分岐 and 合流: branching routes and joining flows
Compare branching in a road or story with rivers or people joining, preserving the difference between splitting apart and continuing together.
Read a branching structure in 分岐
分岐 (ぶんき) refers to routes or other things branching apart. “道の分岐に古い案内板が立っている。” says that an old sign stands at the fork in the road.
“物語は読者の選択によって三方向に分岐する。” says that the story branches in three directions according to the reader’s choice. Keep 三方向 and 読者の選択によって as the count and condition stated in this story example.
Read flows joining in 合流
合流 (ごうりゅう) describes flows or people joining and continuing together. In this comparison, focus on joining rather than splitting apart.
“二つの川が谷の奥で合流する。” says that two rivers merge deep in the valley. The rivers are the flows that join, and 谷の奥 gives the location of that relationship.
Do not infer earlier branching from people joining
Branching describes a route splitting apart, while merging describes flows joining together. The road sentence gives no number of branches, so do not import the three directions from the story example.
“駅前で友人と合流して会場へ向かった。” says that the speaker joined a friend in front of the station and they headed to the venue. It does not state that they had earlier split onto different paths or that they had already arrived at the venue.
Does the road’s 分岐 have three branches, and does joining a friend with 合流 establish earlier branching?
Show the answer and why
No. Three directions are specified only for the story that branches according to the reader’s choice. Joining a friend and heading to the venue does not establish an earlier fork, so do not infer that prior route.