Tense: 会社は休みではない月曜日

[quiver]

Hi there. The sentence in question is from a blog for learners, やさしい日本語。The post is about an event that took place in Ginza following the 2012 Summer Olympics, to celebrate the Japanese medalists. Here is a longer extract:

昨日、 オリンピックでメダルをとった人が、銀座をパレードしました。屋根のない２階建てのバスに乗って、銀座の街を通りました。昨日は、学校は夏休みですが、会社は休みではない、月曜日。でも、５０万人の人が、パレードを見に来たそうです。私は、テレビのニュースで見ただけです。

Could you explain why the tense in the 月曜日 relative clause is non-past (です, ではない), instead of past, as in the surrounding sentences?

I understand that 屋根のない２階建てのバス is also non-past, but here we're talking about a permanent property of the bus, so using a non-past tense makes perfect sense to me.

 

[KLAUSED]

It's overly punctuated and poorly written.

昨日は、学校は夏休みですが、会社は休みではない、月曜日。

It should be rewritten as
昨日は学校は夏休みでしたが、月曜日なので会社は休みではありませんでした。

Without the comma

会社は休みではない、月曜日。

is a valid but rather awkward construction.
会社は休みではない modifies 月曜日 => a Monday that is (was) a work day
We don't use past tense in such cases.

 

[gengo]

Quiver, you'll find that tense in JP does not always map perfectly with the tense in EN (or Italian). I agree with Klaused that in this particular context the past tense does sound better, but there are many cases when the past tense in EN will translate to a present-tense form in JP.

昨日は、学校は夏休みですが、会社は休みではない、月曜日。

Here, I think the reason the writer used the present tense is that 夏休み is still in effect in the present (when the writer is writing), so the writer was thinking "As for yesterday, it is summer vacation for school (right now), but it was a Monday, which is not a company holiday." Therefore, I wouldn't call the above sentence an outright error.

 

[quiver]

@KLAUSED -san, @gengo -san, thank you! It looks like the material I was going through isn't top-notch quality.

"As for yesterday, it is summer vacation for school (right now),

I see. Summer vacation extends beyond yesterday, and "is still the case".

We don't use past tense in such cases.

many cases when the past tense in EN will translate to a present-tense form in JP.

Could either of you provide more information about such cases? I struggle to find resources about this. I wish grammar books covered topics like tense and aspect more extensively, instead of explaining the usage of single words such as 途端 and 次第, which can easily be looked up in any dictionary 😅

 

[Joschl]

If the copulative items, such as "da" or "desu" followed the noun "月曜日", these copulas would need to be in the past because of "昨日". The main clause consists of the phrase "昨日は" and "月曜日", which a copula in the past tense can be added to.

昨日は、[...]月曜日だった。でも、[...] / 昨日は、[...]月曜日でした。でも、[...]
昨日は、[...]月曜日だったが、[...] / 昨日は、[...]月曜日でしたが、[...]
昨日は、[...]月曜日だったけれど、[...] / 昨日は、[...]月曜日でしたけれど、[...]

 

[Joschl]

As KLAUSED said in his post #2, both the parts "学校は夏休みですが、会社は休みではない" refer attributively to the noun "月曜日". I think we can replace "です-が" in the first clause with "で-も"

でも ㈡〘副助〙❸ 《「Aは…でも、Bは…」の形で、対句表現に使って》一歩引く気持ちで対比の妙を予感させながら、
下の句に続ける（逆接の確定条件）。…であっても。…だが。
◆㊁の「で」は、格助詞「で」とも、断定の助動詞「だ」の連用形ともする。「も」は副助詞

to connect these clauses more closely without changing the entire meaning of that attribute substantially.

昨日は、{学校は夏休みでも会社は休みではない} 月曜でした。でも[...]
昨日は、{学校は夏休みでも会社は休みではない} 月曜でしたが、[...]
昨日は、{学校は夏休みでも会社は休みではない} 月曜でしたけれど、[...]

