# I/you/(s)he failed the exam



## MarkOxford

Greetings!

For a paper I’m writing, I am trying to read an article about how pronouns can be omitted in Japanese. (Neeleman and Szendroȉ, ‘Radical Pro Drop and the Morphology of Pronouns’, _Linguistic Inquiry_ *38(4)*, Fall 2007, 671-714.) Since I don’t actually speak Japanese, it’s a bit hard for me to appreciate the linguistic data and I was hoping that someone might be able to help. For instance, (1) is given as a sample sentence. (I hope it’s ok to use a transliteration.)

(1) Sikenni otita.

This is translated as ‘_pro_ failed the exam’ – where _pro_ is a stand-in that indicates that there’s no overt pronoun in the sentence. Now, my question is: given the right context, can (1) be used to express each of the statements in (2), or is there a restriction on what pronoun we can ‘fill in’ for _pro_?

(2a) I failed the exam.
(2b) You failed the exam.
(2c) S/he failed the exam.

Imagine someone asks me: ‘Why are you so upset’. Could I respond with (1) to express (2a)? Or if someone asks me: ‘Why is Jane so upset’, could I still respond with (1), this time to express (2c)?

What about a neutral context – e.g. one where I’m just asked: ‘What’s new?’ Would it still be ok to respond with (1), and which of the sentences in (2) would it be taken to mean?


I hope this question makes a little bit of sense. Thanks for your help in advance!


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## Contrafibularity

MarkOxford said:


> Now, my question is: given the right context, can (1) be used to express each of the statements in (2), or is there a restriction on what pronoun we can ‘fill in’ for _pro_?


Well, this is a tricky question indeed.  The omitted subject [pronoun] is the speaker of the sentence "_Shiken ni ochita."_, and it depends on who says this. It can be either _I, You, _or_ S/he_.  Supposing that the speaker is _I_, I cannot think of any situation where the subject is anyone other than _I, _though with a little modification you can denote another subject as I will show later.



MarkOxford said:


> Imagine someone asks me: ‘Why are you so upset’. Could I respond with (1) to express (2a)? Or if someone asks me: ‘Why is Jane so upset’, could I still respond with (1), this time to express (2c)?


In both cases, it would be more natural to say "_Shiken ni ochita*ndesu/*ochita*nda*_."   -_ndesu / -nda _acts like "because", explaining why _I_ or _Jane_ is so upset.



MarkOxford said:


> What about a neutral context – e.g. one where I’m just asked: ‘What’s new?’ Would it still be ok to respond with (1), and which of the sentences in (2) would it be taken to mean?


In this case, only (2a) is possible.


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## MarkOxford

Thank you very much for your response. I’m not entirely sure I understand it, though. You say that the “omitted subject [pronoun] is the speaker of the sentence” and that this “can be either I, You, or S/he.” Isn’t the speaker always _I_? If Jack says the sentence to make a statement about Jill (if that’s possible), then Jack is the speaker but Jill the referent of the omitted subject pronoun, no? – I’m sure what you’re saying is correct, and I’m just not getting it.

About _ochita*ndesu*_ and _ochita*nda*_, can I just double-check that they are just two alternative ways of saying ‘because’? It’s not like one first-person and the other third-person, right?

Perhaps a comparison can clarify my question. In Spanish, you can also drop pronouns, but the Spanish verb is inflected for person and number. So, even after omission, the Spanish sentence can’t mean more than one thing. (Inflectional suffixes in bold.)

(3a)      Fall*é* el examen = I failed the exam.
(3b)      Fall*aste* el examen = You failed the exam.

From reading the paper, I _thought_ this was different in Japanese – that '_Shiken ni ochita_' can mean more than just '*I* failed the exam'. But now it sounds like matters aren't as simple ...

Again, thanks a lot!


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## Contrafibularity

MarkOxford said:


> You say that the “omitted subject [pronoun] is the speaker of the sentence” and that this “can be either I, You, or S/he.” Isn’t the speaker always _I_?


It exactly is.  Looking back at what I wrote, I should have worded more carefully.  Looking at the sentence as it is, I cannot think of any situation that makes possible a subject other than the speaker.   Or I _couldn't_, because now I have come up with a possible situation.  Suppose you are reading a novel about Jane's life and the narrator is enumerating the worst things that happened in her life, then _"Shiken ni Ochita."_ can be one of them with Jane as the subject. We don't usually repeat the subject if it is already mentioned and agreed between the speaker/narrator and the listener/reader.  There may be other cases like this.

