# object pronoun: it



## Nino83

Hello everyone.

I'd like to know if in Japanese you include or omit the object pronoun "it" in these situations.

Did you eat the cake? Yes I ate *it*. (English)
Hai mangiato la torta? Sì, *l*'ho mangiata. (Italian)
Tu a mangé le gâteau? Oui, je *l*'ai mangé. (French)
Comiste la tarta? Sí, *la* comí. (Spanish)
Comeste o bolo? Sim, comei-*o*. (European Portuguese, EP)

(Você) Comeu o bolo? Sim, comei. (Brazilian Portuguese, BP)

In English, Italian, French, Spanish and EP we include the object pronoun, while in spoken Brazilian Portuguese there's a strong tendency to omit it.
How is the situation in Japanese?

(Anata/kimi wa) kēki o tabemashita ka. （あなた・君は）ケーキを食べましたか。
Hai, kore o tabemashita. はい、これを食べました。
Hai, tabemashita. はい、食べました。
(I know that the most common answer would be "hai, sō desu" はい、そうです。, but if you repeat the verb, do you include the object pronoun too?).

If someone takes or steals something from you, what do you say?
Give *it* to *me*! (English) Gib *es* *mir*! (German) Da*mmelo*! (Italian) Donne-*le*-*moi*! (French) Da*melo*! (Spanish) Dá-*mo*! (EP) *Me* da *isso*! (BP) (isso = this)
(Watashi/boku ni) kore o kurete kudasai! （私・僕に）これをくれてください！
(Watashi/boku ni) kurete kudasai! （私・僕に）くれてください ！

Thank you


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## ktdd

Nino83 said:


> Hai, tabemashita. はい、食べました。


This sounds correct.


Nino83 said:


> If someone takes or steals something from you, what do you say?


I would say 返せ！ or, I don't know if this is too polite: 返してください。
Waiting for answers from native speakers.


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## frequency

Yes, as ktdd says, はい、食べました is good when you're talking about 食べた or 食べない.
In this set of a question and answer:
_ケーキを食べましたか？
はい、食べました。_

..Verbs are always the strongest element, so by using (repeating) the verb 食べた, we Japanese might answer the question like we say "Yes I did". (I don't know. This is my guess.)



Nino83 said:


> Did you eat the cake? Yes I ate *it*. (English)


You know, in this set, we usually say,
ケーキを食べましたか？
はい、それを食べました。
I don't know if this is correct or not, but at least slightly sounds roundabout to me. If it's obvious that you ate the cake, you can omit それを.

To be honest, we have the reason why we can omit "it" in Japanese. I'm looking forward to talking to you someday




Nino83 said:


> while in spoken Brazilian Portuguese there's a strong tendency to omit it.


U~m, really. Then I guess Brazilian Portuguese may be similar in the way of omitting "it". 



ktdd said:


> I would say 返せ！ or, I don't know if this is too polite: 返してください。


Yes. For example, それを返して！それを返せ！ それを返してください！are quite possible, too. But you can omit それを in the same way.


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## 810senior

Nino83 said:


> If someone takes or steals something from you, what do you say?
> Give *it* to *me*! (English) Gib *es* *mir*! (German) Da*mmelo*! (Italian) Donne-*le*-*moi*! (French) Da*melo*! (Spanish) Dá-*mo*! (EP) *Me* da *isso*! (BP) (isso = this)
> (Watashi/boku ni) kore o kurete kudasai! （私・僕に）これをくれてください！
> (Watashi/boku ni) kurete kudasai! （私・僕に）くれてください ！
> 
> Thank you





ktdd said:


> This sounds correct.
> 
> I would say 返せ！ or, I don't know if this is too polite: 返してください。
> Waiting for answers from native speakers.



Agree.
I'd as well say 返して, 返せ, 返してください without referring to an object pronoun.
(note that omitting is not mandatory, you may say それ if you want to be more slightly specific)

返してください is quite okay especially if you talk to a person in even higher position(for example, parents, high-grade students, seniors etc.).


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## Nino83

Thank you very much, ktdd, frequency, 810senior.


810senior said:


> (note that omitting is not mandatory, you may say それ if you want to be more slightly specific)


Thanks, senior. This is what I was interested in, i.e which is the preferred or most common usage in the spoken language.
The difference is that in those IE languages the direct (and the indirect) object(s) is (are) mandatory.


frequency said:


> Then I guess Brazilian Portuguese may be similar in the way of omitting "it".


I'm not sure about it (my doubt is about Japanese).
Brazilians tend to omit the direct object when it is a thing (inanimate) but if it is a person they use the stressed pronoun.
Did you see John yesterday? Yes, I saw *him*.
Viu o João ontem? Sim, vi *ele*. (Brazilian Portuguese) (Sim, vi-*o*. European Portuguese)
How is it in Japanese?
(Anata wa) Kinō Kei o mimashita ka. あなたは昨日圭を見ましたか。
Hai, kare o mimashita. はい、彼を見ました。
Hai, mimashita. はい、見ました。

Another question.
When the object is left-dislocated, in English and Italian (and in similar languages) the object pronoun is mandatory (at least in written language, where there are no pitch/stress distinctions that indicate marked word order, like "*John* I saw", "*Gianni* ho visto", higher pitch on the object).
This cake, I ate *it*.
La torta, *l*'ho mangiata.
Le gâteau, je *l*'ai mangé. (French)
La tarta, *la* comí. (Spanish)
O bolo, comei-*o*. (European Portuguese, EP)

As far as I know, also in these constructions, in Japanese, there is no pronoun, is it right?
Kēki wa, (watashi ga) tabemashita. ケーキは、（私が）食べました。
While the following sentence is not correct or idiomatic, is it right?
Kēki wa, (watashi ga) kore o tabemashita.  ケーキは、（私が）これを食べました。

Thank you


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## Flaminius

Nino83 said:


> (Anata wa) Kinō Kei o mimashita ka. あなたは昨日圭を見ましたか。
> Hai, kare o mimashita. はい、彼を見ました。
> Hai, mim


The European words for "see" has two equivalents in Japanese.  A chance encounter is expressed by を見かける, and に会う can express chance encounters as well as more purposeful meeting.  見る is used for neither.
はい、見かけました。 or
はい、会いました。
No need for a pronoun.

You are right about left-dislocation too.  But これ at terminus ad quo is found in _kambun_s and formal styles affected by it:
国の交戦権は、これを認めない。
- the Japanese Constitution, Article 9, Paragraph 2, second sentence


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## Nino83

Thank you, Flaminius.


Flaminius said:


> A chance encounter is expressed by を見かける, and に会う can express chance encounters as well as more purposeful meeting. 見る is used for neither.


(It seems that に会 is similar to "vedersi con qualcuno", to meet someone and を見かける to "vedere qualcuno").
But if I wanted to say that I saw Kei while he was walking on the street but without meeting him and without speaking withi him, can I use the verb 見る?


Flaminius said:


> はい、見かけました。 or
> はい、会いました。
> No need for a pronoun.


So Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese have a different structure regarding object pronouns.


Flaminius said:


> You are right about left-dislocation too. But これ at terminus ad quo is found in _kambun_s and formal styles affected by it:
> 国の交戦権は、これを認めない。
> - the Japanese Constitution, Article 9, Paragraph 2, second sentence


So is there no mandatory pronominal reprise (for left-dislocations) in Japanese?
I heard that Japanese Constitution was written under the supervision of the Allied occupation. In your opinion has this fact influenced the style, the grammar, used to write the Constitution?
In other words, is the pronominal reprise of left deslocated objects found only in Western oriented or influenced documents or is it found also in more traditional Japanese documents?


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## ktdd

Basically, the only thing mandatory in Japanese is the verb. Anything that can be understood through context tends to be omitted. For example, subject is routinely dropped if it refers to either speaker or listener. Anything that has already been mentioned needs not to be mentioned again, not even by using pronouns. And Japanese pronouns are really just nouns functioning pronominally. They have many forms and can be modified.
Subject-verb-object grammar describes European languages pretty well. But topic-comment structure is important in understanding languages such as Japanese and Chinese. These are what you call left-dislocations.
ケーキは、俺が食べた。
Notice that は is not a subject marker but a topic marker. In this sentence, the topic happens to be the object. And since it's already been mentioned (in topic, no less), there is no need to mention it again.

Edit: I would like to recommend this site to you, Nino. A Japanese grammar guide written by a Korean guy. A bit unconventional but in my opinion better than most textbooks.


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## Nino83

Thank you for replying, ktdd. 
This is a very wide (and interesting) topic (if moderators think this is too much for a single thread, feel free to do what you think is better).


ktdd said:


> subject is routinely dropped if it refers to either speaker or listener.


This happens in many Indo-European (Germanic languages and French excluded), Uralic and Turkic languages too (where verbs agree with the subject). Subject pronoun dropping is the rule, like in Japanese.
For example:
_Hai saputo di Mario? Ha fatto una vacanza a Parigi, ha conosciuto una bella ragazza e si è sposato. Adesso vive lì ed ha pure trovato lavoro. È un impiegato di banca.
Do you know about Mario? *[He]* Had a holiday in Paris, met a beautiful girl and then *[he]* got married. Now *[he]* lives there and got even a job. *[He]* is a bank clerk._


ktdd said:


> Subject-verb-object grammar describes European languages pretty well. But topic-comment structure is important in understanding languages such as Japanese and Chinese.


Mh...yes and no.
As for Japanese language, it's for sure that there are subjects and these share the same properties.
For example more verbs can refer to the subject (in the first sentence the subject is the actor while in the second one it's the patient, so this feature belongs to the grammatical subject, not to the actor).
*Hahaoya ga* kodomo o *shikatte naita*. *The mother scold* the child and *cried*.
*Kodomo ga* hahaoya ni *shikararete naita*. *The child was scold* by the mother *and cried*.
(The example is taken from Shibatani, "The languages of Japan").


ktdd said:


> These are what you call left-dislocations. ケーキは、俺が食べた。





ktdd said:


> Japanese pronouns are really just nouns functioning pronominally.


If the topic is the subject or an adjunct, the structures are equal (in Japanese there is the particle は, in the IE languages there is a prepositional phrase).
*昨日は*（私が）学校に行きました。 *Riguardo a ieri*, (io) sono andato a scuola. *As for yesterday*, I went to school.
*私は*昨日学校に行きました。 *Per quanto mi riguarda*, ieri sono andato a scuola. *As for me*, yesterday I went to school.
While there is a difference when the topic is a direct object. Probably because the Japanese pronouns are nouns but they *don't* work like pronouns, but like full nominal phrases (i.e like substantives, nouns).
Anyway, this difference is confined to the written language, where there are no pitch and stress. In the spoken language we can say:
*this book* John read (English), *questo libro* ha letto Giovanni (Italian), *książkę* przeczytał Janusz (Polish) (stress on the object, as you see we have OSV in English, similar to Chinese, OVS in Italian and Polish, instead of the unmarked SVO).
I know that for Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese, that lack prepositions/postpositions or case markers, things could be a little different (the work of Li and Thompson focused on Chinese and some Tibetan languages), but as long as Japanese and Korean are concerned, there is no great difference in grammar between these ones and languages like, for example, Turkish (or Indo-European or Uralic languages).


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## 810senior

Nino83 said:


> As far as I know, also in these constructions, in Japanese, there is no pronoun, is it right?
> Kēki wa, (watashi ga) tabemashita. ケーキは、（私が）食べました。
> While the following sentence is not correct or idiomatic, is it right?
> Kēki wa, (watashi ga) kore o tabemashita.  ケーキは、（私が）これを食べました。



Hi again.
As for this part, the second sentence sounds a bit awkward because the same object(ケーキ, followed by a topic marker は) is unnecessarily repeated there. ケーキは、私が食べました is rather okay.
Maybe that is as well one of the parts different from English or other romance languages you lined up before. c.f. as for *the cake*, I ate *it*. or *le gâteau*, je *l*'ai mangé.


