02:08, 16 August 2012 (diff | hist) . . (-351) . . m Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park (→Memorial Cenotaph: Information regarding the interpretation of the inscription is incorrect.)
The rejected information: ①While the epitaph does not include an explicit subject (we), the subject is inescapably present. "安らかに眠って (yasuraka ni nemutte) Rest in Peace": it is a request, "下さい (kudasai) - please give me/us: the giving referred to by "kudasai" can only be directed to those making the request". 繰返しませぬから for [we who make this request] will not repeat the error." The subject is established by 下さい: If the subject were any other, the change would need to be made explicit.
http://www.cjvlang.com/Writing/writjpn/signs/kudasai.html 2. In honorific terms, the person giving is accorded elevated status. The 'familiar' word for giving in this situation is kureru, which does not elevate the giver to a high status. (Learning when to use the honorific form and when to use the familiar form is, of course, one of the more subtle and difficult points of Japanese.) Kudasaru is figuratively conceived as a 'giving down'. In fact, the verb kudasaru is related to the verb kudaru 'to come down' and the verb kudasu 'to lower, to give orders, to pronounce judgement'. It is written using the character meaning 'down'.
Kudasai in its imperative form is extremely common in Japanese. It may mean either 'please give me' or it may be used in combination with another verb in the construction -te kudasai 'please (do something for me)' .
nemutte kudasai" at the end of the first clause thus establishes an implicit subject for the second clause.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-drop_language
Japanese
Consider the following examples from Japanese:
このケーキは美味しい。誰が焼いたの？
Kono kēki wa oishii. Dare ga yaita no?
This cake TOPIC tasty-PRESENT. Who SUBJECT bake-PAST EXPLAIN.?
"This cake is tasty. Who baked it?"
知らない。気に入った？
Shiranai. Ki ni itta?
know-NEGATIVE. like-PAST?
"I don't know. Do you like it?"
The pronouns in bold in the English translations (it in the first line, I, you, and it in the second) appear nowhere in the Japanese sentences, but are understood from context. If nouns or pronouns were supplied, the resulting sentences would be grammatically correct but unnatural. (Learners of Japanese as a second language, especially those whose first language is non-pro-drop like English or French, often make the mistake of supplying personal pronouns where pragmatically inferable. This is an example of language transfer.)
http://web-japan.org/factsheet/en/pdf/e19_language.pdf Japanese often omit the subject or the object—or even both—when they feel that it will be understood from the context, that is, when the speaker or writer is confident that the person being addressed already has certain information about the situation in question. In such a case, the sentence given above might become, ringo o tabeta (“ate an apple”) or simply tabeta (“ate”).
http://www.gojapango.com/japanese_language/learn_japanese.htm
Japanese Grammar
Japanese generally employs a subject-object-verb order, using particles to mark the grammatical functions of the words: 私がハンバーガーを食べる watashi-ga hamburger-o taberu, "I-subject hamburger-object eat". It is common to omit subjects and even objects if these are clear from previous context.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese/Lessons/Introduction/Konnichiwa/Formal_salutations Japanese regularly omit the subject from sentences when they are obvious from context. Hence, pronouns are hardly used. Whenever forced to use a pronoun, it is better to refer to someone by their proper name or title. あなた, may give the impression of a news anchor speaking at them or some unfamiliar person.
The above statements, including those cited from Wikipedia itself, show that the use of the “null subject” is included in Japanese learning at its most basic level. An affirmative sentence MUST have an obvious subject.Biribirisaa (talk) 02:42, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Quoting one relevant section from the citations used for the current entry: Footnote 12: The activist cut a hole in the granite Memorial Cenotaph dedicated to Hiroshima's 140,000 bomb dead that read, "Let all the souls here rest in peace as we will never repeat this mistake." The memorial was dedicated in 1952 by then mayor Shinzo Hamai who said the "mistake" referred to Japan's militarism and that visitors to the cenotaph should "pledge never again to repeat the same sin."
The Japanese (and not just the militant right) seem to think that the inscription says "we will not repeat the mistake."