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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: Usually it is introduced by the verbs, because the verbs, for the
most part, relate to human actions, and it is man, not nature, who
is responsible for the omission in question. After all, it does
seem more fitting to say, "I am ignorant of everything," than
"I know nothing." It is indeed you who are wanting, not the thing.
The question of verbs leads us to another matter bearing on the
subject of impersonality; namely, the arrangement of the words in a
Japanese sentence. The Tartar mode of grammatical construction is
very nearly the inverse of our own. The fundamental rule of
Japanese syntax is, that qualifying words precede the words they
qualify; that is, an idea is elaborately modified before it is so
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