What's new

鶏肉は炒めてもいいし、焼いたり、ローストしてもいい。

healer

Sempai
13 May 2019
687
10
28
The above sentence is extracted from FREE Japanese Word of the Day Widget - JapanesePod101.

Re: 鶏肉は炒めてもいい、焼いたり、ローストしてもいい。
The translation was "Chicken can be fried, baked or roasted. ".
Obviously this is not a literal translation.

I have learnt that し refers to one reason among some others which might not be mentioned and ~たり refers to one action out of various actions that might not be mentioned.
I wonder how both and ~たり can be mixed together like this in one sentence?
 
し can also be used to enumerate things. I think Toritoribe told me at some point that this usage is like an emphatic "and".
The meaning is something like "Not only can chicken be fried, it can also be baked or roasted".
 
Thanks! Grammatically what part of speech does go after for such function, adjective and verb?
 
It's a conjunctive particle, so it goes between clauses. By the way, the し that you mentioned (that indicates a reason) is also a conjunctive particle.
What meaning し has depends on the context.
 
The following thread might be helpful. We were talking about the difference between し and たり there (and in the linked threads there).

The reason why たり is hardly used after the first いい is because いい is a state, and therefore よかったり suggests that a situation "it's no good" can occur.

The following sentences express the same meaning.
鶏肉は炒めたり、焼いたり、ローストしてもいい。
鶏肉は炒めたり、焼いたり(して)もいいし、ローストしてもいい。
 
The following sentences express the same meaning.
鶏肉は炒めたり、焼いたり、ローストしてもいい。
鶏肉は炒めたり、焼いたり(して)もいいし、ローストしてもいい。

Does this mean that what I said about し behaving like an emphatic "and" is wrong?
Because I would expect the first sentence to simply enumerate some ways in which chicken can be cooked. (Chicken can be fried, baked or roasted,.)
While the second sentence to be more like "Not only can chicken be fried and baked, but also roasted."

Also, apologies for saying you told me about the emphatic "and" thing. I tried searching through my posts now but I couldn't find anything like that. However, I did find various other sites mentioning this emphatic meaning, so I guess that's where I got it from.
 
Last edited:
The basic concept of し is to enumerate things in the same category of the nuance, positive or negative. In other word, し can't connect positive things and negative things.
e.g.
〇鶏肉は炒めてもいいし、焼いてもいい。
×鶏肉は炒めてもいいし、生ではよくない。
cf.
〇鶏肉は炒めるのはいいが/けど、生ではよくない。

As I wrote somewhere in the threads I linked above, たり usually enumerates things that occurs alternately and repeatedly. The point is that the actions/movements don't happen at the same time.

It's said that し is close to "Noun A も Noun B も", and たり is close to "Noun A や Noun B など" in enumerating nouns.


Another version 鶏肉は炒めてもいいし、焼いてもいいし、ロースト(したり)してもいい is also possible. したり in parentheses emphasizes that the list is incomplete more strongly.
 
The basic concept of し is to enumerate things in the same category of the nuance, positive or negative.
Ok, but many sites/books also mention emphasis together with that base concept of enumerating.

For example:
大辞林

( 接助 )

活用語の終止形に付いて、前後の句を接続する。強調の気持ちをこめて、並列・順接・逆接などの関係で下に続ける働きを示す。
① 事実や条件を並べて示し、強調する。 「しゃべっている人もいない-、横を向く人もいない」 「むし暑い-、風はない-、まったく参った」

On the other hand, デジタル大辞泉 and some other sites and books make no mention of it. You didn't mention it either... I'm confused...
 
Last edited:
I think the emphasized nuance is provided just by the context, similar to the cases indicating the cause/reason.
 
Back
Top Bottom