Question concerning the の particle and a question of pronunciation

[DranoK]

I have a few questions concerning particles if could please help me out. Thanks in advance, I appreciate it greatly.

If I were to ask (sorry for the so-obviously-textbook example), "Is it a Japanese or American car?", which of the following (if any) would be correct? If there are more than one that would be correct, which would be most common? I'm assuming the か particle is correct here, please correct me if I'm wrong.

1. 車は日本のかアメリカのですか。
This is roughly, "The car, is it Japanese or American?" Not sure if I'm right about the particle placement, though, or even if this is a valid Japanese sentence.

2. それは日本のかアメリカの車ですか。
Roughly, "Is that a Japanese or American car?" Again, not sure if I can just trail off the の particle like that, or if I'm missing something.

3. それは日本の車かアメリカの車ですか。
Roughly, "Is that a Japanese car or an American car?" While technically correct a native English speaker would look at you funny if you said this, as generally when an English sentence has multiple modifiers to a noun the noun is only stated once. Not sure if this is true in Japanese, however.


My other question concerns the pronunciation (or lack thereof) of certain syllables. For example, the し in 私. From the way I hear things, at least, the し is clearly audible and pronounced in, for example, "私の本"; however, in, "私達" it's barely whispered. This is just one example, another one I've found is, "ろく", and of course many, many others. Are there any hard rules for when these syllables are just whispered or pronounced, such as the rules for ん and which consonant follows it? Or is it optional, or just haphazard and only through experience can be understood fully?

On a related topic, I often hear speakers almost compact two or three morae into a single beat, especially when applying negatives. Not sure if there are rules to govern this as well.

Thanks again in advance, I truly appreciate it!

DranoK

 

[Elizabeth]

I have a few questions concerning particles if could please help me out. Thanks in advance, I appreciate it greatly.

If I were to ask (sorry for the so-obviously-textbook example), "Is it a Japanese or American car?", which of the following (if any) would be correct? If there are more than one that would be correct, which would be most common? I'm assuming the か particle is correct here, please correct me if I'm wrong.

1. 車は日本のかアメリカのですか。
This is roughly, "The car, is it Japanese or American?" Not sure if I'm right about the particle placement, though, or even if this is a valid Japanese sentence.

2. それは日本のかアメリカの車ですか。
Roughly, "Is that a Japanese or American car?" Again, not sure if I can just trail off the の particle like that, or if I'm missing something.

3. それは日本の車かアメリカの車ですか。
Roughly, "Is that a Japanese car or an American car?" While technically correct a native English speaker would look at you funny if you said this, as generally when an English sentence has multiple modifiers to a noun the noun is only stated once. Not sure if this is true in Japanese, however.

こんにちわDranoKさん！

I'm not completely sure, but maybe この車は日本のですか？ アメリカの？ is most natural.

 

[DranoK]

今日はElizabethさん 始めまして

Thanks for the feedback, as I thought there would be another way I hadn't thought of! I suppose it would be more natural to only ask what you think it was, then add on other alternatives as separate thoughts.

In a more generic sense, is an expansion of the English formula, "Is X an A or B?" which I believed was, "XはAかBですか。" but I'm probably wrong on that as well. The expansion, I mean is, "Is X an A thing or a B thing?" Which would roughly go along with my examples above.

Sorry for all the questions, don't really have a burning need to understand this but it came to mind when I couldn't find any similar examples in the various texts I have.

Thanks again,

DranoK

 

[Elizabeth]

Because it is a possessive in this case のですか sounds better to my ear but like I said I'm not completely sure it's the best and there may well be other possibilities. As you're probably aware from your reading か is normal for straightforward either/or statements : たいてい夕食には豆か味噌汁を食べます。(I usually eat beans or soup for dinner)。今年日本へ行けるか行けないか分かりません。 (I don't know whether I can go to Japan this year or not.)。箱は白いか黒いか？( Is the box black or white?)

It may be the case that のか is used more as an expression of inclusion "Is it either American or Japanese" (but nothing else). I simply couldn't find any evidence one way or the other.

 

[kara]

1.
a)sore wa Nihon-no X ka, America-no X ka
b)sore wa Nihon-no X ka, America-no ka
c)sore wa Nihon-no ka, America-no X ka
d)sono X wa Nihon-no ka, America-no ka
e)sono X wa Nihon-no X ka, America-no X ka

syntax c) sounds a bit odd, others natural in general.


2.
When you use these syntax, you'd better use such words like "それとも", "どっち", "どちら" to avoid misunderstanding. For example, the sentence "そのバナナは台湾バナナかフィリピンバナナですか" is capable of these two different interpretations.

e)Is that a Taiwanese banana? or Filipino banana?
--->That's a Taiwanese.
--->That's a Filipino.

f)Is that a Taiwanese/Filipino banana?
--->Yes, that's a Taiwanese.
--->Yes, that's a Filipino.
--->No, that's an Ecuadorian.

So, these sentences are better for e):
"そのバナナは台湾バナナですか、それともフィリピンバナナですか"
"それは台湾バナナですか、それともフィリピンバナナですか"
"そのバナナは台湾バナナか、それともフィリピンバナナか、どちらですか"
"それは台湾バナナかフィリピンバナナか、どっちですか"

and for f):
"そのバナナは台湾かフィリピンのバナナですか"
"そのバナナはどこのバナナですか？ 台湾かフィリピンあたり？"


3.
About cars, we seldom say "日本の車", "アメリカの車", but "日本車(nihon-sha)","アメ車(ame-sha)" or "アメリカ車(america-sha)".

 

[DranoK]

KaraとElizabeth - どうもありがと

Thanks a ton for both of your responses, I think I understand this much better now. I guess at this point I just need to read more materials to discover common structures.