Will the meaning of the entire construction change if we change the tense of the adnominal attribute by changing the tense of the second clause in the attributive clause {...} except that the following sentences with the attribute clause ending in "なかった" sounds far less natural than the above sentences with the attribute clause ending in "ない"?

昨日は、{学校は夏休みでも会社は休みではなかった} 月曜でした。でも[...]
昨日は、{学校は夏休みでも会社は休みではなかった} 月曜でしたが、[...]
昨日は、{学校は夏休みでも会社は休みではなかった} 月曜でしたけれど、[...]

 

[quiver]

@Joschl -san, thank you. I don't really know if the meaning would change, but it's good to know that the last set of sentences sound less natural. I'll keep an eye out for more examples of this.

 

[Joschl]

Could you explain why the tense in the 月曜日 relative clause is non-past (です, ではない)[...]?

I think the following explanation of the tense in subordinate clauses in the book "基礎日本語文法 - 改訂版 -" written by 増岡隆志 and 田窪行則 (2019) will help you understand the non-past tense in the attributive clauses better.

1 [...]単文と主節では、タ形は「過去」を、基本形は「現在」または「未来」を、それぞれ表す。(p. 213)

As I said in my post #5, I find it reasonable to assume that the nominal predicate of the superordinate clause ending in "月曜日" in your example is in the past tense ('Yesterday was (a) Monday.').

2 これに対して従属節では、[...] 述語のタ形は主節の時より以前であることを表し、基本形は主節の時と同時かそれより以後であることを表す。(p. 213)

3 [...] 主節の述語が過去を表し、かつ、従属節の述語が、主節の時と同時であることを表す状態述語である場合、従属節の述語に基本形とタ形の両方が使えることがある。
例
(19) 鈴木さんはテレビを見ている/見ていた子供に早く食事をするように言った。
(20) 徹夜で作業をしている/していたときに停電になった。
この場合、従属節の時は、主節の事態の時を基準として位置付けることも、発話時を基準として位置付けることもできるものと思われる。(pp. 213-214)

From what is stated in the above explanations, especially in the 3rd one, I assume that both the tenses in the attributive clauses will be considered to be grammatically correct.

 

[quiver]

@Joschl -san, that was an interesting read. So basically, since the state expressed in the subordinate clause exists at the same time as the state expressed in the main clause (they are simultaneous), the present tense is acceptable in the subordinate clause, and this also applies to relative clauses. Thanks for taking the time to look this up and post the results!

 

[Joschl]

It's about the so-called "absolute tense (絶対時制/絶対テンス)" in a superordinate clause and the so-called "relative tense (相対時制/相対テンス)" in an adnominal attributive clause whose predicate belongs to the group of the so-called "stative predicate (状態述語/静的述語)" here.

The predicate of the relative clause can be either in the present tense or in the past tense not only because of the simultaneity of the conditions described in the superordinate clause and the relative clause ("従属節の述語が、主節の時と同時である") but also because of the past tense of the superordinate clause ("主節の述語が過去を表し") and the stative predicates of the adnominal attributive clauses ("従属節の述語が、[...]状態述語である").

In general, what is said in 2 above will apply.

2 これに対して従属節では、[...] 述語のタ形は主節の時より以前であることを表し、基本形は主節の時と同時かそれより以後であることを表す。(p. 213)

 

[quiver]

@Joschl -san - I see, thank you for the clarification!

 

[kimko_379]

I think the following explanation of the tense in subordinate clauses in the book "基礎日本語文法 - 改訂版 -" written by 増岡隆志 and 田窪行則 (2019) will help you understand the non-past tense in the attributive clauses better.

As I said in my post #5, I find it reasonable to assume that the nominal predicate of the superordinate clause ending in "月曜日" in your example is in the past tense ('Yesterday was (a) Monday.').


From what is stated in the above explanations, especially in the 3rd one, I assume that both the tenses in the attributive clauses will be considered to be grammatically correct.

ＦＹＩ：　Takashi Masuoka ＝　益岡隆志。
益岡隆志 - Wikipedia