47979
Whenever I read a long multi-line article written in Japanese, the hard part
for me is that a lot of the long sentence like clauses suddenly end as a noun-
phrase, making it a relative clause.

This really confuses me, you know, throws me all out of wack. So I'm
wondering, while I'm sure parsing it comes naturally to Japanese people, I'm
just wondering if they can spot a relative clause in advance, before actually
reaching its punctuating noun-phrase?

You know, are there things that make a clause look like a relative clause in a
way that doesn't make it one, but hints that it is by its presence?

So, can they? And if so, by what trends and patterns?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-02T23:19:50.227
47962
2017-06-03T07:29:55.840
17968
question
relative-clauses parsing
Can native speakers spot if a clause is relative or not ahead of time?
If a [subject is marked with
の](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/12825/5010), it may work as an
indicator of a relative clause. Other than this, probably there is no way to
know whether it's a relative clause or a main clause. Of course native
Japanese speakers don't think about this, at least consciously.

A good(?) news is that Japanese is a very consistent language in this regard.
Modifiers almost always come before the modified word. See: [Head
(linguistics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_\(linguistics\)). But
probably you need a lot of reading practice until you'll get comfortable with
this. (English relative clauses may be one of the most difficult grammar for
Japanese students who learn English as the second language...)
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-03T07:29:55.840
47979
2017-06-03T07:29:55.840
5010
47962
answer