Short Grammar Questions

Japanese Language Grammar
#180

What does putting ある before something do? It seems similar to putting verbs before nouns (or noun phrases) in general, but I can never pin down what it actually means.

For example, here is the sample sentence from 処分:

私の息子は、ある生徒に苛めを行い、退学処分を受けました。

In this particular example, it’s not entirely clear to me what ある is modifying. Considering 生徒 alone would use いる (right?), I’d guess that it’s modifying the whole noun phrase 生徒に苛めを行い. But even if I’m correct on that, I still don’t get what ある actually does by modifying the noun phrase.

#181

It’s a different ある, it is this one 或る which means “A certain” or “some…” So it’s just like “Some student”, or “My son bullied some student and was expelled from school”.

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#182

Ah, thank you so much!

#183

From what I understand, “without doing…” is one case where you can use either ～ないで or ～なくて, unlike, say, a prohibitory request (“please don’t…”), which must be ～ないで, or denial of one thing and affirmation of an alternative (“not X, but Y”) which must be ～なくて.

My question is, is there any difference in nuance or usage between ～ないで and ～なくて in this sense, or do they just mean exactly the same thing?

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#184

Here’s a post on italki that I found which may help:

https://www.italki.com/question/201172?hl=ja

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#185

So I am just studying the use of まま and I came across this sentence:

手がきたないままではいけないよ。はやく洗って。

And I think I get the meaning (something like your hands are still dirty. Wash them quickly) but I don’t understand why there is ではいけない after まま。All I know so far is てはいけない as an ender to say don’t do this. But then we’d need a verb with a te form right? But kitanai is not a verb and not in the te form either.

Can somebody help me out? Thanks

毎年 vs 年次 usage
#186

いけない is the verb that ends the sentence. では is the particles で and は together. It’s basically like… Whatever comes before that is not okay.

It’s this verb, the “to go well” meaning.

http://jisho.org/word/行ける

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#187

I’m actually pretty sure in では, as in ではありません this is a particle that is で but it is actually the 連用形 of だ/です. I wouldn’t worry about it so much, but it’s good to realize

#188

I wasn’t saying that では is always で plus は. I was just talking about this sentence.

#189

I was actually talking about in this sentence. This is just ては becoming では with a noun before it, because the で is what I mentioned.

Minor edit: Example sentences like この村は昔のままだ support the theory that it’s that で as だ is what would belong on the other end if the sentence was just 手が汚いままだ

@Thofte - This is the same as how ても becomes でも when in front of a noun. In Japanese the part of speech relies on the last word, and functionally here まま is a noun.

I would like some context, but without it the sentence is just “You can’t must not leave your hands dirty, hurry up and wash them.”

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#190

So then まま is treated like a noun?

#191

まま (not to be confused with まあまあ) is basically an adverbial noun. Some reading in an English discussion on adverbial nouns might help explain.

Basically in Japanese Adverbs only exist before the thing they’re modifying. So what we really have here is an adjective, 汚い, describing まま, which is somewhat hard to translate directly into English, but you can think of it as “keep in state of being dirty.”

So to break up the sentence we’ve got: 手が + 汚いまま + [では]いけない Which I think might help with the idea of how it should be parsed. I’m putting では in brackets because it’s complicated, as you can see above, but I think it’s perfectly find to think of this as ではいけない

#192

ですか vs でしょうか

Help me make sure I study this correctly:

でしょうか is more formal than ですか.
ですか is more factual, like "is it?"
でしょうか is more like “could it be?”

Anything else worth mentioning about this? In what context would you guys use でしょうか？Thanks :slight_smile:

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#193

I don’t believe that でしょうか is more formal than ですか, but your other statements agree with my understanding. I guess we can check grammar resources, or wait for other responses to see who’s right or get more clarification.

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#194

woa, that is quite complicated. Thank you for your answer!

#195

でしょうか is more polite and ですか is more certain.

For example:
お名前は（何ですか）？
その人は（あなたの）彼女でしょうか？

I picked extreme examples to make the differences in assumption clear. Asking some questions based on making tenuous assumptions can be a bit rude if you’re completely off base. So my understanding is でしょうか can be used to express even less certainty as well as being quite polite when asking such questions. Additionally it can be used in place of ですか to convey an even more indirect (i.e., more polite) question.

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#196

It’s like how “could” or "would’ lends an air of politeness in English questions, because they sound less presumptive.

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#197

なるほど！@LucasDesu your examples made this very clear, thank you for the explanation ^^

@Leebo, that’s a pretty good way of looking at it! Tyvm :slight_smile:

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#198

is ほしい rarely used in desire/want to sentences? What is a better form to use when constructing these kind of sentences?

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#199

It depends what kind of sentence you mean. Casual? Polite? Friends and family scenario?

In polite or formal situations, it might be avoided because it’s quite direct.

But in casual scenarios, I don’t think there’s any issue with using it. I often say things like コーラがほしいなぁ or something to my girlfriend.

It’s also not used for ordering, whereas in English you might say “I want a Coke” to a waiter.