Need some clarification

[Dante17]

In my text book it says that you can grant a " te mo ii desu ka " type question by repeating the whole verb te form plus " mo ii desu " construction but then goes on to say that " te mo ii desu " cannot stand on its own.

Can someone please explain this contradiction?

 

[nekojita]

That seems wrong to me - how exactly did they phrase it? It's often used for "I don't mind if..." (Xって呼んでもいいよ！).

 

[Dante17]

Here it is word for word:

A verbal te-form verb plus ' mo ii desu ' means "you may do..." , which describes an activity that is permitted. To ask for permission, you can turn it into a question sentence, ' ~te mo ii desu ka'. If somebody asks for permission and if you want to grant it, you can either repeat the while verb te-form plus 'mo ii desu' construction, or just say 'ii desu'. 'Te mo ii desu' and 'ii desu' do not stand alone.

 

[nekojita]

To be fair, you wouldn't just use ~てもいいです without any context, and it's often more like "I don't mind if...". You also see patterns like ~ても構いません.

e.g. "窓を開けてもいいですよ" kind of sounds like a situation where the speaker thinks the other person might be holding back out of politeness (e.g. they're in your room or some situation where opening a window might inconvenience you).

遠慮しなくてもいいですよ is another common phrase where the speaker is going off the assumption that the other person is attempting to be polite.

(Perhaps wait for native speaker comment on the nuances here).

 

[Toritoribe]

Your textbook seems just to say you can use neither "Te mo ii desu" (not "verb te-form + mo ii desu") nor "mo ii desu" as an answer, if it's a typo of "'Te mo ii desu' and 'mo ii desu' do not stand alone".

 

[Dante17]

Hm. That's weird. I always thought the te particle was short for the te form of a verb. Even more so as it had '~' before te.

So would something like:

'Mite moii desu'

Be a valid response to:

'Mite moii desu ka?' ?

 

[Toritoribe]

Grammatically, yes, but it's not actually used in real conversations. "Ee", "Mochiron", "Kamaimasen yo", "Douzo", "Goenryonaku" etc is used instead.