A little edited to make more sense (thanks for the comments).
Another edit: I am horrible at explaining these things in my terms; see the comments for elucidation.
I am becoming more convinced that な is a modified form of だ, or visa versa. And の mixes into things too.
If it is after a na-adjective, but not before a noun it is expressed as da (奇麗だ vs. 奇麗な顔). In front of other copulas, da hides. It's unstable like that.
Then I came to feel a few minutes ago that だ becomes な／の in a slight prettying up of statements and explanations. Consider: 〜なの could be from (a hypothetical)〜だの and in actual reality we do know that だから changes to (な)ので.
I don't know. Maybe this is a crazy theory. It only really helps for remembering anyways. If you remember things in a circuitous manner like me.
--
you need something for those glazed over eyes?
>Then I came to feel a few minutes ago that だ becomes な／の in a slight prettying up of statements and explanations.
ReplyDeleteHi Clay, I am Mmajta from Youtube. I guess の has nothing to do with だorな in this case :( だ is never to become の in japanese. I personally disagree with the idea of Na-adjective. It s not adjective, but just noun(with "some" extra). so if you get confused next time, try ti think it s a noun. I know this doesnt click your mind right away, but hope you remember this somewhere in your mind. hmm ok at least if you are going use Na-adjective with なのでorだから, see it as a noun. Sorry if I confuse you much more. バイバイ
I think you're mixing around your parts of speech. First of all, I'm a little confused by what you're talking about when you say "copula". The copula in Japanese is です politely and だ informally. It's just "is" in English.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, while I sort of see what you're saying when you're talking about だ and な seeming to fill similar roles in 奇麗だ vs. 奇麗な顔, thus perhaps being related, those are two quite different sentences. In fact, the second one isn't a sentence at all. 奇麗だ is "It's pretty.", and 奇麗な顔 is "pretty face", not even a full sentence. You're thinking, Where is the だ? It must have become な. But I'll show you where the だ is. 奇麗な顔だ. "It's a pretty face." So in this case, with な adjectives, the な is always there, but you just don't need it when you're not using the adjective to describe anything.
Next!
As far as なの is concerned, well, I'm not sure but I read somewhere once that Japanese uses nasals to lend a sort of personal, empathetic air to what is being said. For example, いいな〜. The な resonates through the nose expressing emotion! And I've never heard of だの.
Along similar lines, I've always thought of ので as being more personal, sort of offering a personal or subjective reason, where as だから is just sort of objective, neutral. Plus, it's not really だから vs ので, it's から vs ので. だ is the copula and exists independent of から.
there is sense in your words. However, I do not buy into da simply being the polite form of desu (the most basic falsehood we are taught in Japanese 101). They both act as copula, but da is always assertive and mildly masculine. They are really close though.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, yes, I did not finish the sentence きれいな顔 if I did, I would put だ at the end, naturally. But what if we want it to be polite? Then we add です, naturally. But きれいな顔だです。 Is not correct. Why? Cause da is unstable like I mentioned and runs away from desu. Can't stand other copulas.
I wasn't suggesting どの actually exists in real Japanese, but I think I miscommunicated/confused something. It's だ＋から vs の＋で。or だ vs. の。I may have to edit the post...
Assertiveness and masculinity are traits associated with informalness rather than politeness, which would explain why だ has those connotations against です. I think you need some more convincing reasons as to why you think だ and です are not two forms of the same word.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm not sure why you're using forms like だです to prove that だ is unstable. Just use だ to be informal, です to be formal. Nothing odd or controversial about that.
And I think you're making a false comparison of だから to なので. First of all, から and ので are different words with similar meanings, so it isn't fair to compare them. Secondly, I think that the な in なので is just from the な-adjectives. It it's theoretical form, 奇麗なので would become 奇麗なだから if were to change from using ので to から. But the な of な-adjectives disappears before the copula, so we have 奇麗だから. Soooo, yeah. Also...no evidence for splitting up the の and で of ので？
I'm gonna go ahead and jump on the Colin boat, and suggest as well, that the informality with which a lot of the people around you speak Japanese, might be confounding the matter.
ReplyDeleteI know a lot of people who leave off だ, and talk in incomplete sentences as simple answers. Then there's the tendency that I think I've noticed for Japanese women and children to end sentences with のor も sounds to add emphasis, separate from using の as an informal question mark.
Also, な- with ので is only used in certain situations in others it doesn't work, and I'm pretty sure that those situations are most often when preceded by na-type adjectives?
Not sure about that though.
I'll drop the dakara/nanode thing, but I assure you da is not simply an informal desu.
ReplyDeleteda is positive-statement-making copula. Desu is a copula, OR it is something that makes a statement polite WITHOUT grammatical import.
Consider 美しい。 Complete sentence. Adding だ is impossible; you'll never hear it. Adding です makes it polite, but we don't need です for any grammatical reasons。
In addition, だ is used for subordinate clauses, but です simply can't appear anywhere but at the absolute end of a sentence.
Therefore, in my hypothetical Japanese (kinda like working with imaginary numbers), だ can come before a です, but always runs away. But since it's all hypothetical, I don't really know why I made a post...
綺麗だ顔です。 makes a sort of sense in this imaginary Japanese, but as it is unstable, だ changes to な.
BTW, I must emphasize that as confused as I may seem, I know what an informal sentence looks like, Bobby Judo!
Ah I got backup at the bottom of this page http://www.guidetojapanese.org/polite.html#part5
ReplyDeleteFound some more backup!
ReplyDelete"the 連体形`(*the form used for modifying nouns) of だ is な. (yes, useless trivia for understanding the sentence, but useful for knowing why it works that way)."
My apologies, saying something like 連体形 is much more clear than my "unstable" statement. So yes, if we think of da as an axillary verb, and we really should, I think my theories hold up/actually make sense.
Found the quote at http://www.guidetojapanese.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=34
I yield in the presence of evidences. Thanks for the good dialogue.
ReplyDeleteI still wanted to get it clear in my head, so I consulted the kokugo-senseis, and they consulted their books. They say だ does not conjugate to な。
ReplyDeleteThey say that なtype adjectives take な when they conjugate to 連体形 to let themselves be attached as a modifier or to designate a subordinate clause (as in the なのでcase), and that they take だ when they conjugate to 終止形 (the predicative form) to allow themselves to function as a single verb. That だ conjugation of the verb is called 形容動詞。
So だ is not a conjugation of な、 but they are actually two different conjugations of the same type of adjective, which confirms your theories about their relationship, and solves my problem with the unlikelihood that the two could be the same word.
hmmm, I am digesting but what your teachers said helps me finally understand why na-adjectives are called keiyoudoushi instead of keiyoumeishi! cool beans!
ReplyDeletekeyboard is broke, so I'mma be brief:
ReplyDeleteな
（助動）
[一]断定の助動詞「だ」の連体形。
→だ（助動）
from
http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/search.php?MT=%A4%CA&kind=jn&mode=0&base=1&row=2