17744
This is from an exercise in Minna no Nihongo, ch16.

Full sentence:

> 神戸は古い物があまりありませんが、町の後ろに山 **が** 、前に海があって、素敵な町です。

As above, I don't understand why there is nothing after the が. I can sort of
see that two sentences have been contracted into one but I'm still lost:

Machi no ushiro ni Yama ga aru

Machi no mae ni umi ga aru.

If someone could help that would be great :)
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-09T22:20:48.890
17743
2018-07-18T13:36:47.200
2014-07-10T01:08:59.900
3437
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question
particle-が
Use of first が in 町の後ろに山が、前に海があって、
後ろに山が has been coordinated with 前に海が:

```

    **町の**	[　後ろに　山が、 ]  
    　　	[　前に　　海が　 ]　**あって** 、素敵な町です。
```

One possible way to describe it is like this:

  1. Start with the following:
```          [　**町の** 後ろに    山が **あって** 、 ]  
    　　	[　**町の** 前に　	海が **あって** 、 ]　**** 素敵な町です。
```

  2. Pull out **町の** from the left side:
```     **町の**       [　**＿＿** 後ろに    山が **あって** 、 ]  
    ****	[　**＿＿** 前に　	海が **あって** 、 ]　**** 素敵な町です。
```

  3. Pull out **あって** from the right side:
```     **町の**       [　**＿＿** 後ろに    山が **＿＿＿** 、 ]  
    ****	[　**＿＿** 前に　	海が **＿＿＿**　 ]　**あって** 、素敵な町です。
```

In linguistics, steps 2 and 3 are called left-node raising and right-node
raising respectively. We have something like this in English, too, which you
can see in phrases like _pre- and post-war_ :

> [ pre- **war** ] and [ post- **war** ]  
>  [ pre- **___** ] and [ post- **___** ] **war**

Another way to understand this is by analogy to mathematics. When we pull
**町の** out from the left, it's like we're **factoring it out** :

> Let _**a**_ = **町の**  
>  Let _x_ = 後ろに山が  
>  Let _y_ = 前に海が
```

>     　_**a** x_ + _**a** y_ = _**a** (x + y)_
```

Of course, the explanations above are just metaphors to help you understand
how the words fit together. It's not necessary for you to believe that anyone
_actually_ starts with more complex sentences and reduces them this way. And
this certainly isn't the only possible way to explain these particular
examples.

Whichever way you choose to think about it, in your example the **町の** on the
left connects with both coordinates at the same time, and so does the **あって**
on the right. So I think your description is basically correct.
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2014-07-09T23:28:24.903
17744
2018-07-18T13:36:47.200
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
-1
17743
answer