This practice places the hearer at some awkward preliminary disadvantage, inasmuch as the story is nearly over before he has any notion what it is all about; but really it puts the speaker to much more trouble, for he is obliged to fashion his whole sentence complete in his brain before he starts to speak.

This is largely in consequence of two omissions in Tartar etymology.

There are in Japanese no relative pronouns and no temporal conjunctions; conjunctions, that is, for connecting consecutive events.
The want of these words precludes the admission of afterthoughts.
Postscripts in speech are impossible.

The functions of relatives are performed by position, explanatory or continuative clauses being made to precede directly the word they affect.

Ludicrous anachronisms, not unlike those experienced by Alice in her looking-glass journey, are occasioned by this practice.