’t mention it at all, or occasionally
throws it in as an afterthought.

A predicate may consist of a simple verb, arimasu, imasu,

or of a noun plus the copula, Kyōshi desu ‘It’s (I’m) a teacher,’
but it cannot consist of the copula alone. The Japanese can

talk about the equation A = B, that is A wa B desu as in Kore
wa kamera desu ‘This is a camera,’ by dropping the topic (A)

and just saying = B, that is B desu as in Kamera desu ‘(It) is a

camera.’ But they never say just = (desu) or give a one-
sided equation like A = (B). Something has to fill the blank

before the word desu, in all cases.

2.15. Words of relative reference and question

words

Notice the related shapes and meaning of the following
classes of words: