# Repeated antecedent of a relative clause



## Caballero negro

Is it possible to repeat the antecedent of a relative clause in Japanese in the form of a personal pronoun+postposition, in order to avoid ambiguities? For example, can I say "watashi ga aitsu no tame ni ikusa wo hajimeta hito" (the man because of whom I started a war)?
In some books, it is written that the repeated antecedent of a relative clause does not sound natural in Japanese and that we should omit it, even if there would be ambiguity without it. For example, Wikipedia says that although the sentence "Watashi ga kiji o kaita ie" could be understood both as "the house IN which I've written an article" or "the house ABOUT which I've written an article", we should not repeat the antecedent using a personal pronoun with a postposition.

So, is my first sentence correct, or I should just say "watashi ga ikusa wo hajimeta hito"?


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## wind-sky-wind

That doesn't matter in usual Japanese use.
Just when you translate from English or other languages.
First, there are no relatives in Japanese.

the picture which I took:　watashi-ga totta shashin
the man who took the picture:　shashin wo totta hito
the camera WITH which I took the picture: shashin-wo totta kamera

the house which he built: kare-ga tateta ie
the house IN which he lives: kare-ga sundeiru ie

Some (Many) Japanese people don't understand why you use "with" or "in" because it isn't in Japanese sentences.

In this sense, this is ambiguous.
So, when explaining this structure, we often say "kare-ga (sono naka-ni) sundeiru ie."

This is not a natural expression in Japanese, however.

I think it is impossible to translate sentences with relatives perfectly, as I first said there are no relatives.

In your case, in "the man FOR whom I started the war," it is one way to insert "aitsuno tame-ni" in the translation, but it sounds awkward.


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## DaylightDelight

Caballero negro said:


> "watashi ga aitsu no tame ni ikusa wo hajimeta hito" (the man because of whom I started a war)?


It sounds unnatural.  I'd make it a separate sentence, because I don't believe it can go well as a relative clause.
"Watashi wa aru hito no tame ni ikusa wo hajimeta. Sono hito wa ..." (I started a war for a certain person. That person is ...)



Caballero negro said:


> "watashi ga ikusa wo hajimeta hito"


This is also unnatural, not because of a relative caluse, but because "ikusa wo hajimeta hito" does not make much sense.

In general, translations of relative clauses tend to be awkward in Japanese.
You sometimes need to completely rewrite the sentence in order for it to work in Japanese.


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## frequency

Caballero negro said:


> "Watashi ga kiji o kaita ie" could be understood both as "the house IN which I've written an article" or "the house ABOUT which I've written an article"


Yes, exactly.
"Watashi ga kiji o kaita ie" would usually be understood as "the house ABOUT which I've written an article".
If you want to say that you wrote an article in the house, I'd say "Watashi ga sokode kiji wo kaita ie": you need/add more information to avoid ambiguity and confusion.

Therefore,


> Is it possible to repeat the antecedent of a relative clause in Japanese in the form of a personal pronoun+postposition, in order to avoid ambiguities?


I'd say it's possible. As I did, you can use other ways. But I wonder if I'm answering your question. lol  Post us back if you have more questions.



> "watashi ga aitsu no tame ni ikusa wo hajimeta hito" (the man because of whom I started a war)?


No, unfortunately it's an error, I think. Do you mean the hajimeta hito = watashi? If so, _I'm the man who started the war because of that man (=aitsu)_. No?

"watashi ga ikusa wo hajimeta hito"?
This means _I'm the man who started the war_.


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## Schokolade

Caballero negro said:


> "watashi ga aitsu no tame ni ikusa wo hajimeta hito" (the man because of whom I started a war)



If forced to use a relative clause, I think you could say something like...

私がその人の｛ために/せいで｝戦を始めた、まさにその人
(watashi ga sono hito no {tame ni / sei de} ikusa o hajimeta, masa ni sono hito)
_lit. the very person, {for / because of} that person I started the war. _

OR:

私がその人の｛ために/せいで｝戦を始めた、そんな人
(watashi ga sono hito no {tame ni / sei de} ikusa o hajimeta, sonna hito)
_lit. Such a person, as I started the war {for / because of} that person._

...Although it would be more natural to say something like:
私が戦を始める原因になった人
(watashi ga ikusa o hajimeru gen'in ni natta hito)
_lit. the person who became the cause of my starting the war. _
-> the person who caused me to start the war.


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## frequency

Schokolade said:


> 私がその人の｛ために/せいで｝戦を始めた、そんな人
> (watashi ga sono hito no {tame ni / sei de} ikusa o hajimeta, sonna hito)
> _lit. Such a person, as I started the war {for / because of} that person._



Good catch, Schoko! This is possible, too. But I'm still not sure if there are three people or two.


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## Flaminius

wind-sky-wind said:


> I think it is impossible to translate sentences with relatives perfectly, as I first said there are no relatives.


I think it's just a technical quibble but Japanese does have relative clauses.  It is relative pronouns that Japanese lacks.  Because Japanese relative clauses are marked only by verb morphology (marked by the adnominal form of the subordinate verb and it is identical with the citation form in Modern Japanese), there is no gramatical device with which to express the case that the antecedent receives in the relative clause.

The standard solution for translation is using two nouns; one for the antecedent to catch the relative clause and the main noun that serves a role in the main clause.  Both nouns are to loosely point to the same entity.



> watashi ga aitsu no tame ni ikusa wo hajimeta hito


This is not understood because _aitsu_ and _hito_ can be two different persons.  Like  *Schokolade* #5 suggests, using sore/sono is a good choice of the word.

