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i-adjectives that can also be na-adjectives, and na-adjectives ending in -i.

BoxedLunch

後輩
3 Sep 2012
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This is more for trivia than anything else, but I'm curious to know which i-adjectives in Japanese can also be used as na-adjectives. Off the top of my head, I can think of おおきい, ちいさい and やわらかい, but I'm sure there are others.

I'd also like to know of any na-adjectives that end in い (excluding ones preceded by an e-sound, such as きれい, and anything written in katakana, such as セクシー). Na-adjectives like 嫌い, いっぱい, みたい, とくい and 心配.
 
大きい/小さい and 柔らかい belong to different groups of adjectives. The former is i-adjective, and the latter is overlapping of i-adjective and na-adjective. 大きい, 小さい or おかしい don't conjugate as a na-adjective. For instance, they don't have the predicative form or the adverbial form as a na-adjective, i.e., 大きだ, 小さだ, おかしだ, 大きに, 小さに, おかしに are all wrong. 大きな, 小さな or おかしな are classified in 連体詞[れんたいし] "(non-conjugated) attributive", not a conjugation of a na-adjective, in Japanese grammar. On the other hand, 柔らかい, 暖かい or 細かい conjugate both as an i-adjective and a na-adjective, thus, they also have the predicative form or the adverbial form as a na-adjective (柔らかだ, 暖かだ, 細かだ and 柔らかに, 暖かに, 細かに respectively).


Most of na-adjectives that end in い are Chinese origin compound words, such like 奇怪[きかい], 多才[たさい], 卑猥[ひわい], 曖昧[あいまい], 遠大[えんだい], 綺麗[きれい],,,.


みたい is not a freestanding word. It's a suffix.
 
This is a difficult point. Not to use, but to understand the rules in a useful way. I just try to remember what is natural and say that, rather than memorize the rules behind it.
 
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