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In A Grove

WonkoTheSane

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I'm reading 'In A Grove' in parallel text (Japanese on the left page and English translation on the right) and I'm having trouble with how a sentence is being translated. The sentence is part of the 旅法師's statement concerning the crime.

あの男は馬に乗った女と一しょに、関山の方へ歩いて参りました。

The translation is:

"The man was walking in the direction of Sekiyama leading a woman on a horse."

I read it as "The man and a woman were riding a horse together in the direction of Sekiyama."

Neither the sentences before nor after this sentence described the man being on or off the horse, so I think this sentence must be expressly stating that the man is not riding, but I'm not sure how. I thought perhaps the verb would be a clue, but from my (admittedly limited) Googling, 歩く appears to be a verb which can be used for a horse. Then I thought perhaps 一しょに in this instance is not the same as 一緒に but this page at Weblio doesn't appear to support that. So, my final thought is that と一緒に encompasses the entirety of 馬に乗った女, as in "Together with a woman on a horse, the man was walking in the direction of Sekiyama." which makes grammatical sense, but I still don't see how it expressly draws a distinction between the man being on the ground and the woman being on the horse, and especially how the translator got the "leading a woman on a horse" part. I doubt it's consequential to the story, I just wonder if I'm misunderstanding something grammatically which will come back to haunt me if I don't get it straight now.

Any insight would be appreciated!
 
Together with a woman on a horse, the man walked toward Sekiyama.
The man walked toward Sekiyama together with a woman on a horse.

Either are acceptable translations. The woman is described as being on the horse, so that is the key distinction between her and the man.

The possibility that the man, too, is also on the horse, cannot be completely denied just from that one sentence. But it was the writer's intention to put them both on the horse the syntax would have been different, probably 女と一緒に馬と一緒に乗って関山の方へ or something like that.
 
I was wondering if that version (Parallel text) of book was available on line as a PDF etc?
 
The whole thing hinges on 馬に乗った vs 馬に乗って

The former limits the modification to the woman. The latter would tell us it was the man in the horse, while being unclear about the woman's mode of transit.

Also, eliminate the filling and the essential bit of the sentence tells you 男は歩いて参りました, so it is clear the guy is "riding Shank's mare".
 
on the horse....

Swipe-typing technology isn't always a blessing.
 
letslearn said:
I was wondering if that version (Parallel text) of book was available on line as a PDF etc?
Click to expand...

Terribly sorry, I don't know if there's a PDF. Amazon has the book for about $14 USD, and it has seven stories, concluding with Rashomon.

Book.

Majestic said:
Bloody hell I mangled that one up. Try

女と一緒に馬に乗って関山の方へ
Click to expand...

Ok, this makes sense, though it brings to the forefront the fact that I'm never quite sure of how much of the preceding sentence is modified by things like こと, 一緒に, and particles.


I don't understand. Is the た vs て here not showing tense? Or is it showing tense along with something else? I feel like this should be obvious, but I can't quite catch it.

Also, who is Shank?
 
To parse it as the guy being on the horse, you have to be making one of a couple possible errors.

1. Missing that you wouldn't expect to find a past tense verb there in the middle of the sentence if it applied to the guy.... meaning it can't be talking about him.

2. Overlooking the distinction between て and た. If you're not yet used to sentences with embedded verbs, this is a very easy and common error to make... whatever verb you run into goes with whatever came before it, which is not the case.

Let's change up the sentence:

私はタマネギを食べた。私は彼女にキスをした。

Let's join them.

[私はタマネギを食べて][彼女にキスをした]。

Now, what happens if we change that one little character?

[私は] [{タマネギを食べた}彼女に] [キスをした]

The difference between two very different circumstances.

1. I ate an onion and kissed my girlfriend.
2. I kissed my girlfriend, who had eaten an onion.

Just keep in mind that when you hit a verb mid-sentence it doesn't modify what came before.

[あの男は] [{馬に乗った}女と] [一緒に] [関山の方へ] [歩いて参りました]

Unlike the simple sentences when you were first starting out, you can no longer just start reading a sentence and parse in a linear fashion from start to finish. It is necessary to break things into sections and see how they all go together.

