How does ほど work in the 〜すれば〜するほど construction?


I understand that 〜すれば〜するほど is used to mean "the more you do ~ the more ~".

However, I don't see how this meaning is derived from this sentence pattern. I
assume the ば is from the conditional form and ほど is supposed to mean "extent".

> 人が多ければ多いほど楽しい == "The more the merrier".

However if we look at this from the actual construction it seems like: "If
there are more people, the extent of more is fun."

This may sound weird, but I can't comprehend it in terms of Japanese, am I
looking at it incorrectly? Is ほど a particle in this case? A noun?

Of course I can look at it and think in English "oh that sentence pattern
means 'the more x the more y' and be on my way, but I would like to be able to
understand in terms of Japanese grammar.

Additionally, it appears in a similar construction:

> 人が多いほど楽しい

In this construction, does it merely link 多い and 楽しい in a fashion that means
if one is high, so it the other? Is it a particle in this case?

Edit:

To clarify, I understand the meaning and logical use of ほど in sentences such
as:

> 彼ほど日本語がうまくない _kare hodo nihongo ga umakunai_ あいつを殺したいほど嫌いだ _aitsu wo
> koroshitai hodo kirai da_

These sentences make logical sense to me. "I hate him to the **_extent_** of
wanting to kill him.", etc.

However, when it is used in sentences such as the following, ほど seems closer
to 方が and I can't see the relation to "extent".

> 多いほど楽しい _ooi hodo tanoshii_ ~= The **more** the better.
>
> 早いほどいい _hayai hodo ii_ ~= The soon **er** the better.

vs

> 多い方が楽しい _ooi hou ga tanoshii_
>
> 早い方がいい _hayai hou ga ii_




This is easier to explain once you realize many nouns in Japanese can be used
as adverbs (or just "verbal complements" if you prefer, I don't care how you
call them). In fact, most of the Japanese words that dictionaries describe as
adverbs also double as nouns or adjectival nouns (na- and no-adjectives). Take
普通, for instance: it can either be an adjectival noun meaning "(being) normal"
or an adverb meaning "normally", "usually".

This allows Japanese to easily fashion new adverbial constructs out of nouns,
where other languages would require the special class of words called
conjunctions (which barely exists in Japanese). For instance, to say "when",
we just use one of the words for "time", [時]{とき} in an adverbial role, so we
get:

> 町に行ったとき、 The time that I went to town **-ADV**  
>  新しい着物を買いました。 I bought a new kimono.

Since とき here is an adverb, it describes the verb, so you could treat it as if
the preposition "at" was added before it to make its English equivalent
adverbial: "At the time I went to town, I bought a new kimono"

Now, back to ほど: It behaves in the same way. Let's take the sentence:

> 深ければ深いほど暗くなる。

Imagine me adding commas here to separate all three parts of the sentence:

> 深ければ、 When/if it's deep,  
>  深いほど、 the extent that it's deep **-ADV** => **to** the extent that it's
> deep  
>  暗くなる。 gets darker.

I've done the same trick again: I've added a preposition to "the extent" to
indicate it's used adverbially (it describes _how_ things are getting darker,
and they are getting darker to the extent of it :)).

So if we look again at the last two parts, we have:

> "It gets darker to the extent that it's deep."

So why do we need the conditional at the beginning? Well, there's no such
thing as "must have" in a language, and if you want a simple answer, then
that's just the way such expression ended up working in Japanese. But there is
a perfectly valid historical reason for this pattern becoming the normal way
of say "the more X the more Y". If you've said 深いほど暗くなる, you'd just imply that
there's a consistent link between the extent of deepness and that of darkness.

But you'd usually want to topicalize one of the linked extents (that is, for
instance, to mark it as the one the other guy was talking about, and to which
you now link a second extent). For topicalization to work, you make a
condition out of it, which boils down to something like this in a chatty
translation.

> "Well, you were talking about going deeper, right? If we go deeper, the
> deeper we go the darker it becomes."

I think this is the source of the conditional, but now it's pretty much the
norm, and there's hardly anything else to contrast it with.

### Edit:

I think I've misunderstood you quite a bit, but I hope my answer is still
clear: ほど does indeed have meaning of "extent" and of "more", but when you say
深いほど暗くなる then you mean that it really gets darker to the extent it gets
deeper. If you're very shallow then you'll have very little darkness, but if
you get deeper, the extent of depth will be increased and so shall the
darkness.

Yes, this does seem to be a slightly different meaning than in `殺したいほど嫌いだ`,
where the clause coming before ほど isn't perceived as something measurable but
rather something that either happens or doesn't happen.




This is easier to explain once you realize many nouns in Japanese can be used
as adverbs (or just "verbal complements" if you prefer, I don't care how you
call them). In fact, most of the Japanese words that dictionaries describe as
adverbs also double as nouns or adjectival nouns (na- and no-adjectives). Take
普通, for instance: it can either be an adjectival noun meaning "(being) normal"
or an adverb meaning "normally", "usually".

This allows Japanese to easily fashion new adverbial constructs out of nouns,
where other languages would require the special class of words called
conjunctions (which barely exists in Japanese). For instance, to say "when",
we just use one of the words for "time", [時]{とき} in an adverbial role, so we
get:

> 町に行ったとき、 The time that I went to town **-ADV**  
>  新しい着物を買いました。 I bought a new kimono.

Since とき here is an adverb, it describes the verb, so you could treat it as if
the preposition "at" was added before it to make its English equivalent
adverbial: "At the time I went to town, I bought a new kimono"

Now, back to ほど: It behaves in the same way. Let's take the sentence:

> 深ければ深いほど暗くなる。

Imagine me adding commas here to separate all three parts of the sentence:

> 深ければ、 When/if it's deep,  
>  深いほど、 the extent that it's deep **-ADV** => **to** the extent that it's
> deep  
>  暗くなる。 gets darker.

I've done the same trick again: I've added a preposition to "the extent" to
indicate it's used adverbially (it describes _how_ things are getting darker,
and they are getting darker to the extent of it :)).

So if we look again at the last two parts, we have:

> "It gets darker to the extent that it's deep."

So why do we need the conditional at the beginning? Well, there's no such
thing as "must have" in a language, and if you want a simple answer, then
that's just the way such expression ended up working in Japanese. But there is
a perfectly valid historical reason for this pattern becoming the normal way
of say "the more X the more Y". If you've said 深いほど暗くなる, you'd just imply that
there's a consistent link between the extent of deepness and that of darkness.

But you'd usually want to topicalize one of the linked extents (that is, for
instance, to mark it as the one the other guy was talking about, and to which
you now link a second extent). For topicalization to work, you make a
condition out of it, which boils down to something like this in a chatty
translation.

> "Well, you were talking about going deeper, right? If we go deeper, the
> deeper we go the darker it becomes."

I think this is the source of the conditional, but now it's pretty much the
norm, and there's hardly anything else to contrast it with.

### Edit:

I think I've misunderstood you quite a bit, but I hope my answer is still
clear: ほど does indeed have meaning of "extent" and of "more", but when you say
深いほど暗くなる then you mean that it really gets darker to the extent it gets
deeper. If you're very shallow then you'll have very little darkness, but if
you get deeper, the extent of depth will be increased and so shall the
darkness.

Yes, this does seem to be a slightly different meaning than in `殺したいほど嫌いだ`,
where the clause coming before ほど isn't perceived as something measurable but
rather something that either happens or doesn't happen.

