Who Has Information?

The source of this judgment, though apparently reliable, is not specified. In sentence 12 the speaker expresses that she obtained the information visually, by looking at the sky, for instance, and concluding from it that it would rain. It suggests that rain would start any minute, impending. In 13, it is clear that the speaker obtained this information about the weather by hearing from someone or reading in something (TV? Radio? Neighbor? Newspaper?). This sō desu expresses information that was obtained primarily through hearing and less frequently though other means. Sentence 14 is more general as to the source of information which led the speaker to believe that it would rain. The source or modes of obtaining this information is not made explicit. In the last one, sentence 15, the information is based on primarily visual information but an aggregate of other types of information may have also contributed.

11. Kyō wa ame ga furimasu

12. Kyō wa ame ga furi sō desu

13. Kyō wa ame ga furu sō desu

14. Kyō wa ame ga furu yō desu

15. Kyō wa ame ga furu mitai desu

English makes this sort of semantic distinction by choosing the appropriate verb. For 11, we might say "it will rain today (and I am sure of it)," for 12, "Today it looks like rain," For the rest of the sentences, 13 through 15, the distinction in English is less clear, and they all have an English equivalent like "I heard that it will rain today."

Conclusion

Through a number of examples, it was shown that information is not handled in Japanese in the same way it is in English. In this area of grammar, Japanese seems more specific and capable of showing more shades of meaning through grammar than English can. This does not of course mean that English is incapable of expressing these nuances. The English language has different means of accomplishing the same functional task, although perhaps more clumsily. In both vocabulary and grammar, then, we can conclude that synonymity or one-to-one correspondence between these two languages in meaning or in structure, or more generally, between any two languages, does not exist. Thus the task of, for instance, a translator of an English novel into Japanese will have to learn strategies to address these issues outlined in this section. For a learner of Japanese, she will have to get used to learning new distinctions that may not exist (or exist differently) in her own language.

Hiroshi Nara

Hiroshi Nara is Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests are 20th century Japanese intellectual history and modernity, particularly the development of aesthetic categories and their political implications before World War II.