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help understanding "no" after dictionary form of verb

KristiW

後輩
15 Jul 2013
12
1
13
I'm pretty new to Japanese.

I'm working my way through a children's book, もり の なか, a translation of In the Forest.

I'm working on this sentence:

けれども、ぼくを みると、 あそぶのを やめて さ けびました。

In the original, it's the second half of

"Two little monkeys high up in the trees
Stopped playing and shouted when they saw me."

I'm trying to understand the の in あそびのを .

It seems like it's turning the dictionary form of "play", あそぶ, into a noun, maybe? I tend to think of the を particle being attached to nouns.

I tried turning to Japanese the Manga Way and Japanese Verbs and Essentials of Grammar for help; I didn't find anything in the latter, but I found some info on what JtMW calls the "explanatory の", which seems to add emphasis or suggest explanation.

Can anyone help me understand what the の means and why it's there?

Thank you!
 
That's not "explanatory の" but a nominalizer. It's used to change a verb into a noun(to nominalize), as you inferred, just like the gerund "playing" for a verb "to play" in English.
 
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