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Re: OT: Japanese help

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Friday, July 4, 2003, 8:54
En réponse à Garth Wallace :


>Look to the "-nai" instead. That's the negative nonpast plain form verb >ending. "Kirenai" seems like it should be the negative plain form of the >verb "kireru", which my dictionary defines as "to cut well, be >disconnected, run out of, expire". It may be an idiomatic thing, I'm not >sure.
It is. With the -masu form of a verb, it can be used to mean "cannot ... everything" where you replace "..." with the verb in -masu form. Cf. my post to Mark.
> For "cannot", my dictionary gives "dekinai", which is the negative >or "dekiru", "to be able to".
Correct.
>Probably not...the "-masu" ending is the polite form, and that's never >used when the verb is subordinate (at least, IME. I could be wrong).
You're right. Politeness suffixes can only appear on the main verb of the sentence, i.e. the very last one.
>"Dekiru", when used to describe abilities, requires the action as a >noun, so you need to nominalize the verb using one of the nominalizing >particles (either "no" or "koto"). I think your sentence would be >something like "Makeru no ga toutei dekimasen."
Correct as far as I can see. Christophe Grandsire. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.