i sometimes see in wanikani context sentences verbs like 思わず and 守らず, and i just dont understand what is the meaning of it, can anyone tell me the meaning and usage?
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Old way of forming the negative. It’s equivalent to ない. Mostly in expressions and phrases now as far as I can tell but is also a way of saying “without [verb]ing” I think.
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Yep. ずに is more or less equivalent to ないで; here’s bunpro’s entry for it which calls it N3 grammar. As you might guess from its Classical origin, it’s fairly formal in tone.
In a few cases, like 思わず, it has fossilized into a word that you can then find in dictionaries.
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so if i say: 彼が思わずすしを買った it means he bought sushi without thinking? or you need to add に or で after 思わず to make it adverb-like?
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思わず specifically is an adverb all by itself, because this is a situation where the grammar has kind of fossilized into a word that happens to end in ず, not a case where the verb ending ず is still alive and working as part of a grammar pattern.
The Progressive dictionary has example sentences:
思わずため息が出る
sigh unconsciously
思わず笑い出す
laugh in spite of oneself
車がぶつかりそうになって思わず目をつぶった
I shut my eyes instinctively just as the car seemed about to crash.
Your sentence is grammatically correct but I feel like it is kind of on the borderline for whether it is a natural use of the word, because “buying sushi” is a bit of a long and usually intentional action to be something you do unconsciously/instinctively/reflexively. In the right context it could be OK, I guess.
EDICT defines the word as:
unconsciously; involuntarily; instinctively; reflexively; spontaneously; unintentionally; in spite of oneself
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