Re: OT: Japanese help

Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> En réponse à Mark J. Reed :
>
>
>> I'm trying to translate the sentence [fragment] "[It] Cannot possibly
>> lose". I have "Toutei makeru kirenai shimasu", but that's just a guess.
>> The dictionary has "kirenai" for "cannot; be unable to", but there's
>> no part of speech given.  The -ai reminds me of "ai" and therefore
>> makes me think it's one of those nouns that turns into a verb by adding
>> "suru".  Wild guess.
>
>
> Wrong guess. As Garth said, it's the negative form of a verb (you must
> look at -nai, not just -ai here :) ). And a typical case of
> dictionaritis: "kirenai" can indeed be used to mean "cannot", but in a
> very special construction and with a very special meaning: "not to be
> able to ... everything" where the "..." stands for the verb put in front
> of the word, which must be in the form it normally takes before the
> -masu politeness suffix.
My teachers and textbooks call this the "conjunctive form". It's also
sometimes used as a sort of verbal noun (it seems like it's used more as
an infinitive, while verbs nominalized via "no" and "koto" are more like
gerunds...this is just a guess however), and used for forming compound
verbs (e.g. <hiku> "to pull" -> <hiki>, + <taosu> "to topple, cause to
fall" = <hiki-taosu> "to pull over, topple by pulling" -> <hikitaoshi>
"pulling topple". A term from the style of Aikido I practice.)

> So with a verb like "yomu": to read, you can
> form the expression "yomi kurenai": "not to be able to read everything".
> Such an expression of course excludes the use of a direct object, so
> even if you wrote "toutei make kirenai" (not "make", the -masu form of
> makeru is "makemasu"), it would mean "it cannot possibly lose
> everything" and would prevent the use of a direct object, which is not
> what you meant.
I've never been taught that construction...I'm going to have to file it
away for future reference!

> (I won't
> enter in all the deference and humility forms you could make. Those are
> just simple politeness).
Please don't...honorifics and humble forms make my head spin! :)

> But for what you want, I think Garth's sentence is correct (at least, it
> looks correct to me. But I don't know enough Japanese to give you more
> than an impression).
Thank you!