87087
I was reading up on how quotes are done in japanese, but I can't find anything
about how far the quoted part of a sentence extents.

For example [this site](http://www.guidetojapanese.org/quotation.html) makes a
good example for what I mean:

> 先生から今日は授業がないと聞いたんだけど。

This should translate to

> I heard from the teacher that there is no class today.

But why isn't it:

> I heard that there is no class today from the teacher

Like, this particular teacher is not doing the lesson today, but maybe someone
else is doing it.
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2021-06-16T21:26:17.767
87084
2021-12-31T03:04:16.873
45266
question
particle-と quotes
How to know where a quote ends?
The second interpretation is not very likely in this particular example
because 先生から授業がない makes little sense. That idea would probably be expressed as
先生の授業がない.

先生から授業がある works better.

> 先生から今日は授業があると聞いたんだけど。

This could be translated in two ways.

>   1. I heard from the teacher that there will be a class today.
>

>   2. I heard that the teacher will give (us) a class today.
>

However, without enough context, the second interpretation is still less
likely than the first. That’s because of 今日は. It is clearly part of the
quotation. If 先生から is also part of the quotation, it would most likely be
placed after 今日は.

> 今日は先生から授業があると聞いたんだけど。

But this makes the first interpretation much less likely (unless, of course,
今日は is a worthy topic of the whole sentence).

If you take out 今日は altogether, the sentence becomes more context-dependent.

> 先生から授業があると聞いたんだけど。

This could go either way.

If you need to make it clear that you heard the news from the teacher, you can
say:

> 授業があると先生から聞いたんだけど。

This completely disambiguates the meaning.

So, it depends on word order and context.

* * *

[EDIT]

Although it’s definitely much better than 先生から授業がない, even 先生から授業がある sounds a
bit awkward. I guess 授業 is not the kind of noun that makes you think of its
direction, which から indicates, especially when it’s not given. 〜から〜がない works
better with some other nouns. For example, 先生から説明がない sounds as natural as
先生から説明がある.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-17T00:11:43.317
87087
2021-12-31T03:04:16.873
2021-12-31T03:04:16.873
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87084
answer