を particle detached from verb with comma


I have the following sentence from [this
article](https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k10012843491000/k10012843491000.html)
(at the very bottom):

> 政治{せいじ}に使{つか}うお金{かね}を、キャバクラで遊{あそ}ぶために使{つか}っていたこともわかりました。

[This answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/61082/confusing-
about-%E3%82%92-that-has-no-verb-in-article) leads me to think that the verb
is the one in the latter part of the sentence, giving

> 政治{せいじ}に使{つか}うお金{かね}を使{つか}っていたこともわかりました。

which leads me to interpret the full sentence as

> It's also been revealed that government funds have been used for club
> expenses.

If that is indeed the right interpretation, then why not swap the clauses
around, and make it instead something like this?

> キャバクラで遊{あそ}ぶために、政治{せいじ}に使{つか}うお金{かね}を使{つか}っていたこともわかりました。




As @Mindful said, this sentence is perfectly natural in Japanese in word
order, since Japanese word order is much freer than most Western European
languages.

But in this case, there is a reason to take this specific order, because

> 政治に使うお金を、キャバクラで遊ぶために使っていたこともわかりました。

intuitively suggests that such conduct is a fraud, while the connotation is
not immediately clear in:

> キャバクラで遊ぶために、政治に使うお金を使っていたこともわかりました。

This is a [pragmatic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics) construction
of [ _purpose_ modifying noun] + [noun] + [ _actually did_ other arguments] +
[verb]. Grammatically, [purpose] + [noun] is but an argument of [verb], but
placing them in this order implies the [noun] serves [verb] in some
unintended, unexpected, or inappropriate manner (out of original [purpose]).

> 消毒に使う薬を子どもが飲む  
>  換気をする穴にケーブルを通す  
>  テスト用紙で紙飛行機を折る

In this light, 政治に使うお金 could be translated not only as "fund for political
activity" but "fund **supposed** for political activity" for better
understanding. There are more factors that determine the word order in a
sentence, but generally, such a nuance will disappear if the [purpose] part
comes after [actually did] elements.




First of all, your given interpretation is correct - the article is talking
about money intended for political use being used at hostess clubs.

> If that is indeed the right interpretation, then why not swap the clauses
> around, and make it instead something like this?

I'm not sure an answer specific to this particular example exists (although
perhaps a native speaker will come along and surprise me), but the very
general answer is "because there was no need to, and this was the natural way
to write it in Japanese". I assume you're asking this because you feel that
the given order of clauses in the sentence is either ambiguous or hard to
read, but I don't really think that's true - or at least not to the extent
that this sentence needs to be rewritten.

  1. The comma after `を` in `政治に使うお金を、` is a very strong signal that the next part of the sentence is not going to be directly related to the thing before the comma. This is a fairly common pattern in written Japanese, and can apply to more particles than just `を`, like `上司に、今週中に報告書を提出しなさいと言われました` (`I was told by my boss to turn in a report this week`).
  2. If you look at language as pure syntax, you will find a lot of ambiguities. Consider `He saw her on the hill with the telescope`. This looks like fairly natural English to me, but it could mean that he used a telescope to see her, he saw her holding a telescope, or in particularly esoteric interpretations that he saw her on a hill that had a telescope on it. Native speakers unconsciously disambiguate most sentences like this using context or just common sense, and they are mostly only a problem until you get used to working in the language.
  3. This particular sentence is not actually that ambiguous. Even without the comma, `お金を遊ぶ` is a sufficiently bizarre construction that it can probably be ruled out as the intended meaning purely on the verb/noun combination. Barring that though, the meaning is relatively obvious given the article context.

Which is all just to say: you could certainly rewrite the sentence the way
you've described, but this is mostly a matter of style/preference. Certainly
it's pretty hard to make the argument that your provided rewrite is in some
way objectively better.