Having said that, it is more likely that the implication of another subject is accompanied with a different sentence structure (with the addition of a subordinate clause, for example, or the Japanese equivalent of "I heard", "Because", "It seems", etc.)    All of these can be the "context" that determines the subject.



MarkOxford said:


> About _ochita*ndesu*_ and _ochita*nda*_, can I just double-check that they are just two alternative ways of saying ‘because’? It’s not like one first-person and the other third-person, right?


You are right.  It's just that -*ndesu *is more formal than _*-nda*_, and neither has anything to do with person.

Your Spanish examples made your question clear.  In each case, the inflected verb is the context that determines the subject.  In Japanese, it is more difficult to pin down the exact context.   Still, I'm tending towards saying yes to your question.   Given the right context, however broad it may be, the sentence can take other subjects than I.  (I've also come up with a situation where "you" can be the subject.)  I would like to hear what others think about this.


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## frequency

You Mark ask me Frequency "Why is Jane so upset?"
I answer you:

2a: I (Frequency) failed the exam.
2b: You (Mark) failed the exam.
2c: She (Jane) failed the exam.

And if you say (1) in this situation, you usually going to mean Jane failed the exam. Because the fact that she failed the exam fits "upset".



MarkOxford said:


> ‘Why is Jane so upset’, could I still respond with (1), this time to express (2c)?


Yes.

For this reason, when you don't want to say "Jane failed", you can use *I* or *you*.
You know in 2a and 2b, Jane is upset about our results. Is my post answering your question?


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## MarkOxford

Hi Frequency,

That’s very helpful – thanks!

Do you think there is a ‘default’ meaning, which the sentence expresses in a neutral context? Suppose I run into Jane’s brother Tim. He knows that both Jane and I recently sat an exam, but the exam is just one of many things he and I might talk about. Tim asks: ‘Hey, what’s up?’ Could I now reply with (1), or would this be ambiguous?

Thanks!
Mark


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## MarkOxford

Thanks, Contrafibularity!



Contrafibularity said:


> Suppose you are reading a novel about Jane's life and the narrator is enumerating the worst things that happened in her life, then _"Shiken ni Ochita."_ can be one of them with Jane as the subject. We don't usually repeat the subject if it is already mentioned and agreed between the speaker/narrator and the listener/reader.



To a certain extent, that’s also possible in English, though. “Then came the worst day in Jane’s life: on that Monday, she lost her job, (she) failed the exam, and (she) wasted money on a dress that didn’t even fit (her).” The bracketed pronouns can be omitted. In fact, I’d say that the sentence is _more_ natural without them. The first ‘she’ and ‘her’ can’t be omitted, of course – but maybe that would be possible in Japanese?

Thanks!


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## frequency

You're welcome.


MarkOxford said:


> Tim asks: ‘Hey, what’s up?


Tim wants to know about you. You know that. You say (1). Then (1) means "I (Mark) failed the exam."
Tim wants to know about you. But you want to tell him about Jane's result of the exam. You need to say "Jane failed the exam." (1) is not okay because it still means "I (Mark) failed the exam." (You know you want to talk about Jane, even though Tim asked about you.)

Default meaning? When you and your hearer clearly know about whom you're talking, you can omit the subject of a verb, as shown in the first case.


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## MarkOxford

frequency said:


> Tim wants to know about you.



I was more thinking of a case where Tim doesn’t want to know about me specifically: a case where neither I nor Jane are more ‘salient’ than the other.
In such a situation, there would be a bunch of appropriate responses to Tim’s “What’s up”, some about myself directly, some about other people I know. E.g. I might say “My mom’s back from her trip”, “My dad broke his leg”, “My sister passer her driving test”, “I/Jane failed the exam”. Alternatively, assume that Jane and I are both there when Tim asks, and that I’m just as likely to tell him that Jane failed, as I am likely to tell him that I failed. Then if I say (1), would that still be ok and how would it be interpreted?

I’m really not trying to be difficult, but I’d like to understand how far we can push pronoun omission. - Thanks!


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## frequency

MarkOxford said:


> I was more thinking of a case where Tim doesn’t want to know about me specifically


Tim loosely asks you "What's up?" Then (1) is still "I (Mark) failed the exam." You know, because the actor of the verb "failed" is likely to be you.


> Alternatively, assume that Jane and I are both there when Tim asks, and that I’m just as likely to tell him that Jane failed, as I am likely to tell him that I failed.