The artcle about the house:
私が記事に書いた家
The locative reading of _-ni_ is prevented by the active nature of the verb 書く.

私が記事を書く作業場にした家
作業場 and 家 are loosely appositive.


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## DaylightDelight

My point is that, even though we can somehow manage to put relative clauses into Japanese, they seldom sound natural.


Schokolade said:


> 私がその人の｛ために/せいで｝戦を始めた、まさにその人
> 私がその人の｛ために/せいで｝戦を始めた、そんな人
> 私が戦を始める原因になった人





Flaminius said:


> 私が記事を書く作業場にした家


These sentences are all understandable and unambiguous, but they don't sound right to my ears.
They might be fine for exam papers, but if I were to come across such a sentence in novels I read for fun, I'd stop reading it right away.


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## frequency

Caballero negro said:


> "watashi ga ikusa wo hajimeta hito"?



Okay, I could understand what you want to know and I can start from this one.
Yes, as you say, this fragment is two way:

_I'm the man who started the war._
Or
_The man with whom I started the war_

How do we distinguish it? By context and finding other related information. Regarding this ikusa example, I think you say about the second one. Without context, more usual that comes to our mind would be the first one (I'm the man..)

And I'd say the second: 私がいくさを始めることになった人 or as Schoko said, 私がいくさを始める原因になった人. You can start it like this, 私がいくさを始めることになった男とは、ＸＸＸといい・・。


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## Schokolade

DaylightDelight said:


> My point is that, even though we can somehow manage to put relative clauses into Japanese, *they seldom sound natural*.



Oh, they don't?

ここに置いてあったお金
毎日乗ってる電車
注文していた商品
イギリスで買った紅茶
お母さんがくれた指輪
初めて見る景色
お笑い番組の司会やってる人


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## Caballero negro

Thank you, guys. 
First of all, I would like to say that when I say "antecedent", I am refering to the head of the relative clause, in this case, it's HITO.

I have heard many times that in many languages with prenominal relative clauses (Japanese, Turkish, Basque) it does not sound natural to try to create relative "pronouns" by using personal pronouns followed by postpositions, like in my sentence ("aitsu no tame ni"). However, in the last 2 centuries, when there is so much interaction between languages and when it has become popular to translate texts from one language to another, languages are obligated to converge their syntactic systems in order to establish a good translation.
So, if I am rigth, it is OK to use two independent clauses instead of using "aitsu no tame ni"? For example, if I say "watashi wa aru hito no tame ni ikusa wo hajimeta. Sono hito wa.......("I started a war because of a man. That man.........").

By the way, I can see that native Japanese speakers almost never use extremely long relative clauses. When they use it, it is because they want to translate some texts from European languages.


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## DaylightDelight

DaylightDelight said:


> My point is that, even though we can somehow manage to put relative clauses into Japanese, they seldom sound natural.





Schokolade said:


> Oh, they don't?


Okay, I admit I went a little too far by saying "seldom," and your new examples seem natural enough.



Schokolade said:


> 私がその人の｛ために/せいで｝戦を始めた、まさにその人
> 私がその人の｛ために/せいで｝戦を始めた、そんな人


But surely you wouldn't say these are very natural, would you?
As you yourself said "if forced to use a relative clause...", I still don't believe relative clauses come very natural in Japanese, except for simpler ones.



Caballero negro said:


> So, if I am rigth, it is OK to use two independent clauses instead of using "aitsu no tame ni"? For example, if I say "watashi wa aru hito no tame ni ikusa wo hajimeta. Sono hito wa.......("I started a war because of a man. That man.........").


I personally believe so. Some people may think differently, that a translation should be as close to the original as possible in it's structure. Still it seems to me that it's far better to make a translation natural and easy to understand as much as possible.



Caballero negro said:


> By the way, I can see that native Japanese speakers almost never use extremely long relative clauses. When they use it, it is because they want to translate some texts from European languages.


Yes, that's how I see it.  And most of the time, such sentences can be separated to create much simpler and more understandable text.

When we first start to learn about English relative clauses in junior high school, we are taught to use "ところの" to translate them.
According to them, your first example would be translated as "私がその人ために戦を始めたところの人".
I've ever seen this construction only in textbooks, and I'm sure I'd never use it myself.


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## frequency

Caballero negro said:


> if I say "watashi wa aru hito no tame ni ikusa wo hajimeta. Sono hito wa.......


That depends. In any writing you need to be simple and precise, you'd do so.


By the way, _私がいくさを始めた人（私がいくさを始めることになった人）_, and your _"watashi wa aru hito no tame ni ikusa wo hajimeta._
can mean two way again:
1) you fight against him
2) the man just made you start the war; you didn't fight against him
So you need to add more info, and "Sono hito wa.." can do that.
And 2), if there is one more person, You can: 私がＸＸといくさを始める原因になった人とは、・・



> I can see that native Japanese speakers almost never use extremely long relative clauses. When they use it, it is because they want to translate some texts from European languages.


That depends. I don't think 私がＸＸといくさを始める原因になった人とは、 is too long. If any sentence is longer this one? Then it might be too long.

Some writers and authors may use a too long relative clause purposely.


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## frequency

Schokolade said:


> I think you could say something like...





Schokolade said:


> 私がその人の｛ために/せいで｝戦を始めた、まさにその人
> 私がその人の｛ために/せいで｝戦を始めた、そんな人



Schoko just explained them how they are.


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