Verb (dict) + には

[Robman]

Hello,

I have a question about a dialogue I'm reading. It's from a book called 子供のための哲学対話 (which I'd highly recommend btw!). They're talking about the contract-based nature of society here:

A: それは、こわい世の中だね！
B: そう、こわい。こういうみんながこわい状態から、みんながぬけだすにはどうしたらいいかな？

I'm wondering about the highlighted part. I thought you couldn't just attach に to a plain form verb, but.. they have. Why is that?
Thanks!

 

[Toritoribe]

に can be attached to the adnominal form (連体形; completely the same form as the conclusive form (終止形) in modern Japanese) of verbs/adjectives.

には
（ 連語 ）
〔格助詞「に」に係助詞「は」の付いたもの〕
「…する時には」「…の場合には」「…したら」などの意の，軽い仮定条件を表す。…「始発に乗るには四時に起きなくてはならない」

にはとは - 国語辞典 Weblio辞書

 

[Robman]

Many thanks Toritoribe, your post really helped me figure it out!

To summarise what I've found for the benefit of anyone else reading this:

The 連体形 and 終止形 are further discussed at this stackexchange page.
抜け出す is acting in the 連体形 form, modifying the phrase には .

The pattern being used is:
[Verb] には [Adjective]
Apparently the adjective is usually いい , and in this case the phrase means "good for doing [verb]".

Returning to the original sentence:
こういうみんながこわい状態から、みんながぬけだすにはどうしたらいいかな？
It seems a fair translation would be:
What would be a good way for everybody to break out of this state where everybody is afraid all the time?

Of course, I'd welcome any comments improvements on this, however.

 

[Toritoribe]

Yes, your translation is correct. However, other adjectives than いい are also commonly used in the structure "[Verb] には [Adjective]", e.g. 買うには高い or 捨てるには惜しい.

抜け出す is acting in the 連体形 form, modifying the phrase には

Grammatically, 抜け出す doesn't modify には. みんなが抜け出す is treated as a noun clause, as same as みんなが抜け出すの/こと. This is a remnant of classical Japanese. Any nominalizer is not needed to form a noun clause/phrase in classical grammar. Instead, 連体形 works as a noun clause/phrase, e.g. 義を見てせざるは勇無きなり（ ＝ 義を見てしないのは勇が無い）. Notice that 連体形 せざる is used here, not 終止形 せず. (These two forms are different in classical Japanese.) This is the reason why the dictionary expressly mentions 連体形.