Japanese sentence schema?

I am wondering if there is sentence schema for Japanese similar to the Diderichsen schema for Scandinavian?
For those not aware of Diderichsen's schema (which is probably most non-Danes) he noted that Danish (and the other Scandinavian languages) had a sentence structure that could be represented by a series of boxes to be filled in - similar to filling in the boxes in a spreadsheet. If a box isn't needed for the sentence you simply leave it blank. This is much easier for new learners to understand and work with than the traditional sentence syntax tree diagrams that change to match the actual sentence, but don't let you figure out what else you could add, or where it could go. Once you get the hang of the simple schema creating correct sentences is very easy. Yes, extremely complex or artistic sentences stretch or even break the schema, but for normal usage it works fine.

Just got a book - Japanese step by step by Gene Nishi, which seems to suggest that Japanese is very good for dropping into a Diderichsen style schema. Especially useful given the 'back to front' structure of Japanese sentances compared to English sentances. So I was wondering if anyone is aware of a work on a Japanese sentance schema? Or do I need to sort out on for myself?
Amazon list various Japanese Sentence pattern books but with comments like 'Over 142 standard sentence patterns' etc., but hat makes them look more like traditional overviews of all possible tree diagram sentance permutations, without reference to any overall pattern or unified schemas. Anyone able to recommend one that is worth looking at?

Once you get away from the very basic "SOV" (私はケーキを食べました), this would become quite difficult I think, unless you have magically expanding boxes for noun phrases (those bloody things nest). Also, there's quite a lot of flexibility in word order.

The sentence pattern type books tend to focus on the proper use of individual grammar points, rather than attempting to find a single pattern (example from どんな時どう使う - I have the 500 sentence patterns version which I used for JLPT study and it's quite good - has a lot of focus on comparisons between grammar points with similar uses).

nekojita said:

Once you get away from the very basic "SOV" (私はケーキを食べました), this would become quite difficult I think, unless you have magically expanding boxes for noun phrases (those bloody things nest). Also, there's quite a lot of flexibility in word order.

The sentence pattern type books tend to focus on the proper use of individual grammar points, rather than attempting to find a single pattern (example from どんな時どう使う - I have the 500 sentence patterns version which I used for JLPT study and it's quite good - has a lot of focus on comparisons between grammar points with similar uses).

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply Nekojita. My view though is totally opposite. I see the patterns rather than the differences, both in sentences, and within item groupings (e.g. adjective phrases, verb phases etc.). I'll expand on this over time and will post my findings here.

(Ok, I'm still a total newbie with Japanese! But hey, why not be ambitious... especially if it helps others along the way.)

[Bit of a rant against traditional syntax studies]
I find that traditional syntax studies focus too much on the perceived diferences rather than reality of how we seek to order and structure things, including langauage. Are there really so many variations, or does the lack of overall context just make it look that way? This is preciesly what Diderichsen discovered with his schema. For instance a number of sentences could look completely different until you note that there is often a spot for 'item to be emphasised', and it could well be a common standard sentence pattern with just different items moved to the emphasised position. How many nested noun phrases are the same basic patterns but just nested, and in a predicatable sequence etc.? This is the kind of stuff I want to explore and detail.

Add in the academic fear of being 'caught out' by other experts with a sentence pattern they didn't cover and they get obsessed with covering all the permutations to the extent that they often go overboard on the trivial and largely irrelevant and obfuscate the main point they are trying to make to the student. Great for proving you know that obscure bit of grammar to other language teachers, pointless for the confused and overwhelmed student.

Ignoring writing like poetry and artistic prose where words are art and so all rules go out of the window and you soon realise that we impose order and structure on our sentences. Even in case based languages, which can theoretically have any sentence order what so ever, in practice we still put sentences into a few standard patterns for the majority of daily use. It is just too much hassle for the brain to make it totally free form, so we impose order to get ourselves. Yes Schemas wouldn't cover everything completely, but can do well for the beginning student as it gives them an immedaitely workable tool, rather than am entire field of extra study to master.
[/End of Rant]