Who? あの男は
With whom? 馬に乗った女と
In what way? 一緒に
Where to? 関山の方へ
Did what? 歩いて参りました

Shank's Mare
 
Alright, trying to make sense of this... As an exercise:

[私はタマネギを食べて][彼女にキスをした]。
Who: 私はタマネギを食べて
With whom: 彼女
In what way: に
Did what: キスをした。

[私は] [{タマネギを食べた}彼女に] [キスをした]
Who: 私は
With whom: タマネギを食べた彼女
In what way: に
Did what: キスをした

So will it be that every time I see Vて it will modify the subject?

私たちはお酒を飲んで友達たちと一緒にレストランへ行きました。
We had a drink and went to a restaurant with friends.

And Vた will modify the object directly following it?

私たちはお酒を飲んだ友達たちと一緒にレストランへ行きました。
We went to a restaurant with friends who had had a drink.

Do I throw away the idea of tense in these mid-sentence verbs and just use the end of the sentence to supply that information? For example:

私はチケットを買った彼女と一緒に映画館へ行くつもりです。
I plan to go to the movie theater with my girlfriend who will buy the tickets.

Mike Cash said:
1. Missing that you wouldn't expect to find a past tense verb there in the middle of the sentence if it applied to the guy.... meaning it can't be talking about him.
Click to expand...

Is this separate? Can it not apply to him because he is involved in the present tense 歩いて? Or is there another reason he cannot be implicated in the mid-sentence past tense verb aside from what you taught me about て and た mid-sentence and what they modify?
 
Have your classes/lessons covered this sort of modifying phrase yet?
 
It is grammatically odd, but 馬に乗って歩いて行った is actually used as "I went there on a horse (the one who is walking is the horse, not "I")" customarily.

This might be really confusing, but other than the difference between 乗った and 乗って, the position of 一緒に also can be the key. あの男は一緒に馬に乗った女と、関山の方へ歩いて参りました means the man and woman rode a horse together. However, it's ambiguous whether they are riding a house now or not in this sentence, so the meaning can be completely different. (For instance it can mean A man and woman, who had once ridden a horse together previously, walked toward Sekiyama.)
 
WonkoTheSane said:
Not yet, perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself.

Thanks much!
Click to expand...

You're welcome. I'm afraid I wrote my reply based on the assumption that you had already learned this construction. In a nutshell, what we do with relative clauses in English is done in Japanese by placing a clause immediately before the noun it modifies. One of the handiest constructions you will learn when it comes to expressing the sort of ideas that you have no doubt wondered how they get handled by the simple construction you have encountered before.
 

So @Majestic's:
あの男は女と一緒に馬に乗って関山の方へ歩いて参りました。
Is not ambiguous about whether the man and woman are currently riding on a horse?
"The man and the women were riding a horse towards Sekiyama."

Whereas:
あの男は一緒に馬に乗った女と、関山の方へ歩いて参りました.
Could be more like:
"The man and woman, who were riding a horse together, were walking towards Sekiyama."

Am I understanding?

Thanks!


Yes, I've been completely stymied whenever I try to say or write anything more than a simple sentence. If you don't mind, let me see if I am understanding this:

I like the person who spoke to me.
私は私に言いました人が好きです。

I like the person who is speaking.
私は言いましているて人が好きです。

I dislike the cat who ate my lunch!
私は私のお弁当を食べたあの猫が嫌いですよ！

Much appreciated!
 
You have the general idea. For our purposes, always use plain form conjugations on the embedded bits; the sentence-final verb can carry the politeness level. Also, you want 話す instead of 言う in your example.

Note that this construction can be used with a variety of forms, making it exceedingly handy:

やることはない
I have something (or things) to do

読みたい本を買った
I bought a/the book I've been wanting to read

通って(かよって)いる学校は遠い(とおい)です
The school I attend is far from here

母が作ってくれたキャンディを一つどうぞ
Have a piece of the candy my mother made
 
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WonkoTheSane said:
Ok, this makes sense, though it brings to the forefront the fact that I'm never quite sure of how much of the preceding sentence is modified by things like こと, 一緒に, and particles.
Click to expand...
As you will notice, the は topic marker particle is always at the top level of the sentence; it can never be in a subclause. When you notice that 乗った is at the end of a subclause (by seeing that it is followed by a noun, which it modifies) and backtrace to see where this subclause starts, you can never go past は. Other stop indicators are masu-stems (when used for loosely connecting sentences as opposed to the tight connection made with the て-form) and commas.
 
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EDIT

やることはない
I have something (or things) to do


That should be "I have nothing to do".
 
Yes, and the latter one also can mean "The man and the women were riding a horse towards Sekiyama."
 
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