を Particle (Human Emotion) Japanese Grammar Lesson
Grammar Type: Particle
Essential Meaning: Due to / Caused by / Regarding / Over (marks a cause for some human emotion)
Construction:
- Noun / Noun Phrase + を
- E.g. 死を [Over the death of X]
- E.g. 死んだことを [Over the fact that X died]
Notes:
- を (Human emotion) marks a noun or noun phrase that serves as the cause of some inward human emotion. It pairs with inwardly-pointed verbs of emotion such as よろこぶ [To be glad]、悲しむ [To be sad]、懐かしむ [To miss / To yearn for], and 悩む [To be worried]. These verbs are generally intransitive and thus cannot be used with the normal accusative case-marker を (Direct Object). However, some verbs such as 恐れる [To fear] straddle the line between transitivity and intransitivity depending on the context and depending on which dictionary you consult.
- E.g. ジョンは父が死んだことを悲しんだ。 [John was sad over the fact that his dad died.] In this example, John’s dad’s death is the cause of the inward emotion 悲しむ [To be sad]. So the dad’s death (父が死んだこと) is marked by を (Human Emotion).
- There are three things to note about を (Human emotion):
- (1) を (Human emotion) is very literary and you are unlikely to hear it in spoken Japanese. Instead, you can use ので to convey the same general idea of emotional causation, as in the following examples.
- E.g. ジョンは父が死んだので悲しんだ。[Because his dad died, John was sad.]
- E.g. 私はひろしが大学に入学したので喜んだ。[Hiroshi got into university, so I was glad.]
- (2) The main verb in sentences with を (Human emotion) is typically either in the past tense or in the stative ている / ていない form, except when making generic statements as in the following example.
- E.g. 誰でも親の死を悲しむ。[Everyone is saddened by the death of their parents.]
- (3) With emotive verbs that are comprised of い-Adjective Stem + む (e.g. 悲しむ [To be sad], 懐かしむ [To miss / To yearn for], 惜しむ [To regret], 楽しむ [To enjoy], む can be replaced by がる when talking about a third person’s inward emotions.
- E.g. ジョンは父の死を悲しがった。[John showed signs of being saddened by his father’s death.]
- (1) を (Human emotion) is very literary and you are unlikely to hear it in spoken Japanese. Instead, you can use ので to convey the same general idea of emotional causation, as in the following examples.
Example Sentences:
ジョンは父の死を悲しんだ。[John was saddened by his father’s death.]
ジョンは父が死んだことを悲しんだ。[John was sad over the fact that his father died.]
ヨーロッパ人はまた戦争が起きることを恐れている。[Once again, Europeans were worried that a war my break out.]
クリスは京都での一年を懐かしんだ。[Chris felt nostalgic about her year in Kyoto.]
マイクは英語ができないことを悩んでいる。[Mike is worried about the fact that he can’t speak English.]
WILD Examples:
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