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"no" adjectives

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charusu

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So my girlfriend (not me, I promise) likes J-pop - I heard her listening to Koda Kumi's 'Ecstasy' the other day - and the grammar of the first phrase confused me (like most music). The first phrase is 'かけがえのない今をもっと深く' which some websites translate as 'The present can't be replaced'.

Kotoba! tells me that 'かけがえのない' means 'irreplaceable' - is it that 'かけがえ' (replacement) is being turned into an adjective with 'の' (like any other "の-adjective") to mean replaceable and that the 'ない' is merely negating 'replaceable' to make 'irreplaceable'?

It seems perfectly logical that this is the case but I am confused as to why 'ない' (a conjugation of 'ある' - it's not as if I am telling you that, I'm just telling you that I know that) is used and not a conjugation of 'です' - like why is it not 'かけがえのではない'? I thought that "な-adjectives" and "の-adjectives" used conjugations of 'です' to denote tense - whereas "い-adjectives" are themselves conjugated. Side question here; are "い-adjectives" not actually "conjugated"? Are their "conjugations" just the く-form of the adjective with a conjugation of 'ある' attached? It sure looks like it.

Could somebody please enlighten me / set me straight here?

So, on to the rest of the phrase. I know that 'もっと深く' means 'more deeply' - but why is the object particle 'を' used on 'かけがえのない今' (irreplaceable present)? And where is the verb that should follow the adverbial expression 'もっと深く' - is the verb just omitted? The English translation just doesn't make sense to me? How would you translate it?

Could somebody (again) please enlighten me / set me straight here?

Thank you all so kindly!

 
What the heck is a の adjective?

If it were かけがえがない would it make more sense to you? が and の are interchangeable in this construction.
 
Thanks for the reply Mike - but it actually makes less sense now - I know that の can mark the subject in a relative clause - it that what is happening here? Could you explain this grammar a bit more please?
 
かけがえのない今をもっと深く感じ合いたい is one sentence. Thus, 感じ合いたい is the main verb and 今 is the object of it.

charusu said:
I know that の can mark the subject in a relative clause - it that what is happening here?
Click to expand...
Exactly. The clause かけがえの/がない modifies 今.


charusu said:
Side question here; are "い-adjectives" not actually "conjugated"? Are their "conjugations" just the く-form of the adjective with a conjugation of 'ある' attached? It sure looks like it.
Click to expand...
What you are talking about is カリ活用(kari-conjugation). That's another conugation of adjectives which is used to connect specific auxiliary verbs especially in Classical Japanese.

多くあらず→多からず
多くありき→多かりき
多くあるべし→多かるべし
 
Thanks Toritoribe! This is starting to make sense! Looks like you're a Koda Kumi fan (or you know what Google is ! But is not 生きたい the final "verb" here? (I put that in quotes because the たい form is actually an adjective, right? So 感じ会いたい then might be the adjective modifying 自分, which is the object of 生きたい？

Thanks again!
 
Yeah, I googled it.

感じ合いたい exactly conjugates as an i-adjective, but actually is the main verb. The negative 感じない also acts as an i-adjective even if it's used at the sentence end (e.g. 私は痛みを感じない), isn't it?;-)

かけがえのない今をもっと深く感じ合いたい and 自分を生きたい are two different sentences. 感じ合いたい自分を生きたい sounds odd. It should be 感じ合う自分を生きたい when the clause modifies 自分.
 
Thank you again, and again, and again! If I may impose once more, would you give me your translation of these sentences? You've helped me so much (in this post and many others) - I'd love to see how a native that understands English so very well translates this.

 
Let's not gloss over something that may be important here:

What the heck is a の adjective?

I know い and な adjectives. Is it possible part of your confusion derives from thinking there is something other than those two?
 
かけがえのない今をもっと深く感じ合いたい 自分を生きたい
I want to feel the irreplaceable present with you more deeply. I want to live myself.


The no-adjective is a concept which is propounded by some linguists. Although it's not officially accepted yet. See the thread linked below.
The adverb 一々（いちいち）－ ichiichi | Japan Forum
 
Thank you. That may be fine for linguists, but I think it probably only confuses learners.
 
Yeah, definitely. Just like I wrote in the thread "Almost all J-J dictionaries don't use the term. I'm pretty sure most native Japanese speakers have never heard it." Nevertheless, online dictionaries like WWWJDIC use this term with only the explanation 'nouns which may take the genitive case particle "no"'.

Jim Breen's Pages Have Moved

Oh, then, this site says that there are nouns that DO NOT take the genitive case particle "no"? I believe that's one of the most common definitions for nouns in Japanese grammar... (Even if it's just the mistake of 'adjectives which may take the genitive case particle "no"', this can't be the definition of no-adjectives, anyway.)
 
Kind of makes the title look like a pun.
 
You guys are great! I love these types of conversations!

I think some of my confusion is arising from the inconsistency in terminology used in various texts - as well as the difference between something actually being an adjective and something acting as an adjective.

I get the whole "な-adjectives actually being nouns" deal - but since they modify other nouns attributively they act as adjectives. So it seems natural to me to label the noun (of an な-"adjective") as a noun when it used as a noun and to label the same noun as an "adjective" when it is used as an "adjective". The same also seems natural to me for の-"adjectives"...

Looking at the Wikipedia page for adjectival nouns (Adjectival noun (Japanese) - Wikipedia) I see the statement "...regular nouns can function adjectivally by taking the particle ～の -no...", so using one of these normal nouns attributively in the 'X の Y' construction means to me that X is definitely a noun, but when it is modifying Y as 'X の' then it is obviously acting like an adjective.

Looking at the linguistics of all of this is truly fascinating - but a bit deeper than what I am actually able to incorporate into my grammar at this level of the game - but functionally am I close to how these noun/adjectives might be used?

 
I suppose it wouldn't hurt to think of them that way if it helps you understand them better. However, かけがえのないY is not a case of this. Here かけがえのない is like an adjective as a unit.

Oh, and be sure when you learn them to pay attention to whether they take な, の, or both.
 
Thanks Glenn! I'm not trying to dumb it down or anything for the sake of usability, that is the way they actually work right? And I totally see that my original phrase is a relative clause with 今 as the head noun now.

 
Eh, that's kind of a tough question to answer. If it can only take one, I think there's no problem with thinking of them that way. However, in cases where な and の are both acceptable, there is a slight difference in that the な version is more of the adjective modifying the noun and the の version I think is more like that noun being a property of the head noun. I remember reading something along those lines before, but I don't remember where, and I'm not sure I can explain it much better at the moment.
 
Not really. Na-adjectives usually can't be used as nouns. The difference in usage is one of the keys to recognize which is which in Japanese grammar. For instance, 静か, which is the stem of a typical na-adjective 静かだ, CAN'T be a noun. We can't make a natural sentence using 静か as a subject or object, i.e., we can't say 静かがある, 静かを探す. We have to say 静かさがある, 静かさを探す instead, with using the noun form of adjectives. We can't use 静かの. 静かに acts only as an adverb "calmly/quietly/softly", etc, etc.

On the other hand, 健康 can be used both as a noun and a na-adjective. We can use 健康な人, 健康のために, 健康が一番いい, 健康を求める, 健康に暮らす, 健康にいい, and so on. In 健康に暮らす(to live healthy), 健康に is used adverbially as same as 静かに暮らす(to live calmly). 健康に can be considered a conjugation form of na-adjectives in this case. On the other hand, in 健康にいい(to be good for health), 健康 is used as a noun as same as 体にいい(to be good for body). に is the particle to indicate the target of いい here, not an infrection suffix of na-adjective.

This type of nouns/adjectives changes the meaning depending on how it's used, as a noun or as an adjective. One of the most well-known examples is "自由な女神 vs. 自由の女神". The former means "a free goddess/a goddess who behaves freely", whereas the latter is "a goddess of freedom/liberty", and it usually refers to the Statue of Liberty in New York. A famous linguist 奥津敬一郎, who named 僕はうなぎだ as うなぎ文, said that 自由の女神は極めて不自由な女神だ, since she has been standing at the end of Manhattan island for over 200 years without moving anywhere. (Probably this can be an example of what Glenn-san mentioned.)

The no-adjectives we are talking about here(e.g. 大荒れ, 上々, がらあき) have completely different characteristics from 静か, 健康 or 自由. They can't take が or を, so it's not a noun. They also can't take な when modifying nouns, so it's not a na-adjective. They basically act as an adjective, but take の when modifying nouns. That's why they are called no-adjectives. They are a bit special adjectives.
 
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Hey guys, ok so one more question about this song.

At one point she says ねぇどうなの？ , I know ねぇ means "hey", and that どう means "how/in what way". I was reading Tae Kim's section on the explanatory use of の, in the section he mentions that when expressing state of being with a noun (or な adjective) that な must be attached to the noun (or な adjective) in order to differentiate the genitive use of の from the explanatory use of の. The examples are:

（１） ジムのだ。- It is of Jim. (It is Jim's.)
（２） ジムなのだ。- It is Jim (with explanatory tone).

Is this what's happening in ねぇどうなの？ since どう is a proNOUN?
 
こう・そう・ああ・どう all act that way, like そうだ or こうか, etc. So it's like a noun in that sense, although semantically it's like the English adverb "how". I believe they only act like nouns as predicates, though.
 
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Sweet, thanks Glenn, I totally get the adverb usage, that's why the "noun usage" tripped me up a bit. So it's along the lines of "Hey, how is it that [we are going to be/act/do]? Right?

どうも！
 
I think it's reasonable to interpret that どう is a predicate. な can be considered the adjectival/adonominal form of the copula だ. The example ジムなのだ exactly seems to have this structure.

ジムなのだ: （それが/は）ジムだ ＋ のだ --> ジムなのだ

どうなのだ: （～は）どうだ ＋ のだ --> どうなのだ
(どうなの is an interrogative form of this sentence.)
 
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