ippaku suru heya - why SURU?

[berkov]

Hey ho ALL!
this is actually my first thread and I'm really curious how it all works here.
ok so .. let;s get straight to the thing..
Why do we say ippaku SURU heya (...ga hoshii desu) ... can't we just say ippaku heya ga....?
i saw in my conversation book that they skip SURU but only in case of talking about weeks - isshuukan heya
... so my question is if that to be (suru) really needs to be there,
thanks in advance for your time.
berkov

 

[Toritoribe]

"Ippaku suru" is a verb, meaning "to stay overnight". However, in the phrase "ippaku suru heya", "ippaku suru" is actually an attributive clause whose subject(I or we) is omitted, thus, "ippaku suru heya" means "a room I/we (will) stay overight".
As for "isshūkan heya", "isshūkan" doesn't modify "heya". Grammatically, these two words have nothing to do with each other. I'm sure there MUST be a verb after "heya" in the sentence. "Isshūkan" performs as an adverb to modifiy the verb.

 

[berkov]

Toritoribe, thanks for the reply!

ok so can I treat ippaku as an adverb the same way as with isshūkan? e.g. ippaku heya ga hoshii desu?
or, can i say ippaku iru heya ga ...

btw the example with isshūkan was: isshūkan heha ga hoshii desu.

 

[Toritoribe]

"Ippaku" is a noun. It's acceptable only when being used with verbs that means "to stay" such like "tomaru", "taizai suru" or "tōryū suru". (Even with these verbs, I would use "hitoban" instead of "ippaku".)
"Isshūkan heya ga hoshii desu" is not grammatically correct, although it's understandable enough. It should be "Isshūkan heya ga karitai desu".

 

[berkov]

Ok in that case i believe there must be a mistake in my japanese book as the example given was exactly: isshūkan heya ga hoshii desu...
anyways.. last question, you mentioned that ippaku is a noun but isshukan acts like adverb. why? in my eyes they should be representing the same with one exception that first one is "one night" the other "one week", or am i confusing something?

 

[Toritoribe]

first one is "one night"

This misunderstanding is the key of your confusion. "Ippaku" doens't mean "one night". It's "one night stay", therefore "ippaku suru(lit. "to do one night stay")" means "to stay overight". "One night" is "hitoban", as in my previous post.

 

[berkov]

AHH.. now i got it!.. thanks a lot... finally it makes sense..

Can i have very very last question which just came to my mind?

Why do we say Isshūkan heya and not Isshūkan no heya? like we e.g. say hiroI heya or kirei NAheya?
i know this is probably very basic question but....

 

[Toritoribe]

As for "isshūkan heya", "isshūkan" doesn't modify "heya". Grammatically, these two words have nothing to do with each other. I'm sure there MUST be a verb after "heya" in the sentence. "Isshūkan" performs as an adverb to modifiy the verb.

As I wrote, "isshūkan" modifies "karitai", not "heya". In your examples "hiroi heya" and "kireina heya", the two adjectives "hiroi" and "kireina" both describe a state of the room ("wide room" and "clean room"), whereas "isshūkan" is a length of time to rent, not a description about the room. In fact, "Heya wo/ga isshūkan karitai desu" has completely the same meaning as "Isshūkan heya wo/ga karitai desu".