O particle: weird case

この に おい を 由紀 は たまらなく 嫌って いた が , (…)

I can’t figure out the sense of the を in this sentence.

This site points 4 uses for を. Can you explain to me where this one fits? Thank you!

を usually denotes a direct object of a verb, so I would say #1 of the 4 claases. But, it strikes me as unnecessary to classify its usage into four different categories. It seems the #2 through #4 usages are really not distinct from #1 as they are all direct objects too. AFAIK を can be used for any English transitive verbs or equivalent phrases like “consist of”, “loath to”, “fond of”,and the like. So personally I think there’s no need to pay attention to the four categories, and it suffices to know it marks a direct object and note that there are some verbs that uses が instead of を as explained on the same page. But I am only semi-fluent in Japanese and not a linguist or anything, so please take that into consideration :slight_smile:

ok so, how would you translate this sentence, and also especially how do you interpret this chunk:

“おい を 由紀”

“Nephew|Box”, particle, someone named “Yuki”…

I didn’t want to take the 4 classes to strictly, but however loosely I take those rules, I can’t seem to understand what role the を has between the nephew and Yuki, probably because I expect a noun-particle-verb form. But where is the verb here? Since we have the は particle, I expected the left part of the sentence to be “self-sufficient”. Am I not right?

Oh, I feel sorry that I did not give the translation in my original answer taking your question as one about the use of を and not the sentence. You seem to have a problem with the sentence because you broke it down the wrong way. におい is a word meaning odor / smell. so it should be broken down like この におい を 由紀 は たまらなく 嫌って いた が. If you look at it this new way it’s a rather simple structure. ”Although Yuki was unbearably loath to this smell”, or ”…couldn’t stand the smell” (maybe there’s a better translation ?). So に is not a particle to be grouped with この but a start of a new noun. And 嫌って いた is the verb meaning “hated this smell”.

I missed the extraneous space between に and おい in your original post because I was distracted by the convoluted explanation of を at about.com :slight_smile: I should read the question more carefully.

thank you!

so
この におい(smell) を 由紀 (Yuki) は

I wasn’t aware you could put 2 nouns next to each other separated with the を particle. The whole sentence you translated makes sense. However I have no idea how to translate this part below alone:

"this smell … of which … Yuki " ?
"this smell … to … Yuki " ?
“this smell … relation-to… Yuki” ?

I thought the verb had to follow immediately the を particle. Or is it that the verb is the whole sentence followed by を ? “由紀 は たまらなく 嫌って いた” ? the は particle here throws me off. I’d expect the は to make everything behind stand as self sufficient.

I don’t follow the “two nouns” part, since この is an adjective form of a pronoun linking to におい, just a simple “This”. So the sentence structure is:

この におい を 由紀 は たまらかく 嫌っていtk が

( I drew a diagram showing the structure but the formatting mangles it, so I removed it :slight_smile:

So Yuki hates “this smell”. “this smell” being the object of “hate”.

は makes everything behind it self sufficent only when it is used as subject particle (it can mark an object particle too) and the sentence is in the S-O-V order. The sentence is inverted in O-S-V form here, the object clasue coming before は. And there can be O-V-S sentence too (“この におい を 嫌っていた ゆき は”), in which case there’d be nothing after は. It is not as naturally this way but still perfectly correct and clear in meaning because the particles clearly mark each component’s function.
So it is difficult to apply such simplistic rules. It’s too malleable and forgiving.

Also, the original confusion of におい v に+おい is something that would seldom happen in real life. It would normally be written in Kanji, like この臭い…, which precludes any such confusion.

For the two nouns parts, I meant that “smell” is the first noun, and “Yuki” being itself a noun. Or I should have said the subject. In any case, Yuki is not a verb, so I was surprised to see the form object-particle-subject, and not object-particle-verb.

Thank you for taking time, I needed this explanation. I didn’t know all those forms were possible!

You’re welcome and glad to be of help. It was my first interaction with a member at LingQ :slight_smile: