ええ、部長にみて... / ゆっくりといつも / してきた / 家に帰って...

Hiya,

1.

田辺： ウエッブさん、このあいだのレポートは、どうなりましたか。
マイケル： ええ、部長にみていただきました。
田辺： ああ、そうですか。

My translation:

"Mr Webb, what happened about that report (we were talking about / I asked for / etc.) the other day?"
"Um... the section head showed it to me."
"Oh, is that right / I see / etc."

In English, the second sentence doesn't look ideal as a response to the first; it doesn't seem to answer the question very adequately. Have I got something wrong?


2. ゆっくりといつもの道を家に向かって歩いているうちに 、突然さしていた傘がこわれてしまい、雨のしずくが頭 にかかった。

My part translation: "While she was walking along the street towards home, the umbrella that she was carrying suddenly broke and the raindrops splashed onto her head."

I'm not sure about the beginning. My only guess is ゆっくり + と + いつも + の + 道, with ゆっくりといつも qualifying 道 and meaning that the street was, as always, peaceful. Or something like that. Is this anywhere near?


3. 失敗ばかりしてきたような気もした。

My translation: "She also had the feeling that she had done nothing but make mistakes."

Assuming this is essentially correct, what is きた adding? Does it mean something like "up until now"?


4. 家に帰ってエイミーが差し出した花束を見てお母さんはおどろいたようだっ たが喜んでいるようには見えなかった。

My translation: "When Amy got home, and mother saw the bunch of flowers that Amy presented to her, she (mother) seemed surprised but did not look pleased."

Is this OK?

I'm puzzled by the structure of this sentence. I'm splitting it as [家に帰って] [エイミーが差し出した花束を見て] [お母さんはおどろいた...], and the story seems to require that the subject of 帰って is Amy and the subject of 見て is the mother. Is it OK to just to run these clauses together with no linking words?

I'm wondering if 帰って here has an inbuilt sense of "when" (I think we saw in another thread that the -て form can have the sense of "because", and can in that case be followed by a clause with a different grammatical subject, so maybe this is similar?)

I'm also puzzled at the juxtaposition of ...花束を見て and お母さんは..., where お母さん is (apparently) the subject of 見て. It could be that I'm just having a temporary mental blank about this, and it's perfectly ordinary grammar that I should already know.

1. 見ていただきます means the speaker received the favor from someone else, so ウェブ isn't the one who did the looking; 部長 is. "I had the section head look over it," or something along those lines.

2. Yes, you're close. ゆっくりと modifies 歩いている, and いつもの modified 道. "As she was leisurely walking home along her usual route..." for instance.

3. Looks good.

4. Your translation is mostly right, and the mother is the subject of 見て, but she's also the subject of 帰って. エイミーが差し出した花束 is a noun phrase, where 花束 is the head noun, and エイミーが差し出した is modifying it. The topic of the sentence comes late for purposes of emphasis, I suppose to connect her more to the being surprised but not happy than the returning home and seeing.

In Japanese companies, 部長 usually refers to Director (head of the department) and 課長 is a section manager.

部長に見ていただきました。
I have it (= report) looked through/checked by the director.

eeky said:

3. 失敗ばかりしてきたような気もした。
My translation: "She also had the feeling that she had done nothing but make mistakes."
Assuming this is essentially correct, what is きた adding? Does it mean something like "up until now"?

Click to expand...

In addition, it also has a nuance of "always/repeatedly". This meaning is from the auxiliary verb （ ～て）くる.

②ある動作・状態が前から続いている。ずっと…する。 …しつづける。「再三、注意してきたことだが」「改良 を重ねてきた品種」/quote]

http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/64270/m0u/来る/

eeky said:

. 家に帰ってエイミーが差し出した花束を見てお母さんはおどろいたようだっ たが喜んでいるようには見えなかった。
My translation: "When Amy got home, and mother saw the bunch of flowers that Amy presented to her, she (mother) seemed surprised but did not look pleased."
Is this OK?
I'm puzzled by the structure of this sentence. I'm splitting it as [家に帰って] [エイミーが差し出した花束を見て] [お母さんはおどろいた...], and the story seems to require that the subject of 帰って is Amy and the subject of 見て is the mother. Is it OK to just to run these clauses together with no linking words?
I'm wondering if 帰って here has an inbuilt sense of "when" (I think we saw in another thread that the -て form can have the sense of "because", and can in that case be followed by a clause with a different grammatical subject, so maybe this is similar?)

