Relative clauses

7.6. Relative clauses

7.6.1. Relative clauses and verbs

A relative clause has a main noun and an explanatory phrase that are combined in a grammatical way, and it has a base structure. For instance, "a picture that the artist drew" is a relative clause, where "picture" is a main noun and "the artist drew" is an explanation. Its base structure is the sentence "The artist drew a picture." In English, relative pronouns such as that and who are used.

The way to make relative clauses in Japanese is quite easy.

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	ga	ka	ga	e'	o	ka'	i	ta
Romanization:	Ga	ka	ga	e	o	ka	i	ta	.
Structure:	noun (artist)		nomi- native marker	noun (picture)	accu- sative marker	verb (drew)

This sentence means "An artist drew a picture." Now let's create the phrase "the artist who drew the picture" in Japanese. You don't have to care about articles (a / the) here. As you have already learned, Japanese has a head-last rule, so it is clear that the noun

/ga ka/ "gaka" comes last in the relative clause. Just remove the noun and its postposition from the sentence and put the remainder before it, and you will get:

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	e'	o	ka'	i	ta	ga	ka
Romanization:	e	o	ka	i	ta	ga	ka
Structure:	noun (picture)	accu- sative marker	verb (drew)			noun (artist)

It means "the artist who drew the picture." Since verbs appear at the end of sentences, a verb appearing in the middle of a sentence is always in a relative clause.

There are two important rules for relative clauses. First, you cannot use the topic marker

/wa/ "wa" in relative clauses, because topics and focuses are defined in a sentence, not a clause. Do not use the topic marker in a relative clause even when there is a topic word in it. Secondly, you cannot use polite mode in relative clauses, because polite mode affects only predicates (verbs, the copula, and adjectives) at the end of sentences. For example, the politeness suffix

/ma' su/ "masu" appears only at the end of sentences.

The following sentence means "the picture that the artist drew":

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	ga	ka	ga	ka'	i	ta	e'
Romanization:	ga	ka	ga	ka	i	ta	e
Structure:	noun (artist)		nomi- native marker	verb (drew)			noun (picture)

As you see, all you have to do is just remove

/e'/ "e" and its accompanying accusative marker and put the remainder before it.

The following sentence means "Cherry blossoms bloomed.":

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	sa	ku	ra	ga	sa	i	ta'
Romanization:	Sa	ku	ra	ga	sa	i	ta	.
Structure:	noun (cherry blossoms)			nomi- native marker	verb (bloomed)

From this sentence, you can easily make "the cherry blossoms that bloomed" like this:

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	sa	i	ta'	sa	ku	ra
Romanization:	sa	i	ta	sa	ku	ra
Structure:	verb (bloomed)			noun (cherry blossoms)

You can also create a relative clause without removing a word. Here is the Japanese phrase for "the fact that the cherry blossoms bloomed":

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	sa	ku	ra	ga	sa	i	ta'	ko	to'
Romanization:	sa	ku	ra	ga	sa	i	ta	ko	to
Structure:	noun (cherry blossoms)			nomi- native marker	verb (bloomed)			noun (fact)

And here is the phrase for "the time when the cherry blossoms bloomed":

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	sa	ku	ra	ga	sa	i	ta'	to'	ki
Romanization:	sa	ku	ra	ga	sa	i	ta	to	ki
Structure:	noun (cherry blossoms)			nomi- native marker	verb (bloomed)			noun (time)

7.6.2. Relative clauses and adjectives

This sentence means "Kimonos are beautiful.":

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	ki	mo	no	wa	u	tu	ku	si'	i
Romanization:	Ki	mo	no	wa	u	tsu	ku	shi	i	.
Structure:	noun (kimono)			topic marker	adjective (is beautiful)

Since Japanese adjectives are similar to verbs, you can create relative clauses in the same way as you do for verbs.

The following sentence means "a kimono that is beautiful":

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	u	tu	ku	si'	i	ki	mo	no
Romanization:	u	tsu	ku	shi	i	ki	mo	no
Structure:	adjective (is beautiful)					noun (kimono)

As you see, the word order of it is the same as that of the English phrase "a beautiful kimono". In fact, there is no difference between relative clauses and nouns with adjectives in Japanese. In English, the grammatical structures of "a beautiful kimono" and "a kimono that is beautiful" are quite different, even though they have the same meaning.

You can easily create the phrase "a kimono that was beautiful" by using the past form of the adjective like this:

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	u	tu	ku	si'	ka	Q	ta	ki	mo	no
Romanization:	u	tsu	ku	shi	ka	t	ta	ki	mo	no
Structure:	adjective (was beautiful)							noun (kimono)

7.6.3. Relative clauses and copulas

Moving a predicate that is the combination of a noun and a copula to create a relative clause is not as easy as verbs and adjectives. First, you have to distinguish two kinds of nouns: ordinary nouns and qualitative nouns. The latter is also called na-adjectives and copular nouns. As the names imply, qualitative nouns work like adjectives rather than nouns.

Here is an example of a qualitative noun:

Hiragana:

Phonemes:

ki'

Romanization:

Meaning:

beautiful (qualitative noun)

This noun is not an ordinary noun but a qualitative noun, which works like an adjective, so its translation is not beauty but beautiful. A qualitative noun cannot be a subject or an object; it must be in a predicate, accompanied by the copula.

This is a sentence that means "Kimonos are beautiful", the same meaning as the example shown in the previous section:

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	ki	mo	no	wa	ki'	re	i	da
Romanization:	Ki	mo	no	wa	ki	re	i	da	.
Structure:	noun (kimono)			topic marker	qualitative noun (beautiful)			copula (is)

Its grammatical structure is similar to examples in the copula chapter, but its meaning is similar to the example in the adjectives chapter.

When you create a relative clause from the sentence above, you need to change the copula

/da/ to its special form

/na/ like this:

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	ki'	re	i	na	ki	mo	no
Romanization:	ki	re	i	na	ki	mo	no
Structure:	qualitative noun (beautiful)			copula (is)	noun (kimono)

This means "a kimono that is beautiful", or "a beautiful kimono". You need to change the copula only when it is

/da/, i.e. when it is a present form of the contracted copula.
Other forms of the copula will not chage, like this:

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	ki'	re	i	da	Q	ta	ki	mo	no
Romanization:	ki	re	i	da	t	ta	ki	mo	no
Structure:	qualitative noun (beautiful)			copula (was)			noun (kimono)

This means "a kimono that was beautiful".

Like copulas after qualitative nouns, you also need to change a present form copula accompanying an ordinary noun when you create a relative clause from them, but you need to change it not to

/na/ but to

/no/, which is the same as the genitive marker you have already learned.

For example, the following sentence means "Leaves are green":

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	ha	Q	pa	wa	mi'	do	ri	da
Romanization:	Ha	p	pa	wa	mi	do	ri	da	.
Structure:	noun (leaf)			topic marker	noun (green)			copula (is)

Since the word

/mi' do ri/ is an ordinary noun, the relative clause "a leaf that is green" becomes like this:

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	mi'	do	ri	no	ha	Q	pa
Romanization:	mi	do	ri	no	ha	p	pa
Structure:	noun (green)			copula (is)	noun (leaf)

You may think the

/no/ "no" is the genitive marker instead of a form of the copula

/da/ "da".

Past form copulas remain unchanged for ordinary nouns like qualitative nouns. Only the present form contracted copula matters.

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