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## Flaminius

Nino83 said:


> So is there no mandatory pronominal reprise (for left-dislocations) in Japanese?


No mandatory pronominal reprise in Japanese.  Thank you, *810senior*, for reiterating in #10 the point I wasn't clear enough.



> I heard that Japanese Constitution was written under the supervision of the Allied occupation. In your opinion has this fact influenced the style, the grammar, used to write the Constitution?


I am aware of a few political pundits who endorse this view but they are wrong.  As can be seen in the official law database, the English version uses passive voice in the same place: "The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."



> In other words, is the pronominal reprise of left deslocated objects found only in Western oriented or influenced documents or is it found also in more traditional Japanese documents?


Like I said in #6 _supra_, pronominal reprise is a style in _kambun_ (translation or reading conventions for the Japanese to understand Chinese classical literature).

The Analects (4-15) reads:
吾道一以貫之。 [My way is permeated by one (principle).]

A traditional Japanese reading of the part is:
吾(わ)が道(みち)は一(いつ)以(もって)之(これ)を貫(つらぬ)く。[My way, one (principle) permeates it.]

While 以 has certain grammatical functions in Chinese, its _kambun_ equivalent もって can be regarded here as an expletive.

Kojin Shimomura (1884-1955), a novelist, translated it into Modern Japanese using passive:
私の道はただ一つの原理で貫かれているのだ。

At some point in the process of draughting the Constitution of Japan, a group of Japanese scholars proposed that it employ a plainer language than was wont in pre-War laws.  The proposition convinced the Cabinet as well as the Allied Forces.  Writer Yūzō Yamamoto was asked to proof-read parts of a draught version including the preamble.  Then, the rest of the draught was revised by officials using Yamamoto's text as template. [The demand for a plainer Japanese surged in the post-WWII Japan but it is rooted much deeper.]


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## ktdd

Hi Nino, I knew you are a language buff! 


Nino83 said:


> This happens in many Indo-European (Germanic languages and French excluded), Uralic and Turkic languages too (where verbs agree with the subject). Subject pronoun dropping is the rule, like in Japanese.


Yes, but for different reasons in my opinion. I can read a little Italian.  I know subject pronoun dropping is the rule in romance languages, because that piece of information is already imbedded in verb conjugation. (French is an exception, either because many of their very important verb forms sound exactly the same in speech or because the language ultimately comes from Latin spoken by a Germanic tribe, I cannot say for sure. ) Japanese verbs have no personal endings, but still they drop the subject pronouns whenever possible.
マリオさんを知っていますか。Know Mario? -- It's a question directed at the listener, so "You" must be the subject.
知っていますよ。Sure know. -- Obviously this is not about you, so "I" is implied.
Japanese language is very economic. Ambiguities arise, and must be resolved through context.
マリオさんは知っていますか。
This could mean "As for you, Mr. Mario, do you know that?" -- "that" being something we talked about previously.
It could also mean "As for Mr. Mario, do you know him?" -- All depends on context.
Because of their tendency to drop everything that can be inferred, figuring out who is talking about whom in Japanese requires some mental effort, especially when you're reading. It could be confusing, and takes a lot of getting used to, is all what I'm saying.


Nino83 said:


> As for Japanese language, it's for sure that there are subjects and these share the same properties.


I'm not saying SOV analysis does not apply to Japanese. Of course it does. I just wanted to bring to your attention another aspect in topic-prominent languages that might not be apparent to Western learners. For example, while が marks the grammatical subject, は only marks the topic.


Nino83 said:


> Probably because the Japanese pronouns are nouns but they *don't* work like pronouns, but like full nominal phrases (i.e like substantives, nouns).


Glad you already know that. 
Indo-European languages use pronoun to avoid repetition. Japanese goes even further: pronoun itself is deemed redundant if it is clear from context what it refers to. (They are not really pronouns anyways, so they are not required as in other languages.) As for Chinese, my judgement is clouded by the fact that I'm a native speaker. But my impression is that we avoid the pronoun "it", to the point that if we have to repeat, we repeat the noun itself.