Click to expand...

I suppose that 家に帰って is not an independent clause but a part of a clause modifying 花束, i.e., エイミーが家に帰って差し出した花束.

eeky said:

I'm also puzzled at the juxtaposition of ...花束を見て and お母さんは..., where お母さん is (apparently) the subject of 見て. It could be that I'm just having a temporary mental blank about this, and it's perfectly ordinary grammar that I should already know.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it might be similar to the structure of "seeing the bunch of flowers, she seemed surprised..." in English.

Click to expand...

Thank you both.

The structure of #4 makes a lot more sense to me if the mother is also the subject of 帰って. Looking again, I think I was simply mistaken in believing that the flow of the story required the subject to be Amy.

Later edit:

Toritoribe said:

I suppose that 家に帰って is not an independent clause but a part of a clause modifying 花束, i.e., エイミーが家に帰って差し出した花束.

Click to expand...

Hi Toritoribe, I wrote my initial response above before seeing your reply. We must have just overlapped. So, you think it's grammatically possible that Amy is the subject of 帰って after all? If the context allowed either interpretation, though, would you assume that the subject was Amy or the mother?

Ah, I was just sort of throwing an English term out for 部長 without even bothering to look it up. Heh

RE: returning home with flowers, yeah, I guess Amy could be the one who returned. For some reason that didn't seem to be the more likely scenario to me, though. I guess it may actually be, though.

The sentence is written by the point of the view of Amy. Probably that's one of the reasons of my interpretation at the unconscious level.

家に帰ってエイミーが差し出した花束を見てお母さんはおどろいたようだったが喜んでいるようには見えなかった。

In addition, I would write 家に帰ったとき、エイミーが差し出した花束を見て, if the mother is the subject of 帰る. But, grammatically, the mother can be the subject.

Does it have to be from Amy's viewpoint? Could it just be a neutral observer? Amy most likely isn't the speaker here, right? Also, I wonder why エイミーが isn't before 家に帰って. Seems like it should be.

If it helps, the whole paragraph is as follows.


たとえば、こんな事があった。ある日花屋でエイミーはきれいな花束を見つけた。お母さん、喜ぶだろうなと 思いながらエイミーはその花束を買った。家に帰ってエイミーが差し出した花束を見てお母さんはおどろいたようだっ たが喜んでいるようには見えなかった。エイミーは日本には花を贈る習慣がないのかしらと思った。

Yeah, it does help. I think it pretty much takes care of all of my questions. Thanks!

Glenn said:

Does it have to be from Amy's viewpoint? Could it just be a neutral observer? Amy most likely isn't the speaker here, right? Also, I wonder why エイミーが isn't before 家に帰って. Seems like it should be.

Click to expand...

Yes, Amy is not the speaker/writer, but she is treated as a protagonist. This is a novel style, not just only about this sentence but also about all the sentences eeky-san quoted until now. If this is a report or something, the order of the words should be エイミーが家に帰って差し出した花束を見て. It is just a description of the fact. On the other hand, the original has a sense of "movement/action". The readers feel the series of actions just like "Amy returns home, and then she presents the bunch of flowers to the mother, the mother is surprised, but..."

This is just my opinion, of course.

In the original word order (家に帰ってエイミーが...), and in the interpretation that Amy is the subject of 帰って, should I think of 家に帰って as part of the clause modifying 花束, or should I treat it as a separate clause? If I can try to express in English, the two options are:

A) mother saw the flowers that Amy just returning home presented to her...

B) Amy returned home; mother saw the flowers that Amy presented to her...

(I'm hoping the answer is A, but don't let that sway you!)

I must take back my words about the modifying clause. The interpretation B is more natural. :x3: It's obvious that Amy is the subject of 帰って from the first part of the paragraph. The order of words is used here to make an effect I wrote in my last post; "Amy returns home, and then she presents the bunch of flowers to the mother, the mother is surprised, but..."

Oh, OK.

Are there any special rules about when it's possible to follow a Verb-て clause directly with another clause that has a different grammatical subject? For example, assuming the context makes it clear who is doing what, could we simply write 家に帰って花束を見た to mean "Amy returned home and mother saw the bunch of flowers"?

No. It's interpreted that the subjects of the two clauses are the same person in your example. When the subjects are different in the two clauses, it must be sateted.