-い adjectives used with -な

Just a fairly quick question that has bothered me for years.

Occasionally, my Japanese professor would use a な ending with an い adjective, such as 大きな instead of 大きい。 Does this change the meaning at all? Does it have a different connotation? Or is this just a way of speaking?

As for concrete things, 大きい and 大きな are interchangeable in most cases, whereas as for abstract concepts, 大きな is more often used. Also, it's said that 大きな tends to be used in idioms.

e.g.
○大きい家に住んでいる。
○大きな家に住んでいる。

○大きな愛情を持っている。
△大きい愛情を持っている。

idioms
小さな親切、大きなお世話
大きな態度をとる

As for the usage, 大きな does not conjugate and it cannot be used as complement.

e.g.
大きい家 OK
大きな家 OK
この家は大きい OK
この家は大きな NG
この家は大きだ NG (it does not conjugate)


Another adjective I can think of is 小さい and 小さな.

undrentide said:

Another adjective I can think of is 小さい and 小さな.

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Are you saying that 大きい and 小さい are the only -い adjectives that can also end in -な?

Goluxas said:

Are you saying that 大きい and 小さい are the only -い adjectives that can also end in -な?

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A little more clarification.

大きな is not "i-adjective that can also en in-な", 大きい and 大きな are two different things, and the difference are already explained by Toritoribe san and myself.

大きな is neither "a variation of i-adjective（形容詞 keiyou-shi)" nor "na-adjective （形容動詞 keiyou doushi)", it is 連体詞 (rentaishi) which does not conjugate.

Maybe my previous post is rather confusing, to be more precise I should have said that 大きな and 小さな are the only 連体詞 I can think of which has similar i-adjectives with almost the same meaning.

There are some more 連体詞 (which is to be placed in front of noun to modify it, but does not conjugate and cannot be used as complement) in various endings:

な： 大きな (big)、小さな(small/little)、いろいろな(various)
が： わが (my)
た： たいした(big, good, great, awsome, etc.)
の： この、その、あの、どの
る： あらゆる (all/every)、いわゆる (so-called)、ある (certain)、来る（きたる, coming）

But you do not have to remember them all - just remember that 大きな and 小さな look very similar to 大きい and 小さい but they are different.

Ah, OK. I think I get it now. Thanks!