grammar discrepancy of i and na adjective

Hi all,

Can someone please help me? Things are not according to my grammar book.


美味しいしゃぶしゃぶ 安く 食べられる ので 月に １回 同僚 と 行って います。

Why it isnt yasui 安い ? It's not in front of the verb narimasu, it's not in front of another adjective, not negative, not in the TE form, then why?

かわいい ので 店に 入るとき、 いつも 頭 を かるく たたきます。

Shouldn't it be karui 軽い? It's not a NA-adjective, so it should be able to go in front of a verb or a noun directly, provided its not narimasu or negative.


法隆寺 は 世界 で いちばん ふるい もくぞうのおてらです。

Now the reverse, why isn't furuite 古いて, since wooden is an adjective right?

A side note about the の- couldn't the お寺 be placed directly after the 木造? can't we say 古い の 木造 お寺 ? In a broader sense, when do we use the の between the adjective and the noun, and when don't we?

I thank you all in advance for your consideration regarding this matter.

cheers

Sounds like you haven't learned about adverbs yet. If you want to modify a verb (such as 食べられる) with an adjective (such as 安い), you need to turn it into an adverb first: 安く. Same goes for 軽くたたく.

In the last example, 古い modifies お寺 (a noun), not 木造, so it stays as a regular adjective. Either way "古いて" is not grammatically valid.

Pretty much, what Ianthas said is all correct.

In summary,
い-adjectives in their natural form modify nouns.
い-adjectives become adverbs by changing い to く.
The conjunction or て form of an い-adjective is formed by changing い into くて, not by simply appending て.

In addition, I think it's important to note that 木造 is in essence a noun that means 'made of wood'. It can be used strictly as a noun with that meaning (あの建物は木造です), or it can have の appended to it to make an adjective (あれは木造の建物です).

You cannot simply smash a noun into a noun and force the first noun to act as an adjective as you propose with 木造お寺.

If, for a particular descriptive noun, that kind of construction is allowed than dictionaries will note it as prefix rather than as a no-adjective. If that kind of construction is only allowed in specific cases, then those cases will have their own entries as compound words.

Most descriptive nouns, however, are specifically noted as na-adjectives, no-adjectives, or rarely as taru-adjectives -- sometimes as several of those forms. Some terms are arguably 'only' adjectives, and are noted in dictionaries strictly as a type of adjective and not allowed to exist as standalone nouns. Kind of an arbitrary distinction in pure grammar terms since anything before な、の or たる is arguably a noun, but distinguishing in the dictionary nouns that can also be adjectives and terms that can only appear as an adjective helps understand actual natural usage.

I think I may have rambled a little bit long on that, but I hope it helps. If I made any errors of fact, I welcome corrections from advanced learners and native speakers.

frapunchino said:

美味しいしゃぶしゃぶ 安く 食べられる ので 月に １回 同僚 と 行って います。

Click to expand...

美味しいしゃぶしゃぶを安く 食べられる

frapunchino said:

A side note about the の- couldn't the お寺 be placed directly after the 木造?

Click to expand...

木造 is a noun. 木造の works as an adjective, meaning "wooden". 木造 can make a compound word, so there is no problem to use with Chinese origin words, though (for instance 木造寺院).

frapunchino said:

can't we say 古い の 木造 お寺 ? In a broader sense, when do we use the の between the adjective and the noun, and when don't we?

Click to expand...

No, you can't, because 古い is an i-adjective, unlike 木造. 古い modifies お寺, as lanthas-san pointed out, so you can also say 木造の古いお寺 without changing the meaning.

ok thanks everyone things are much clearer now