含め

南極を含め、地球上のどこでもハエは見つける事ができる。

Is 含め in the above sentence the imperative of 含む? I have learnt that the verb of a clause not at the end of a sentence should be in て-form or 連用形. Have I missed anything? Thanks!

Is 含め only the imperative form of 含む? Is there any possibility other than that?
(Hint: you already mentioned 連用形.)

Toritoribe said:

Is there any possibility other than that?

Click to expand...

Thanks Toritoribe-san. The other one should be the potential form, I guess. I didn't expect that and I had expected a regular masu-stem to be used. Moreover the translation on the web site doesn't seem to indicate that, i.e. You can find a fly almost everywhere in the world, including Antarctica. Why a potential form necessary? What could be the difference in meaning if the regular masu-stem is used? Thanks!

Did you check in your dictionary if the verb you thought the potential form was really the potential form? Isn't there any possibility that your presumption is not correct?

I started writing but had to stop myself. @healer you are closer to the answer than you think!

@Toritoribe I appreciate your teaching style, it takes great restraint to point to the answer and not just give it away!

Toritoribe said:

Isn't there any possibility that your presumption is not correct?

Click to expand...

Yes, I always doubt myself as far as learning is concerned. I got this as a potential form by reading the conjugation table. There was no further info from the Japanese-English dictionary I used. Though you quoted a lot from Japanese-Japanese dictionaries, I often failed to get a full understanding because my competency was not that good. For those not so complicated I needed to look up a lot of words in the dictionary.
Since I'm not living in a Japanese-speaking environment I look up every word for the pitch accent too. I didn't mind looking them up on the Internet if I worked out the key words to search for.
I have indeed come across quite a few where the potential form of verbs were used while the corresponding English translations didn't convey the same. Under what circumstances that the potential form of a verb was to be used where the sense of capability and possibility was absent, I have been trying to figure them out.
For example I came across 会議の中ではとても活気のある話し合いがもてた yesterday. I wasn't too sure which verb もてた was. Was it the past tense of 持てる which was also the potential form of 持つ? Since it went with the particle が, I suspected it was a potential form. If it was, why was a potential form being used. I'm still at a loss.

OK don't want you spinning too far off the mark here...



While 含める can be the potential form of the godan verb 含む, it's also its own separate ichidan verb with a related but slightly different meaning. I think this is what's tripping you up. The context here makes it clear that it's the stem form being used as a conjunctive: a more literary equivalent to the 〜て form. I'm not too familiar with the term or usage of 連用形, but my guess is you wouldn't normally see it used in this way for a potential form of a verb.

Sorry @Toritoribe I couldn't help myself! I'll let you address his other concerns though

@healer

I don't mean this to be rude or dismissive in any way, but sometimes I'm genuinely surprised when you get this mystified about something given your (overall) good level of comprehension.

You're familiar with transitive/intransitive verb pairs which often have patterns like this, yes? Did it genuinely not occur to you that 含む might have a transitive counterpart? (The presence of the particle を should have also been a huge clue that this is what was going on here.)

healer said:

For example I came across 会議の中ではとても活気のある話し合いがもてた yesterday. I wasn't too sure which verb もてた was. Was it the past tense of 持てる which was also the potential form of 持つ? Since it went with the particle が, I suspected it was a potential form. If it was, why was a potential form being used. I'm still at a loss.

Click to expand...

Yes, 持てる can be the potential form of 持つ but it's also used as to have or hold (like a meeting or conversation).

Thanks @nice gaijin!
I don't know why I missed it. Maybe because I always work using my mobile phone that has a small screen. That's no excuse though. I know. I apologize.
I'm indeed aware that there're many pairs of verbs like them. One of them, 持つ and 持てる as I just mentioned in my last post. However I'm not too sure if the verb in question in the sentence I quoted there is in the same situation as that of the sentence I first quoted in this thread.
It seems to me you're saying as I previously wrote that a REGULAR conjunctive form should be used if the sentence does not end there. And a conjunctive form of other conjugation such as that of potential form never plays in such role.
I thank again for your help, nice gaijin san.

(You seem to get the answer, but I already wrote my reply, so I posted it.)

I know you often use Jisho.org, so I confirmed that the site had the entry of 含める before posting my previous reply. That's why I wrote "Did you check in your dictionary if the verb you thought the potential form was really the potential form?". Anyway, as nice gaijin-san linked, 含める is actually not the potential form of 含む but an ichidan verb, meaning "to include" here.


含む vs. 含める is a special/exceptional pair of verbs, so your confusion is understandable in a sense. When it means "to include", they are both transitive, but the former is non-volitional and the latter is volitional.

アジアはオーストラリアを含む/含んでいる。
Asia includes Australia.

FIFAはオーストラリアをアジアに含めた。
FIFA included Australia in Asia.

As you can see in the examples above, the subject of 含む(= Asia) is the one that includes the object(= Australia), so it's close to intransitive verb in this sense. On the other hand, the subject of 含める is the agent (= FIFA), and Asia is indicated by に. Australia is the object in both sentences, so を is attached to it. (Incidentally, the passive version オーストラリアはアジアに含まれる/含まれている is often preferred for the first one.)


含む can be volitional when it means "to hold something in~", so 含める can be the potential form of 含む in this meaning.
e.g.
この果物は大きいが、小さく切れば赤ちゃんでも口に含める。

healer said:

Was it the past tense of 持てる which was also the potential form of 持つ?

Click to expand...

Yes, もてた is the past potential form of 持つ there. While とても活気のある話し合いを持った is just a neutral description of a past event, 持てた implies the subject's/speaker's satisfaction. Thus, this potential form only can be used in positive meanings. You can't say, for example, とてもひどい話し合いが持てた (well, except as a sarcastic expression or something). It's the same as "we were able to have a good meeting" in English, no?

healer said:

a REGULAR conjunctive form should be used if the sentence does not end there. And a conjunctive form of other conjugation such as that of potential form never plays in such role.

Click to expand...

That's not correct. The potential form, passive form, causative form etc. of a verb works as a verb, so the -masu stem of these conjunction forms can be used to connect clauses as same as the regular/original verb's stem.
e.g.
彼は荷物を持ち、旅に出た。
彼は重い荷物が持て、その上どこまでも歩ける。(potential)
彼は知らない人に荷物を持たれ、不安になった。(passive (of adversity))
彼は友達に重い荷物を持たせ、自分は何も持たなかった。(causative)
彼は重い荷物を持たされ、疲れ果ててしまった。(causative passive)