What's new

Pesky Particles: で versus に

xminus1

Sempai
Donor
27 Apr 2018
167
20
33
Here are two 文法チェックシート sentences I recently encountered in my 書いて覚える Minna workbook:

小川さんは本社 [ で・に ] 転勤します。​
家族は東京 [ で・に ] 残ります。​

The correct answer is に for both sentences. I chose に for the first sentence but で for the second. Perhaps my reasoning for に in the first sentence was wrong and I just stumbled into the right answer.

At any rate, what is the best explanation for the use of に here? Or is the usage more or less idiomatic, and it's just easier to memorize the verbs that take に in their constructions, like [place + に + あります/います] and [from giver/to receiver] with the verbs もらいます/あげます?

Thank you for your help!
 
に indicates "destination" in the first sentence. 転勤する or verbs of the similar usage connote a sense of "direction", and に is often interchangeable with へ.
e.g.
向かう
引っ越す
帰る
戻る
運ぶ
置く

As for the second one, I think it's close to the location of existence, as same as いる/ある.
 
Hi, Toritoribe-san; thanks for your very useful information. That's a good list of direction-connoting verbs that take に to indication destination.

For the second sentence, your explanation is quite enlightening. I originally chose で to complete the sentence, thinking で here would express "at ___ location", but thinking 残る is similar to the sense of いる is a very helpful interpretation, and one I"ll try to remember to solve future particle puzzles.

Thanks again!
 
xminus1

I call it "motionless action". To be somewhere, or be 'remaining somewhere' are examples of this "motionless action" that I am speaking of. These examples of "motionless action" take に.

Other examples are "live in Japan" (Nihon に sundeimasu) and "be sitting here" (koko に suwatteimasu).
 
Thanks, Buntarosan. I like grammatical tags like the kind you suggested. You gave two good examples for me to remember. Thank you. 🙏
 
It's inappropriate to use ~ている form for checking whether the action is "motionless" (or "stative") or not. It can't explain why で is used for 教室で椅子に座っている. に is usually interpreted to indicate the destination of the action for 座る.
 
Back
Top Bottom