彼女は表情が生き生きとしておりとてもかわいい。
was translated awkwardly on ALC as
She is very pretty for the liveliness of her expression.
Which おり is this? I think I know it from the polite しております but is it here wielding more expressive meaning?
彼女は表情が生き生きとしておりとてもかわいい。
was translated awkwardly on ALC as
She is very pretty for the liveliness of her expression.
Which おり is this? I think I know it from the polite しております but is it here wielding more expressive meaning?
It replaces the verb stem い
(of いる
) for morpho-phonological reason.
The construction in your example uses a verb stem to continue another predicate after it as in:
よく食べ、よく寝る。 [Vowel verb stem 'tabe']
年月が経ち、忘れてしまった。 [Consonant verb stem 'tat' followed by the epenthetic vowel 'i']
When you use the verb いる
in this construction, its stem 'i' is very short that some people don't like it, and may even consider it ungrammatical:
生き生きとしてい、とてもかわいい。
Those people replace i
with a longer verb stem or
, which can be considered in present Japanese a variant of this verb stem:
生き生きとしており、とてもかわいい。 [Consonant verb stem 'or' followed by the epenthetic vowel 'i']
When it is followed by an affix, the shortness of the stem is compensated by the affix, and it does not sound bad, so both forms are allowed:
...しています。
...しております。
Translation
The translation that you got is a good one for a literal translation.
彼女は表情が生き生きとしており、とてもかわいい。
'As for her, the facial expressions being lively, she is very pretty.' (Literal)
'Her facial expressions are lively, which make her very pretty.' (Natural)
Let me have a go at this:
彼女{かのじょ}は: She/Her (establishing context)
表情{ひょうじょう}が: expression (with nominative case marker)
生{い}き生{い}き: vividly, lively
して: Verb conjunctive form of する
おり: 連用形 of 居る{おる} (To be/exist for animate things) This should be the verb you're looking for
とても: intensifier
かわいい: pretty
The verb is 生き生きとして居る, the subject is 表情. Combining them yields "There is a vivid/lively expression"
Context is 彼女
Combining 1. and 2. yields "For her, there is a vivid lively expression"
Now put the verb in 連用形 to get:
3.
彼女は表情が生き生きとしており
One of the uses of the 連用形 is to join up several sentences as subphrases into a large continuous sentence.*
One sentence has been established, which is in 3.彼女は表情が生き生きとしており
The other sentence is とてもかわいい
((She) is very pretty)
Combining them yields "She has a lively expression, she is very pretty"
EDIT: Regarding your comment on trying to introduce a "because" nuance.
You can use the て-form of the verb to introduce an implicit sequence of events. (Weak causal relation)(If you want a stronger causal relation, use から)
See Verb Grammar - The Verb Conjunctive Form(You have to scroll down a little bit)
The difference between linking sentences with て-form and linking with 連用形 is that there is no implicit sequence of events when linking with 連用形.
*Extracted from nihongoresources:
One of the uses of the 連用形 is to join up several sentences as subphrases into a large continuous (which is what 連用 means) sentence, similar to how in English for instance you would join up two sentences by putting a comma between them and if necessary changing the phrasing on the first sentence just a tiny bit. If we look at an example you might get an idea of how this works:
日本語: 花が咲く。 English: Flowers bloom.
日本語: 鳥が鳴く English: Birds are chirping..
日本語: 春が来た。 English: Spring has come.
We can combine these into a single sentence:
日本語: 花が咲き鳥が鳴き春が来た。 English: Flowers bloom, birds are chirping; spring has come.
として
, I'm not sure how して relates to the と particle. But it seems adverbial to me. I'd like someone to correct/verify this and/or provide good English parsing for this.
– Flaw
Sep 30 '11 at 01:51