Hi I’m starting to work through Japanese Quartet 1 and had a question about a sentence I read.
There was a main article on Hayao Miyazaki which was fine but then directly beneath it in a separate section called プロフィール紹介 I came across a sentence that goes like this:
大学卒業後、アニメ作家になるためにアニメ会社に就職。
Why does the sentence end with 就職 and not 就職した?
Is this common? because I haven’t really encountered this way of ending a sentence
How are you supposed to know the tense when you encounter this kind of sentence?
Also there was this sentence: 1941年東京生まれ。
Why isn’t there a だ at the end?
Thank you for your time
4 comments
> Why does the sentence end with 就職 and not 就職した?
>
> Is this common? because I haven’t really encountered this way of ending a sentence
Sometimes the する part of a する verb is omitted in formal/written/literary speech, like in your sentence. It’s relatively common for certain styles of speech. A big giveaway is that in the sentence there are particles that would usually “expect” a verb (like 会社**に** in your case) but there’s no verb at the end, so you know your brain has to fill in the verb from context.
> How are you supposed to know the tense when you encounter this kind of sentence?
The tense can usually be inferred from the context (they are talking about an event that already occurred and/or a past action since they are describing his life story) so you know in this case it’s probably した
> Why isn’t there a だ at the end?
A だ is not necessary to end a sentence (and in this case it would be incorrect since it should be した). You can also end sentences with just a noun alone.
In some contexts (and short biographical profiles is one), these items can be dropped, much as you might see “Born London, 1941” written in English instead of “He was born in London in 1941”.
There’s no tense ambiguity because it’s obvious from context.
As others have pointed out, sometimes easily inferred する and だ are dropped. It’s especially common in newspapers and blurbs when space is at a premium.
It’s pretty common especially in short bios or blurbs like that. It’s called 体言止め.
I dare say it’s more like a caption or tittle rather than a proper sentence when it comes to short bios. It’s a kind of a set phrase.
It’s also common short bio is written in present tense, when you make it more sentence-like.
〜に就職する 1941年、東京に生まれる(We never say 1941年東京生まれだ in プロフィール)
There’s no need of clarifying the tense. It’s fairly obvious from the circumstances.