You want to tell that Jane failed, you need to say "Jane failed the exam." (Here you're not talking about you.)
You want to tell that Jane and you failed, say "Jane and I failed the exam." Maybe in the same way as you said


> “*My mom*’s back”, “*My dad* broke”, “*My sister* passed”


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## MarkOxford

frequency said:


> Tim loosely asks you "What's up?" Then (1) is still "I (Mark) failed the exam." You know, because the actor of the verb "failed" is likely to be you.



Right – I think that’s what I meant by ‘default meaning’: the meaning it takes in the absence of specific contextual cues. But as you explained earlier, the default can be over-written.

Thanks a lot, that was very helpful!


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## Contrafibularity

MarkOxford said:


> To a certain extent, that’s also possible in English, though. “Then came the worst day in Jane’s life: on that Monday, she lost her job, (she) failed the exam, and (she) wasted money on a dress that didn’t even fit (her).” The bracketed pronouns can be omitted. In fact, I’d say that the sentence is _more_ natural without them. The first ‘she’ and ‘her’ can’t be omitted, of course – but maybe that would be possible in Japanese?


It is, and it is probably possible in other languages too.  That actually crossed my mind when I was elaborating the case, and now I know this is not a good example after all. 

I may have been thinking unnecessarily much about the awkwardness of the sentence.   "_Shiken ni ochita_" sounds awkward to me (to me, at least) as a response to the question "Why is Jane so upset?" because it seems to lack a connection with the question, so it works better with the modifications I listed.  Awkward or not, however, the implied subject is still Jane and no one else.


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## MarkOxford

Thanks again, Contrafibularity: that was very helpful!


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## frequency

MarkOxford said:


> ‘Why is Jane so upset?’


In this question it's obvious that you and your hearer are going to talk about Jane.
So omitting the subject in this question is possible, as in your (1). You know this is usual in many languages, too.


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## MarkOxford

frequency said:


> You know this is usual in many languages, too.



Thanks. The big difference between Japanese (and Chinese) and e.g. Spanish, Italian, Turkish, … is that the latter languages have inflected verbs. So you can always reconstruct the pronoun from the inflectional suffix. (Finnish is interesting: it also has an inflected verb, but allows pronoun omission only in the first and second person.) Because these languages have such a rich inflectional morphology, the reconstruction is *unique*. So that’s why I got curious about Japanese and wanted to know how non-unique the meanings are. (I’m not disagreeing with you, btw, just providing some background.)


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## MarkOxford

As an afterthought, do auxiliaries make any difference to this? Suppose I say (i) – which I hope is correct. If I say it reply to: ‘What does s/he want to eat?’, could I use this to mean ‘S/he wants to eat an apple’? Or would this be misleading/infelicitous and can it only mean ‘I want to eat an apple’?

(i) Ringo o tabetai.

Thanks!


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## Flaminius

The auxiliary _-tai_ refers primarily to the desires of the speaker.  If you speak of someone else’s desire, you need to resort to a reportative construction.  E.g.:
Kanojo wa ringo ga/o tabetai sōda.

In an interrogative sentence, you can use _-tai_ to ask of the desire of the listener:
Ringo ga tabetai no?


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## MarkOxford

Thanks!

When you say that _-tai_ *primarily* refers to the desires of the speaker: is it not possible at all to mean something else with (i), then? Even if it’s crystal-clear we’re talking about what Jane wants to eat? (I’m surprised because from the previous discussion, I would have expected that this is possible.)

To compare this again to Spanish, ‘Quiero comer una manzana’ can only mean ‘*I* want to eat an apple’, because _quiero_ is first-person. Is it like that with _-tai_? I mean, I realise _-tai_ isn’t a personal suffix, but does it *force* the 1st-person reading just like the 1st person _suffix on quiero_ does?


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## Flaminius

You can assign an overt third-person subject as in:
Otto ga ringo o tabetara, tsuma mo ringo ga tabetai.
Gloss: If the husband eats an apple, the wife wants to eat one too.

I don’t want to speak in absolute terms but non-overt third-person subject is rare, to say the least, woth _-tai_.


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## MarkOxford

I see. Would this also work for more straightforward sentences? E.g. would ‘Jack wants to eat an apple’ be ‘Jack ringo o tabetai’?


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## Flaminius

Jack wa ringo o tabetai.

This sentence is slightly more wooden than the one with _sōda_ but still acceptable.