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## frequency

The discussion is going fine while I was off lol! I have nothing to say, but today I was wondering:



ktdd said:


> I would say 返せ！ 返してください。


返せ！ vs それを返せ！
はい、食べました。 vs　はい、それを食べました。

In the first, in particular, both are really okay. Why we have both ways? That's just your random choice
As 810 said in her #4, if you add それを, you're specifying/pinpointing it.


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## Nino83

Thank you all for this interesting discussion. It's a pleasure to speak with you, and thanks to Flaminius (-san? -sama?) for allowing such a wide discussion.


Flaminius said:


> As can be seen in the official law database, the English version uses passive voice in the same place: "The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."


Thank you for all those infos about politics and literature.
When I wrote my thesis for my master in law I found very interesting (and quite unique) some Japanese political institutions (like the single non-transferable vote electoral system, the personal support organizations (Kojin kōen-kai, 個人後援会) which were necessary for vote management in that electoral system but that, at the same time, were a source of corruption and pork barrel politics).


810senior said:


> As for this part, the second sentence sounds a bit awkward because the same object(ケーキ, followed by a topic marker は) is unnecessarily repeated there. ケーキは、私が食べました is rather okay.


Thanks for clarifying this aspect.


ktdd said:


> I can read a little Italian.


Great!


ktdd said:


> Yes, but for different reasons in my opinion. [...] Japanese verbs have no personal endings, but still they drop the subject pronouns whenever possible.


This happens also in those Austronesian languages that have not the so called "Austronesian alignment" (languages other than those spoken in Taiwan, Philippines and Madagascar), Chinese languages, Thai, Vietnamese. It seems it's a widespread feature of that area.


ktdd said:


> I just wanted to bring to your attention another aspect in topic-prominent languages that might not be apparent to Western learners.


In fact, Li and Thompson in "Subject and topic: a new typology of language" (1976) say that it is a matter of frequency (not the honourable member of this forum ), i.e topic-comment constructions are the basic or one of the most common structures in topic-prominent languages while they are marked constructions in subject-prominent languages.
If you're interested in how topicalization works in English and Italian language you can read this thread: topicalization and word order
I think the grammatical structure and syntax of Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, Uralic, Turkic and East Asian languages is quite similar and it doesn't pose great problems to European learners. (Yes, tones can be difficult, but for musicians, they can be managed. For example Cantonese flat tones, 1, 3 and 6, are equal to the first three notes of the song "all of me", C (high) G (medium) E (low), and the tone 2, 4 and 5 are ↑C (high) ↓D (low) ↑G (medium). Obviously each speaker has its "tonality", but the pitch intervals are more r less equal. Cantonese has an "all of me" tone system ).
Think about the "trigger" system (actor/patient/benefactive/locaive/reason voice) of Tagalog, or to the polysynthetic languages of the Americas (Eskimo languages, Navajo, Mohawk, where a single word can include an English or Japanese very long sentence). Those languages are really difficult to learn.


frequency said:


> In the first, in particular, both are really okay. Why we have both ways? That's just your random choice


Thanks for the tip.


frequency said:


> I'm looking forward to talking to you someday


日本語で？難しいです。 I hope I can. (I've to learn a lot of new words!) 

Resuming:
a) some languages have pronouns that work like full nouns (Japanese, Hindi, Indonesian, and so on)
b) some languages require pronouns with left-dislocations but not in topicalizations (Romance, English, other Germanic)
c) some languages require pronouns in all circumstances (polysynthetic languages like those of the Americas)

It seems that Japanese is in the first group.


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## frequency

ktdd said:


> Subject-verb-object grammar describes European languages pretty well.


Yes. This is it.

So, I think this is related to:


Nino83 said:


> b) some languages require pronouns with left-dislocations but not in topicalizations (Romance, English, other Germanic)




The Japanese language doesn't always obey the rule of subject-verb-object grammar. Therefore, はい、食べました is, in brief, possible as ktdd sees:


ktdd said:


> Basically, the only thing mandatory in Japanese is the verb.


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