Re: [Lingo] いつからか

[s smith <sjs@example.com>]

On 3/23/2010 12:51 AM, Jim Breen wrote:

2010/3/23 Stephen J. Turnbull <turnbull@example.com>:
  

s smith writes:

 > I knew ’か’ was a question marker but thought this must be something
 > different because I couldn't see how it would fit. Thank you Stephen! I
 > do appreciate the help.

Well, this ◯◯か is kinda weird, if you ask me.  「だ纔瘢韭絎竢蹠\xC2 \xBD †蓖↑
「だ纔瘢韭絎竢蹠\xC2 \xBD ‰闕繧閼硎 ⁉阡 †蓖植 梱² 「なに」 = "what", 「なにか」
= "something", etc.  ◯◯でも works better: 「だ纔瘢韭絎竢蹠\xC2 \xBD ≡銷硼糯\xA2
│犛閻洹鬆² 「なんでも」 = "anything" ("whatever"), etc.
    

なるほど. "か" has a raft of other vaguely interconnected roles. Naoko
Chino (All About Particles) lists 10. She mentions the rhetorical role, but
only in the sentence-end context. Obviously it's a bit wider than that.

Jim
  

Thank you Jim.  I looked back through my copy of A Dictionary of Japanese Particles and they list 9 meanings -- several of which are marked as "not translatable."  The section makes a bit more sense now. 

But I'm also a bit confused by something else.  The first particle they discuss is ば and one of the first examples is 出かければ.  I always thought of a particle as a separate part of speech but this is a verb conjugation, right?  (eg: 今出かければ間に会いますよ。If you leave now you'll make it in time.)

This language is going to break my already severely warped brain...  This morning I was looking at 他・ほか・た and a couple of days ago I hit 辛い・からい・つらい・づらい.

Thanks
Steve S.