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## MarkOxford

Thanks! What's the function/meaning of _sōda, then?_


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## Contrafibularity

MarkOxford said:


> To compare this again to Spanish, ‘Quiero comer una manzana’ can only mean ‘*I* want to eat an apple’, because _quiero_ is first-person. Is it like that with _-tai_? I mean, I realise _-tai_ isn’t a personal suffix, but does it *force* the 1st-person reading just like the 1st person _suffix on quiero_ does?


If you say "Ringo o tabetai" to someone with a rising intonation at the end (i.e. making it a question), the subject will be that someone, hence the 2nd person. 



MarkOxford said:


> What's the function/meaning of _sōda, then?_


The function of _sōda _is to make a reportative statement as Flaminius explained in #17.


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## frequency

MarkOxford said:


> Even if it’s crystal-clear we’re talking about what Jane *wants to* eat?


This is third-person's wish/willingness. So it's better to use sōda.
This is different the case "I failed the exam". This is the fact in the past, so it is a clear and real event.
Your (i) Ringo o tabetai is understandable, but if you add kanojo, it gets clearer and more understandable as well. This is probably because of the reason above.


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## MarkOxford

Thanks, Contrafibularity and frequency!



Contrafibularity said:


> The function of _sōda _is to make a reportative statement


So, is it almost like '*She says* she wants to eat an apple'?


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## Contrafibularity

MarkOxford said:


> So, is it almost like '*She says* she wants to eat an apple'?



If the speaker heard that from herself, yes.   The speaker may have heard that from someone else, though.  With _sōda _only, it is hard to figure out who says that (not the speaker himself for sure). 


By the way, here's an example which I believe you will find interesting: 

_Jack went to the hospital to see how Jane was doing.  She looked better than he expected._ 

The interesting thing here is that in Japanese you can omit both pronouns (_she_ and _he_) in the second sentence and there is no room for misunderstanding.  This is from a classical example of pronoun omission in _Danwa no bunpõ _(1978) by Susumu Kuno and I gave it a tiny twist.  Now, this is a bit more complicated than the sample sentences you have listed in this thread because there are more than one person being talked about at the same time and still it is unmistakable.  It is far beyond my power to say what the key factors that make pronoun omission possible are, but at least in this case I can say one key factor is the sentence structure.  We complement the omitted pronouns based on the information we can get from the sentence.  Just because someone is being talked about, it is not always enough to determine the subject of a verb.  This is the very reason why I was often hesitant to say yes off-hand to your questions.


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## frequency

MarkOxford said:


> She says


"I heard." But "She says" is okay, too.
In #16, you work like a messenger. In brief, so you need yōda.
When you want to tell third-person's will to a third-person, you want to be less sure. This is what "yōda"can do.
In the OP, you're reporting the fact/reason that you know rather than being a messenger.

‘What does s/he wants to eat?’ "Ringo ga/o tabetai yōda." is okay, too. Because you don't sound as if you're speaking about you if you use yōda. (I mean (i) sounds like you're speaking about you.)


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## MarkOxford

Contrafibularity said:


> here's an example which I believe you will find interesting:
> 
> _Jack went to the hospital to see how Jane was doing. She looked better than he expected._


That is interesting, thanks! From what I understand, cases like this are one of the main differences between Japanese and e.g. Spanish pronoun omission.



frequency said:


> ‘What does s/he wants to eat?’ "Ringo ga/o tabetai yōda." is okay, too. Because you don't sound as if you're speaking about you if you use yōda.


So, would _yōda_ rule out the first-person reading - because people usually *know* whether they want an apple or not?


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## frequency

MarkOxford said:


> _yōda_ rule out the first-person reading


Yes. You know it? You assume it? Either is okay. It's likely that she wants to eat an apple.

The point is that you can omit a subject if you add something that means "She said", "She seems", "I heard", etc. You can mean that the person who wants to eat an apple is a third-person (Jane), not you.
Ringo ga/o tabetai XX (yōda, etc).   Not you, although you omit a subject.
Ringo ga/o tabetai.   Sounds like you want to eat if you compare it with the first one.

(Sorry for repeating.)


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## MarkOxford

Thanks, frequency: that makes a lot of sense.


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## frequency

You're welcome. Sorry I confused yōda and sōda. They're as similar as I can say


frequency said:


> Ringo ga/o tabetai XX (yōda, *sōda*, etc). Not you, although you omit a subject.


(You don't need to post thank you back to me.)


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