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I don't understand na-adjectives. - Printable Version

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I don't understand na-adjectives. - wildweathel - 2009-12-07

名詞 also form adverbs with に:
神話になれ！



I don't understand na-adjectives. - pm215 - 2009-12-07

wildweathel Wrote:名詞 also form adverbs with に:
神話になれ！

That's no adverb, that's a giant robot^W^W noun...

I don't understand na-adjectives. - yudantaiteki - 2009-12-07

jajaaan Wrote:Now pay attention because this is the important part: nominals can modify other nominals by making use of the particle no; however, nominals that are semantically adjectives must use an alternate particle na when modifying other nominals. Examples: nihon no kuruma = japanese car; kirei na kuruma = pretty car. The only difference is that nihon is a thing (noun), and kirei is a quality (adjective). They are both in the same word class, though, along with suki.
Actually this is not entirely correct -- it's true that all na-nominals are qualities (and adjectives in English), but there are some regular nominals that are qualities (and adjectives in English) as well. Some examples are グレー (and other loan words, though not all of them), and 病気 (which can also be na-).

I don't understand na-adjectives. - wildweathel - 2009-12-08

pm215 Wrote:
wildweathel Wrote:名詞 also form adverbs with に:
神話になれ！

That's no adverb, that's a giant robot^W^W noun...
Okay, I'll be a little more precise, then. I'm talking about patterns that require adverb forms of i-adjectives and na-adjectives and can also take regular nouns. In my admittedly limited experience, nouns are used in these patterns with 「に」。

For example, objective complements of result. English marks results by putting them after the direct object (or after the verb if no direct object). This is a special case, the only time a noun normally follows a direct object without being controlled by a preposition.

Paint a door green. (adjective)
Elect him president. (noun)

Japanese doesn't have a special case. Adjectives use their adverb form.

Paint the floor blue.
床青く塗る (i-adj)

Paint a door green.
戸を緑色に塗る (na-adj)

Nouns use「～に」

Become a myth.
神話になれ

Mr. Yamada was elected to the Diet from Tottori.
山田氏は鳥取から代議士に選ばれた

(Yahoo's translation isn't literal: 代議士 doesn't mean "the Diet" but "representative," as you'd expect from the keywords: substitute/deliberation/gentleman. "Mr. Yamada was elected representative from Tottori.)

Aside: Apparently, expressions of result aren't "basic grammar:" A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar covers 7 other uses of に, but not this one. I remember learning the equivalent structure in Latin, but not until third year. And English-language grammars of Esperanto just plain skip it.

I don't understand na-adjectives. - yudantaiteki - 2009-12-08

wildweathel Wrote:
pm215 Wrote:
wildweathel Wrote:名詞 also form adverbs with に:
神話になれ！

That's no adverb, that's a giant robot^W^W noun...
Okay, I'll be a little more precise, then. I'm talking about patterns that require adverb forms of i-adjectives and na-adjectives and can also take regular nouns. In my admittedly limited experience, nouns are used in these patterns with 「に」。
That is correct. Also, speaking from a purely grammatical standpoint, "noun" and "na-adjective" are identical with the exception that when you modify a noun, you use な instead of の with the latter. Everywhere else they are identical. Personally I dislike the terms "noun" and "na-adjective" because they make them seem much further away than they actually are and lead to confusion, like this thread.

Quote:Japanese doesn't have a special case. Adjectives use their adverb form.

Nouns use「～に」
And note that verbs use the て form, in cases like 遅れて来る, 遅れて is essentially acting adverbially if you're looking at it from English grammatical equivalents.

I don't understand na-adjectives. - nest0r - 2009-12-08

I used Japanese the Manga Way's explanation when first encountering, though I never really had to think about it much... http://books.google.com/books?id=xaXukH72bl4C&lpg=PP1&dq=japanese%20manga%20way&pg=PA54#v=onepage&q=%22some%20nouns%20take%22&f=false