Adjectives and the -te form.

[charusu]

Hello,

I have some questions about lists of adjectives in a sentence, my grammar books often deal with 2 adjectives but I have questions about more than 2.

Take a sentence like "This is big and delicious." I would translate this as "Kore wa ookikute oishii desu." Using the same logic I would translate the sentence "This is big, delicious, and awesome." as "Kore wa ookikute oishikute subarashii desu."

Is this the correct logic? Namely, the adjectives in the list except for the last one are conjugated to the -te form and the last is conjugated to whatever the need be.

Assuming that my aforementioned logic is correct, what about a sentence like "This WAS big and delicious.", would I translate that as "Kore wa ookikute oishii deshita." or "Kore wa ookikute oishikatta."? Or are both correct and the use of those two sentences is a matter of politeness-level?

My M.O. is that I learn a new grammatical "thing" and then test a bunch of sentences in Google Translate - but I'm getting mixed results with this one. Could somebody please expand on my understanding of adjectives and the -te form?

I thank you greatly!

Charusu Ridu

^_^

 

[Toritoribe]

Yes. The -te form itself doesn't have tense. It's carried by the one at the sentense end. (Incidentally, it's the same for the -te form of verbs.)
"Oishii deshita" is wrong. "Oishii" is an i-adjective, so the past form should be "oishikatta (desu)".

 

[charusu]

Thank you so much!

So "Kore wa ookikute oishikute subarashii desu." and "Kore wa ookikute oishikute subarashikatta desu." are both correct for "This is..." and "This was...", respectively?

Thanks again!

 

[Toritoribe]

Genarally, yes. But the -te form has other functions besides simply conecting, depending on the relation among the adjectives/verbs/clauses. For instance, it can show cause and reason.

寒くて死にそうだ。
Samukute shinisou da.
I'm cold to death.(lit. I'm dying because of cold weather.)

You can also use a listing particle し[shi] instead of the -te form to avoid these ambiguities.

Kore wa ookii shi oishii shi subarashii desu.

 

[charusu]

Very enlightening, thanks a lot!