ゆきがふってきた

[Joe32]

So quick question for anyone willing to help me out. I trying to do some reading practice when I came across this phrase - ゆきがふってきた。The snow fell and came. I was wondering what the difference is meaning wise between it and ゆきがふった。- The snow fell.

 

[Toritoribe]

Have you never learned ～ていく/～てくる as an auxiliary verb?

 

[Joe32]

Have you never learned ～ていく/～てくる as an auxiliary verb?

I thought I had. I guess I need to study it a little more thoroughly. Thanks for the assist.

 

[Joe32]

Have you never learned ～ていく/～てくる as an auxiliary verb?

I thought I had. I guess I need to study it a little more thoroughly. Thanks for the assist.

Ok, so I finally found the use you were talking about in my copy of The Handbook of Japanese Verbs. Why Genki doesn't have it I don't know. I guess I'm going to have study a bit to get an understanding of it. Thanks for the help.

 

[Toritoribe]

For other learners who might come across the same problem, can you tell us how it is explained in the book and what your interpretation of ゆきがふってきた is?

 

[Joe32]

For other learners who might come across the same problem, can you tell us how it is explained in the book and what your interpretation of ゆきがふってきた is?

Toritoribe, thank you, I appreciate the help. 3 things though.

1. The strict definition from the book left me a little confused so I did some further research online and cracked open my Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar.

2 To make sure I've nailed down the usage correctly, I am going to be as broad as possible, so if you see mistakes please point them out. Also because I'm going to be as broad as possible this might be better in its own thread.

3 I'm the sort of person that has trouble understanding social rules in person, much less on the internet, so if I'm rude by mistake please just tell me upfront.

Here we go.


So the definition given is "The te form of the verb followed by the verb kuru or kimasu, expresses an action that moves toward the location of the speaker, or proceeds up to a current point in time, and by convention is written in hiragana.

This left me a little confused as I couldn't quite see how to it worked ゆきがふってきた. Google on the hand gave me list of resources, this one is probably the most user friendly Requested Lesson 「〜ていく＋〜てくる」(~teiku + ~tekuru) | Maggie Sensei


So to summarize there seems to be three general uses of tekuru.

1. Doing something and coming or doing something while coming - e.g. or 私は学校にはしってきた - I ran to school

2. Expressing the idea that some action takes place while moving towards the speaker - e.g.

いぬを走ってきた - the dog ran towards the speaker

3. Expressing the idea of change over some period of time, with differences depending on the verb tense as follows - tekita past tense expresses the idea that something has changed in the past tense and that the change might continue, while tekuru expresses from now something has changed is likely to keep changing though user could see it potentially stop changing - I'm a little iffy on this one, as grammar - Difference between -ていく and -てくる - Japanese Language Stack Exchange offers information that seems to conflict with whats on the maggie-sensei site gives, and http://www.imabi.net/l90teikutekuru.htm is just confusing.


To return to the original question, I think that the most literal translation of ゆきがふってきた might be "The snow at some point in the past started falling and has now stopped, though that might change?

If anyone can read Japanese this probably explains it more clearly than I can 初級を教える人のための日本語文法ハンドブック - 庵功雄 - Google Books

 

[Toritoribe]

I moved our posts.
As a member 天人 explained in the Maggie Sensei's site, and Imabi mentioned a bit about this, ～てくる can expresses the inception of the speaker's feelings/emotions/sensation or phenomena that can be perceived with senses. ～ていく can't be used for these cases.
e.g.
いいアイデアが浮かんできた。
急にお腹が痛くなってきた。
突然悲鳴が聞こえてきた。
角を曲がると、海が見えてきた。
急に冷たい風が吹いてきた。

Some of these verbs also can express "change in the time line, from past to present". The meaning differs depending on the context or adverb/adverbial phrase.
cf.
だんだんお腹が痛くなってきた。

You can see a more detailed explanation regarding this structure in an article of the following bulletin.
文脈から考える「～てくる」構文
å—山大å¦ã€€å›½éš›ã'»ãƒ³ã'¿ãƒ¼
(12 pages pdf file, all in Japanese)

In conclusion, 雪が降ってきた means It started to snow , as same as 雪が降り始めた, as in Imabi. (To be more precise, 雪が降ってきた shows that the speaker said/thought this at the moment they realized that it started to snow (they saw snowflakes falling, for instance), thus, it can be possible that the snow actually had started to fall a bit before they realized.)

いぬを走ってきた - the dog ran towards the speaker

Probably this is just a typo, but it should be いぬが走ってきた.

私は学校に走ってきた can be valid only when the speaker already reached the school and was there, so after all it can be considered to express an action towards the location of the speaker at the time, as same as 犬が走ってきた. The only difference is that it can be an on-going action (present/past progressive) when the subject is not the speaker, on the other hand, the action is already completed when the subject is "I".
The following threads might be helpful to understand the concept of ～てくる/～ていく.
て・＋行く・＋来る [Grammar | Japan Forum
What's the difference between のかわり and にかわって? | Japan Forum

 

[Joe32]

Thank you. I'll take some time to study it, to reach a broader understanding. Sorry, about not responding promptly the work week interfered.

いいアイデアが浮かんできた。- Had a good a idea.
急にお腹が痛くなってきた。- Suddenly, my stomach started hurting.
突然悲鳴が聞こえてきた。-Abruptly, heard screaming.
角を曲がると、海が見えてきた。- Turned around the corner and could see the sea.
急に冷たい風が吹いてきた。 - Suddenly a cold wind was blowing.

 

[Toritoribe]

I wrote all those sentences as examples of "inception". The subject is always the speaker in this expression. All those examples, except the fourth one 角を曲がると、海が見えてきた。, can be the present perfect tense; expressing the present event.

 

[Joe32]

Thank you. I think I get it, because てきた in inception form assumes the speaker is the one perceiving the English equivalent would use the word I or me. Also because its inception form it says when a speaker perceives the start of something, but it also doesn't necessarily express a fixed point of time at which an action started or the perception of that action started. Toritoribe if its not too much trouble how would you translate the example sentences you gave.

 

[Toritoribe]

For instance, A cold wind has just blown (connoting towards me) for the last one.

As for 角を曲がると、海が見えてきた。, 見える is more likely spontaneous rather than potential here, so the nuance is closer to "When I turned the corner, the sea came in my sight ".

 

[Joe32]

I see, thank you. That's a big help.