[ファブリス]

My friend with whom I'll stay in Osaka sometimes uses:
かもわかりません

but I can only find grammatical information on:
かもしれない or かもしれません

Is the first one a modern language use, or speak from Osaka?
Do they mean the same thing ?

ファブリス Wrote:My friend with whom I'll stay in Osaka sometimes uses:
かもわかりません

but I can only find grammatical information on:
かもしれない or かもしれません

Is the first one a modern language use, or speak from Osaka?
Do they mean the same thing ?

I would say your educated guesses are about right. Not that I know for sure though. The かもわかりません suggests to me that the speaker thinks something might happen but really doesn't know i.e. more unsure than かもしれない。

It could also be an Osaka thing. I'm not sure that I've heard it often (if at all) in Shizuoka.

I hear it quite often around here, or its alternative かもわからん. I always take it to mean about the same thing as かもしれない.

ファブリス Wrote:My friend with whom I'll stay in Osaka sometimes uses:
かもわかりません
Is the first one a modern language use, or speak from Osaka?
Do they mean the same thing ?

I would advise listening to see if others use this, because I have never noticed as a de-facto replacement (at least in Hokkaido). However, I do often hear and use this "kamo"-clause to join two thoughts, or to reiterate an opinion. "kamo" by itself, as a short form, of course means "perhaps". What you then find is that a shift in pitch at the start of the joined word, in this case a "wakaran" variant, thus saying, "maybe... jeeze, you know, I really don't know".

I would say that they're different. I don't know for sure but I would say that かもわからない implies 'I don't know' but かもしれない is very much a set phrase and is used for conjecture. Also notice that かもしれない uses the potential form and is NOT かもしらない (if you were to put it into English then perhaps it would be 'I couldn't know' rather than 'I don't know'). かもしれない is usually taught along with other conjectural phrases like たぶん・・・だろう and so forth. So as ikmys said, it should be used more when you want to say 'perhaps' or 'might' rather than 'I don't know [whether the preceding phrase is the case or not]...'

You might be right about it being a kansai phrase though. Ask the person who said it and they might not be able to describe the meaning but they'll probably be able to tell you whether it's a regional thing.

I feel I should also point out that saying わからん is a very rough and casual way of speaking. I wouldn't use it with anyone I wasn't very close to. So on the politeness scale it goes わからん、わからない、わかりません and I think the humble keigo form is 存じません　（ぞんじません）.

[ファブリス]

Perhaps Osaka ben ? Like ちっちゃい　

Anybody lives in Osaka ?

I've heard ちっちゃい a lot in kantou. I'd be surprised if it's osaka-ben. The one that I really notice is the use of へん instead of ない at the end of words eg. 食べへん　instead of 食べない etc.

Yea, ちっちゃい and でかい are 共通語. They are not specific to any region.

Just came across a sentence in the book I'm reading just now, 親指さがし by 山田悠介（やまだ・ゆうすけ） that goes:

Yamada Yusuke Wrote:山田の姿は見あたらず、どこに住んでいるかも分からない。

Not that I'm an authority, but changing the 「かも分からない」 in this sentence to 「かもしれない」 would make the sentence kind of strange, I think.

To me, in this case, it looks like 「かも分からない」 could be substituted with 「だろう」 or 「かしら」 but not 「かもしれない」。

synewave Wrote:Just came across a sentence in the book I'm reading just now, 親指さがし by 山田悠介（やまだ・ゆうすけ） that goes:

Yamada Yusuke Wrote:山田の姿は見あたらず、どこに住んでいるかも分からない。

Not that I'm an authority, but changing the 「かも分からない」 in this sentence to 「かもしれない」 would make the sentence kind of strange, I think.

To me, in this case, it looks like 「かも分からない」 could be substituted with 「だろう」 or 「かしら」 but not 「かもしれない」。

I don't think this is correct (but I could be wrong).

I think the meaning here is simply that he doesn't know where he lives. If you wanted to say I don't know where he lives or I don't know what he's doing then you would say

彼はどこに住んでいるかわからない。
彼は何をしているかわからない。

The addition of も in this case is simply using it in the 'in addition' sense that it often has. eg. ケーキもパンも好きです = I like both cake AND bread. So in this case 'I haven't seen him lately' AND 'I don't know where he's living'.

If you substituted かもわからない for だろう i.e.

どこに住んでいるだろう。

then the meaning would change to 'I wonder where he's living'. It's the same for かしら (if you're a girl).

You can't substitute かもわからない for かもしれない because of どこ - this is a question, it's not conjecture. You would use かもしれない in a sentence like 東京に住んでいるかもしれない - He might be living in Tokyo. The same sentence with だろう would be たぶん東京に住んでいるだろう, with a similar meaning.

This also brings up the point that だろう can be used for conjecture but when it's used with a question word like どこ or 何, it changes to ?I wonder...'.