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I'm trying to teach myself about linguistics, and one example of Subject-
Object-verb word order was
[ジョンは台所で本を読みました](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject%E2%80%93object%E2%80%93verb_word_order#:%7E:text=language.%5B8%5D-,%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A7%E3%83%B3%E3%81%AF%E5%8F%B0%E6%89%80%E3%81%A7%E6%9C%AC%E3%82%92%E8%AA%AD%E3%81%BF%E3%81%BE%E3%81%97%E3%81%9F%E3%80%82,-%5B9%5D)

Which the Wikipedia article translates as

> John read a book in the kitchen.

But given that the paragraph before says:

> The basic principle in Japanese word order is that modifiers come before
> what they modify

I found it odd that で comes before 本, as it appears as though the
[locative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locative_case) applies to the book,
not the kitchen. My understanding is that the locative is roughly equivalent
to an "English preposition" like 'in', 'on' or 'at'...

Is this because of the topic marker は needing to precede 台所 and pushing it
behind the word instead, or have I misunderstood the locative case/Japanese
sentence structure?
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2022-10-09T18:12:47.773
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2022-10-09T20:56:05.023
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question
syntax sentence topic
In ジョンは台所で本を読みました。does で modify book or kitchen?
You've misunderstood that Wikipedia article.

The linguistic term for は、で and を in that sentence is **particle** (助詞) , not
**modifier** , even though they do "modify" the word or phrase that they
**FOLLOW**.

で is showing how 台所 relates to the action; "in the kitchen."

If anything, that entire phrase "台所で" would be the modifier because it is
describing where the action takes place.
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2022-10-09T18:40:36.227
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2022-10-09T20:56:05.023
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answer