Japanese without nominative.

"The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country." This is a famous sentence written by 川端康成(Kawabata Yasunari) who got a Nobel prize for literature. This is experience of the main character of the novel. The sentence has a nominative in English but it doesn't have nominative in Japanese. It is "トンネルを抜けるとそこは雪国だった (Tonnel wo nukeruto sokoha yuiguni datta)". I don't know why but Japanese often don't use nominative　from beginning of sentence. In this case, if Kawabata used nominative, the richness of the sentence would be disturbed.



I think the sentence without nominative has more rich taste than sentence with nominative. I suppose nominative in Japanese would disturb reader's imagination because nominative has limiting function. When Japanese feel it on a train, the imagination is more rich than "The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country." . I think non-Japanese also too. And it can become "I came out of the long tunnel into the snow country." . But this is also different from what he feel, I think. Perhaps "電車に乗った私がトンネルを抜けるとそこは雪国だった。(I, on a train, came out of the long tunnel into the snow country.)" is also OK as a sentence in Japanese but I think it is too logical style, I suppose. All in all, sentence without nominative is best in this case.



Although it is just my personal supposition, if we use nominative in the case of that we don't need to use it, it can be a too assertive expression. The usage that we don't use nominative, "I", and Japanese thought would have some relation.



Some philosophers and literary men discovered like what I said here. Rather I should say I studied about the point of view in a class of Japanese classic literature.



A philosopher, Nagai Hitoshi, said:



The real nominative of "The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country." is "I" but it is not true. That experienced came out of the long tunnel into the snow country is not "I". It doesn't means the person who independents of the experience and who experienced came out of the long tunnel into the snow country. To stretch a point, the experience is the "I".



That is, the experience is the self. The self is a situation that actor and non-ego don't divide into the two. It is an explanation when he explain it along with Nishida philosophy. I think it is a bit of strained interpretation because Nishida and Kawabata are different person, but I feel something that I can't deny all of the explanation.



Not to change the subject, but I often see a common mistake which English speakers took. It is "アメリカで夜です, America de yoru desu". I think they want to express "It is night in America ". Then English speaker can think of it as "America is night". It means it is night in America in Japanese. Because "アメリカは夜です(America ha yoru desu)" is correct Japanese. It is an interesting difference.



These days I do think saying jokes in English is very difficult. There are any typical joke in English which I can use? Tell me the jokes!!!



Well, now I'm thinking of another example. Hmm, I don't recall.



It is a photo of plum, I took.