Questions about a sentence.

LewiiG · 15 Mar 2013

未だかつて見た事のない魔法を見せてやろう

There are two components of this sentence that I do not really understand. Why の is there and why it is やろう as oppossed to やる。
Ignoring those components I believe this means something like "I will show you magic that up until now has yet to be seen" I think...

1. Why is that の there? Usually it's 見たこと（が）ない or something for having no experience of seeing something, for example.
But I just thought maybe that if it were 見たこと（が）ない魔法 wouldn't that mean "magic that I have not seen" So maybe the の is there for a reason to go against that or something...

2. And why 見せてやろう and not 見せてやる？Wouldn't that be "lets show you..." as oppossed to "I will show you..."?

よろしくお願いします。

Toritoribe · 15 Mar 2013

1)
That の is the subject marker, so it's the same as 見たことがない魔法. In Classical Japanese, the functions of の and が are opposite to the ones in Modern Japanese, thus, の indicates the subject, and が is the possessive marker. This subject marker の is still used mostly in attributive clauses. That's exactlly the case.

2)
やろう is the volitional, so it expresses the sperker's volition "I'm going to show you~".

LewiiG · 15 Mar 2013

I see. So that の is the same as が in this case, but when you use の it is used to differentiate from the possible meaning in this sentence of "I have not yet seen" to "not yet seen". Right...? I think that's what I was getting at.

Yeah. I have always associated the voilitional form to be "let's..." but a quick wiki shows that yes it can also be used as "I am going to..." or " I shall" so yeah, thanks for that. I wouldn't have realized otherwise.

eeky · 16 Mar 2013

LewiiG said:
I see. So that の is the same as が in this case, but when you use の it is used to differentiate from the possible meaning in this sentence of "I have not yet seen" to "not yet seen".

I'm not sure if there's some subtle difference in nuance or "feeling" between の and が in cases like this, but I don't think it affects the actual meaning. Whether you use の or が, I would understand it as "magic that (someone) has never seen before", where the subject of 見た is omitted but in this case is presumably meant as "you" or "people in general".

I'm only a learner, so hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

LewiiG · 16 Mar 2013

eeky said:
I'm not sure if there's some subtle difference in nuance or "feeling" between の and が in cases like this, but I don't think it affects the actual meaning. Whether you use の or が, I would understand it as "magic that (someone) has never seen before", where the subject of 見た is omitted but in this case is presumably meant as "you" or "people in general".

I'm only a learner, so hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah, I wondered about that, I thought that if it has the same meaning, then why it is used instead of が when が it is still legit. I have never before seen this の so all I know is that it is

Toritoribe said:
used mostly in attributive clauses.

The only reason I could think of was to avoid confusion with the subject. It's quite obvious here who the subject is though, regardless of whatever particle may be used. So I don't know.

Whilst I am here, where are the other places in modern Japanese that this の appears?

Mike Cash · 16 Mar 2013

LewiiG said:
I have never before seen this の so all I know is that it is
(Trim)

Whilst I am here, where are the other places in modern Japanese that this の appears?

Your lack of familiarity with it is due solely to inadequate exposure to the language or just not having noticed it before; it is quite common. For practical purposes, think of が and の being entirely interchangeable in this usage.

Toritoribe · 16 Mar 2013

LewiiG said:
if it has the same meaning, then why it is used instead of が when が it is still legit.

It's more likely "both の and が have been used in attributive clauses", not "の is used instead of が". Strictly speaking, there was a rule that which (が or の) should be used in Classical Japanese, but basically there is no difference in Modern Japanese.

LewiiG said:
The only reason I could think of was to avoid confusion with the subject.

Yeah, here is a quote from my previous post.

when a noun follows right after が, が can't be replaced with の even in attributive clauses, since it's confusing.
e.g.
a book I bought at a bookstore
私が本屋で買った本（☓私の本屋で買った本）

As you can see in the example above, 私の本屋で買った本 could be misinterpreted as "a book someone bought at my bookstore".

LewiiG · 16 Mar 2013

Mike Cash said:
Your lack of familiarity with it is due solely to inadequate exposure to the language or just not having noticed it before; it is quite common. For practical purposes, think of が and の being entirely interchangeable in this usage.

Yeah, I've probably heard it a lot but not noticed. It's only when I read things do I tend to stop and question things. Anyway now that I am aware of it i'll start hearing it everywhere no doubt, like with everything. Thanks for the practical purpose Mike... I find that useful.

Toritoribe said:
It's more likely "both の and が have been used in attributive clauses", not "の is used instead of が". Strictly speaking, there was a rule that which (が or の) should be used in Classical Japanese, but basically there is no difference in Modern Japanese.

Yeah, here is a quote from my previous post.

I truly understand now. So they are practically the same in these attributive cases and people will use whichever one unless using の will confuse something about the sentence. Right. That's another random gap in knowledge filled. Toritoribe, eeky, Mike, 超ありがとうございました！

healer · 26 Oct 2019

Could we take the following quoted from above as the ONLY exception where が cannot be replaced by の?
"when a noun follows right after が, が can't be replaced with の even in attributive clauses, since it's confusing"

What about changing が to の in the sentence below? Is it alright?
姉が来る前に、部屋を片付けます。

Toritoribe · 26 Oct 2019

Yes, there's no problem with 姉の来る前.

healer · 26 Oct 2019

Thanks!

healer said:
"when a noun follows right after が, が can't be replaced with の even in attributive clauses, since it's confusing"

When considering whether が can be replaced by の, is the quoted above the only rule we need to be concerned?

Toritoribe · 27 Oct 2019

I know you just want to confirm it, but isn't that exactly what I explained so far repeatedly? It's reasonable to judge that other exceptions would be already showed if it exists, isn't it?

Questions about a sentence.

LewiiG

先輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

LewiiG

先輩

eeky

先輩

LewiiG

先輩

Mike Cash

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

LewiiG

先輩

healer

Sempai

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

healer

Sempai

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

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