94077
I've been studying Japanese for years, but I still run into _everyday_
language constructs that knock the wind out of me, and make me wonder if I
slept through an entire week of Japanese class...

I stress that I am not talking about archaic Japanese, or technical writing,
etc. I'm talking about everyday stuff.

Here's the latest:

> 日本のここが辛い。

I understand this means something like this ( _but please do correct me if I'm
wrong!_ ):

> This is what is harsh about Japan.

What sends me for a loop is the "のここ" bit, because I expect the の particle to
be followed by a noun, whereas I have always known ここ as something closer to
an adverb.

OK, I know that in English (for example) one sometimes comes across the
expression "the here and now", which renders "here" into a noun. Maybe
something like this is going on with "のここ"?

My question is: does this contstruction generalize? Can one use phrases like
"のそこ" or "のあそこ" or "の今" or "の明日", etc?

Can someone point to me to a detailed discussion of the linguistics/grammar
that would encompass the language pattern exemplified by the quotation above?

* * *

**EDIT:** After I posted my question, I found the following example online:

> ここの冬はひどく寒いです。

While I can't say that this use of ここの strikes me as terribly familiar, I do
find it quite intelligible. It does not have the same disconcerting effect for
me that "日本のここが辛い" has. Arguably, this second sentence also nominalizes ここ,
but note the difference in ordering: "ここの" vs. "のここ".

I can't quite explain why I find the first ("のここ") nominalization so much more
bewildering than the second one ("ここの").

I suspect, however, that perhaps the _translation_ into English that I gave to
the first sentence is contributing to my disorientation. A literal translation
like "Japan's 'here' is harsh" would sound a bit odd _semantically_ (something
I am by now quite used to when I read Japanese), but not all that odd
_syntactically._ (BTW, if that literal translation were indeed correct, I
would interpret it to mean something like "Being in Japan is harsh" or
"Present reality in Japan is harsh".)

My point is this: the proper translation of my original example is a key
aspect of this question. If my translation is wrong, it could be that the
correct translation, _by itself_ , may suffice to dispel my confusion.

Therefore, I decided to add `translation` to this question's tags, even though
translation was not my original motivation for posting it.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-11T12:35:55.620
94076
2022-04-11T14:07:43.740
2022-04-11T13:53:34.580
1749
1749
question
grammar translation particle-の
... のここが ... (adverb nominalization?)
Your confusion probably stems from that ここ is usually translated _here_ but is
actually [a
pronoun](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%81%93%E3%81%93/#jn-77801) as a
Japanese word. In fact, ここ usually appears with particles and behaves like a
noun.

On the other hand, 今日 or 明日 looks more like a normal noun, but it is often
used adverbially as in 今日学校に行った. This is usually called 名詞の副詞的用法, which can be
seen in English as in _I have lots of things to do **this month**_.

So from the Japanese perspective, it is more 'adverb-ization of nouns'.
Expressions like '..の今/明日/ここ' are all grammatical. Regarding Xのここ/そこ, these
mean literally _this/that point of X_.

* * *

I guess the English _today_ is originally an adverb which is turned into a
noun, so an instance of 'adverb nominalization' in some sense.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-11T14:07:43.740
94077
2022-04-11T14:07:43.740
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94076
answer