Page 54 - Makino,Tsutusi.DictionaryOfIntermediateJGrammar

SPECIAL TOPICS IN INTERMEDIATE JAPANESE GRAMMAR
(3) Sentence-initial Pre-verbal Verbal
element element

topic) I
(Conj .)
(Sentential
adverbial)
(Sentential

As (3) illustrates, a verbal is either a verb, an adjective, or a noun with a
copula (e.g., sensei da) and sometimes involves other elements such as auxil-
iaries (e.g., (Vte) iru) and/or sentence particles (e.g., ka, yo). A pre-verbal ele-
ment is either an NP (i.e., noun or noun equivalent) with a particle(s) or an
adverbial (i.e., adverb or adverb equivalent). Verbals indicate either an action
or state while pre-verbal elements indicate such things as subject, direct object,
time, location, and manner. Simple sentences sometimes contain sentence-ini-
tial elements such as sentence-initial conjunctions (e.g., shikashi 'but') and/or
sentential adverbials (e.g., omoshiroi koto ni 'interestingly'). As seen later,
more complex sentences, such as compound sentences and complex sentences,
are composed of two or more simple sentences which have the basic structures
shown in (3).
B. Key Elements
The key elements of sentences are verbals, NPs, pre-verbal adverbials, and
sentence-initials.
1. Verbals
In sentence-final position various forms of verbs, adjectives, and NPs with a
copula appear. They are sometimes followed by auxiliaries and/or sentence
particles. (4) provides some examples.

*In terms of position, NP-(Prt.)-wa normally appears before other pre-verbal elements
and sometimes even before a sentence-initial element. However, when NP-(Prt.)-wa
is the sentence subject, direct object, etc., we consider this element to be pre-verbal
rather than sentence-initial because, unlike other sentence-initial elements, NP-(Prt.)-
wa modifies the verbal. (See 4.3. Sentential topic.)