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急ぎでなきゃ

dhmkhkk

後輩
25 Jun 2017
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こんなに急ぎでなきゃ 家の 手入れも しといたんだけんど。

Could you please explain the grammar behind 急ぎでなきゃ?

1. で: does it belong to 急ぎで or to でなきゃ?
2. So, なきゃ is the short form of なければ. So, it's actually なければいけません = must not. Yet the translation is "if you weren't in such a hurry, I would have taken care of the house" (Or from the context: if you weren't in such a hurry to move,... となりのトトロ, the obaasan said it at the beginning)
3. Is 急ぎ the masu stem of いそぎます or a noun?

And I'm sorry for asking an anime question... I know a lot of people don't like it. I swear to God I'm studying the grammar daily from Genki, but ... unfortunately totoro is just too much fun, I can't stop :emoji_grin:
 
The 急ぎでなきゃ probably reminds you of 急がなきゃ, which by itself would indeed be a contraction of 急がなければいけない. 急がなければ is the negative conditional of 急ぐ and いけない is the negative potential of いく, so a literal translation would be "if you don't hurry, things won't go/work out" - in order words, "you must hurry."

In this case however, we don't have 急がなきゃ but 急ぎでなきゃ. This is the noun 急ぎ followed by the particle で and the negative conditional of ある. As you may know, である means "is", so by extension we get:
であれば = "if it is"
でない = "it isn't" (often seen with an additional は: ではない)
でなければ = "if it isn't"

So 急ぎでなきゃ is a contraction of 急ぎでなければ and means "if it isn't such a hurry", or more naturally, "if you weren't in such a hurry."

(Side note 1: one of the theories about the origin of です is that it's simply a contraction of であります.)
(Side note 2: there's nothing wrong with using anime for exposure to Japanese. Hell, I would've probably never learned the word 球状星団 if it weren't for Macross. The condition is that you properly look up and try to understand the grammar, as you are doing; we've had people on this forum who tried to learn the language by only watching anime and somehow trying to derive its grammar by matching the spoken lines with the subtitles...)
 
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Thank you very much!🙂:
As you may know, である means "is"

actually, for me "is" is just ある, or negative "dewa nai". That's why it confused me that there was that "de". Could you please give me an example with である ?
 
You have to take into account that "is" in English has multiple functions. One is to indicate existence as in "The calculator is on the desk" - this corresponds to ある (あります) in Japanese.
電卓は机の上にある。

Another is the copula as in "That thing on the desk is a calculator" - this corresponds to である (であります, です) in Japanese.
机の上にある物は電卓である。

Using である at the end of a sentence like this is not very common; usually you'll see だ or です instead. However, it does regularly occur in subclauses. For example: "There's no way that he, who is an elementary school student, would understand quantum physics."
小学生である彼には量子物理学なんて分かるはずがない。
 
Ah ok thank you, I haven't seen である yet, but I see what you mean. Thanks, I will try to look more into this "de aru" matter.
 
This is the noun 急ぎ followed by the particle で and the negative conditional of ある.
Sorry for nitpicking for a trivial grammatical thing, but で in である/で(は)ない is not the particle で but the -masu stem of the copula だ. As you understand correctly, だ is originally from である, so you can think that で is conveniently treated as the -masu stem of the copula だ/です in modern Japanese grammar.

Incidentally, the etymology of this で is にて; the 連用形 of a classical auxiliary verb なり for assertion + the particle て. Confusingly enough, the etymology of the particle で is also にて, but this にて is the particle に + the particle て.


( 助動 )
断定の助動詞「だ」の連用形。連用中止法に用い、また、「ある」「ない」「あります」「ございます」などに続けて用いる。 〔古語の断定の助動詞「なり」の連用形「に」に助詞「て」の付いた「にて」の転。中古末から中世へかけての成立〕


〔格助詞「に」に「て」の付いた「にて」の転。中古末から中世以降の語〕
( 格助 )

で(デ)とは - コトバンク

であるの意味
[連語]《断定の助動詞「なり」の連用形「に」に接続助詞「て」、補助動詞「あり」の付いた「にてあり」の音変化》
[補説]「である」は鎌倉時代に発生し、室町時代に発達した語で、「じゃ」「だ」はこれから出たもの。現代では、文章語・演説口調の常体として用いられる。

であるの意味 - goo国語辞書

での意味
[格助]《格助詞「にて」の音変化》

で[格助接助]の意味 - goo国語辞書

にての意味
[格助]《格助詞「に」+接続助詞「て」から》
[補説]中世以降「で」に音変化して現代語に及ぶ。なお、「にて」は、現代語でも文語的表現あるいは改まった表現に用いる。

にて[格助]の意味 - goo国語辞書
 
I didn't know that - thanks for pointing it out :). (I should've probably looked it up myself before making that statement. Sorry about that, dhmkhkk)
 
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