With kedo (only) why must we instead say nakedo for na adjectives?

Sorry for the romajii, but no IME on this borrowed computer.

I have an idea for answer to my question, but I wanted to run it by those with more experience. Given na adjectives are really nouns (compared to i adjectives and standard verbs which are both verbs behind the scenes) and kedo just means “only” and not “is only” to “to be only” we need something to play copula role, so na is doing this.

I think I read somewhere that na is some sort of strange version of desu/da. Even so, why is it nakedo and not dakedo? Thanks!

There are times when they must have な to connect to the grammar in question. But けど is not one of those times.

You can say すきだけど
Not すきなけど

だいじょうぶだけど
Not だいじょうぶなけど

Or, rather, if you do say な in those cases, it will probably be interpreted as the ending particle meaning hmm, or yeah, or ya know.

な is the 連体形 (attributive form) of だ・です, which means to be used when attaching to a noun that it’s describing.

好きな人 (person you like)
残酷な天使 (angel that is cruel)

けど is a sentence-ender particle that follows a verb in plain polite or past tense, not a noun that must be attributed to. If you see な near sentence ends, it’s probably describing the abstract noun の (which in turn may be shortened to ん and followed by だ・です).

OP, do you have some example sentence for this (maybe it is some more advanced grammar)?

As Leebo says, it should be だ, because the 〜な ending appears in the “nonpast prenominal form”, so when it is actually used as an adjective for a noun.

けれども and friends are conjunctions that connect sentences (!, but you can omit the second sentence so it can appear at the “end” of a sentence), so the first sentence must end in an “informal predicate”, like a normal sentence.

I only vaguely remembered な was a fancy version of の, this sounds better:

1 Like

Hmm… Does that mean the bunpro lesson on the topic is misleading me, or did I miss something. It’s this lesson だけ - Japanese Grammar Explained | Bunpro but I’ll the relevant bits over for those who don’t have accounts

だけ
only・just

Structure
Verb + だけ
いAdjective + だけ
Noun + だけ
なAdjective・な + だけ

And the example sentence that shows it:
彼女かのじょは綺麗きれいなだけ.
She is only beautiful (and nothing else).

At least だけ != けど :thinking:

Not a single time is なけど (nakedo) mentioned in that text. なだけ (nadake) is, though, as it’s a very different grammar point.

You posted a point for だけ (dake), not けど (kedo). けど (kedo) is a way of saying “but.” だけ (dake) is a way of saying “only.”

EDIT: Is it possible you got だけど (だ+けど) confused with なだけ (な + だけ)? In informal speech です+けど ends up だけど which contains the same visual construction of だけ, which is indeed used after な.

I think you got somehow kedo mixed up in the beginning :slight_smile:

彼女は綺麗なだけ。

I don’t know the real reason, but I think the na-adjective is still modifying a noun, like 彼女 in that example (or even something omitted), so it ends in na even though the words are shuffled a bit.

Yeah, we all kind of ignored the mistaken meaning of けど. Woops.

Oops sorry all! My bad. I meant to say だけ not けど. I keep getting those two backwards >_>. I’d got back and edit the original post, but I think that would make things more confusing at this point.

1 Like

Do you still have question then, or is this solved? As one does not replace the だ of だけ to make なけ, it should be normal that once uses な before だけ to make なだけ. :grinning: If this is solved, no particular reason to edit anything. :thinking:

Also the modern particle だけ came from the noun 丈.

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.