Yeah there’s any number of ways to complete the sentence with a verb, but they definitely don’t have that same punchy feel that they want for an ad. Using the volitional kinda makes it sound like it’s a PSA or something aha.
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Is 任じる transitive or intransitive? jisho.org says it’s intransitive, but I don’t know of any (free, online) monolingual dictionaries that indicate transitivity to cross reference. I see some examples online (on Weblio) that use に to denote the role to which the person was appointed, which would support it being intransitive. But I do see others using both に and を (to indicate the role and the person appointed respectively). The following sentence from 本好きの下剋上 volume 8 uses を instead of に to indicate the role, so I’m even more confused. Is there something going on here grammatically that allows either particle to be used depending on some factor?
(I’m blurring the sentence from 本好きの下剋上 volume 8 as it is a major spoiler if you haven’t read up to that point.)
養父である領主より神殿長を任じられましたローゼマインと申します。
The use of を there might be simply a result of the verb being in the passive form, but I just woke up and my brain’s not fully booted up yet. I’ll come back to it after I’ve put a few cups of coffee in me.
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Here’s the entry in 三省堂国語
The 他 heading for entry 2 indicates 他動詞 so there’s a secondary transitive meaning.
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Where can I get this dictionary? I see it might be an iPhone app, but I only saw one review, so I wasn’t sure if that was the right thing.
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I’ve been looking through other resources, but I can’t find any transitivity references, like @alo’s app there. I did however find a lot of example sentences on this page here with を marking the position being appointed so I’m thinking it must be a regular usage: 任じるの例文
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You can find it for Yomichan - followed this guide and the zip of dictionaries they provide includes it. But searching for “Yomichan 三省堂国語辞典” or similar things gives a bunch of results.
That’s not gonna do you a lot of good on mobile though, I guess
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The app is actually called Dictionaries by Monokakido
I don’t know if they have an android version but there should be something similar.
It lets you buy different dictionaries to use. The 三省堂国語 one was a recommendation from this post: Good J-J dictionary for iOS? - #5 by Merriad
I think it was around $25.
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マコくん は or が？ マコちゃんに プレセントを あげる
Which one is correct, wa or ga?
WAIT, given how ga marks the subject and makokun is the one giving the present, ga is correct?
Both are possible. It depends on what the context is.
マコくんが would be better if you’re answering the question of “who will give a present to Mako-chan?”
If Mako-kun is already the topic of conversation, then マコくんは would be more appropriate.
Other contexts are possible as well (が for neutral narration, は for contrasting with someone else, etc)
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I was thinking about this more on an “abstract” sense, I just dropped this oration and left the room you know?
So yeah, I believe GA would be correct in that case since nothing is known
In the WK vocab for 横, there this example sentence:
きっ茶店の横に、食どうがあります。
There is a diner next to the cafe.
What function is the っ performing after き? Ichi.moe groups it together but just says the it’s pronounced ‘ki’ with no breakdown.
I can imagine either being said “out of the blue”. It depends on the overall situation. One or the other would sound strange based on other circumstances.
There is no completely abstract baseline sentence.
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It’s the word 喫茶店 with the kanji for 喫 left out because it hasn’t been taught yet. The full word in hiragana is きっさてん. さ and てん are the onyomi for 茶 and 店 respectively.
If that doesn’t answer your question, let me know.
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OOOH, I just remembered something. A youtube teacher once told me “GA is used when it’s something new to the conversation”. I just ignored it because it went against what I already knew, but I guess in cases when both WA and GA are acceptable it’s a neat trick!
Thank you, that makes a lot more sense.
This might help:
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I saw the phrase お懐かしゅうございます in a book earlier today. I’ve seen this form before, so I wasn’t really thrown off, but it did get me wondering some things.
- Is there a term for this old form of conjugation? (Or any suggestions so I can search online to read more about it.)
- Does it fall into the same category of old forms like おはよう coming from はやい or the odd conjugation of some verbs like くださる becoming くださいます?
- Just like how おはよう is still used today even though this form isn’t broadly used anymore, are there any set phrases that use this しゅう form?
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Yes there is. It’s called ウ音便. It’s briefly covered in the Wikipedia article for 音便: 音便 - Wikipedia, also in English: Japanese grammar - Wikipedia
I first learned about it on imabi: 第125課: Honorifics II: Adjectives & the Copula
おはよう is in the same category of ウ音便, but ございます is in the category of イ音便. It is in the same greater category of 音便 though.
Specifically the しゅう ones, they’d have to come from an adjective ending in しい. The only ones that comes to mind right now that are kind of set phrases are ご機嫌麗しゅうございます, which is a sort of fancy “goodbye”, and 苦しゅうない which means something like “no problem”. I’m not sure how often they’re used in real life, I’ve only seen ojousama-type characters use them in manga/anime.
Another place where I see adjectives conjugated like this are in Western Japan dialects like Kansai, Hiroshima or Okayama.
Stuff like はよう来い instead of 早く来い, or ようない instead of よくない, しとうない instead of したくない.
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Very helpful information! Thank you so much!
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