Understanding particle-ni when there is no verb I'm trying to understand the lyrics of the song . Here's the part of the lyrics I don't understand: > > > I see it as: > "your leaving figure (back)" + "ni" + "farewell". I can't understand where this _ni_ points to. I mean, who says _sayounara_ to whom? I understand it can indicate both the source of passive verb and destination for active. Yet the verb seems omitted here. Or is it really omitted? Also, does it mean 1. "You leave and say farewell to me."; or 2. "You leave and I say farewell to you." According to the songs flow I'd go with the first option but the second one seems correct according to my maybe lacking grammatical knowledge.

A verb is surely omitted here. What verb is it, then?

Think about what you could do with a in quotation marks. You could either _**say**_ it or _**hear it said**_ to someone and that is about all you could do with a , isn't it?

(Of course, you could **write** it but writing on someone's back would not be too romantic, would it?)

So, the omitted verb must be a form of []{} together with a quotative particle .

Normally, you say to someone face-to-face, but this is a song so, the author wants to say "saying to your back". The guy/girl is already leaving. All you (the speaker) can see is his/her back now.

> []{}[]{} ≒
>
> /

The is needed because you are saying good-bye " _ **to**_ " a person's back.

= "you, who is leaving"

> Is it (1)"You leave and say farewell to me" or (2)"You leave and i say farewell to you"?

(2), of course.