Hey all,

I've just encountered this kind of comparison:

高くなかったです。
vs.
高くありませんでした。

Are these of equal politeness level? The second seems more polite to me only because it has more syllables, but that's obviously just a guess. Thanks!

-Tom

Though it's used all the time, ない + です is a colloquialism and is not really grammatically correct. Naturally, the grammatically correct version would be considered more polite.

TomTomHatesCats Wrote:高くなかったです。
vs.
高くありませんでした。

I'm not really a pro at grammar, but I was told once by a Japanese that in most cases, the longer something is, the more polite; as seen in this example, naturally, the negated form of the masu-form was used (past), which is more formal.

Btw, Is 高くなかったんだ／です。 grammatically correct? I often say so/write so and it never gets corrected on lang-8, so I suppose it must be correct. I ask, because yudantaiteki wrote something about this matter in a topic a while ago..

With the ん or の there, it is grammatically correct, but without it, it's not, AFAIK.

Incidentally, の would be more polite than ん there, but verb + んです is plenty polite.

.

Well there you have it. Two completely opposite answers. Clear as mud now?

高くありませんでした is the standard grammar with the same politeness level of using ます when talking to strangers. One of the casual ways is 高かった As JimmySeal says, adding です to 高かった is actually a grammatical mistake. To make it correct, it would be 高かったのです　or 高かったんです, of which the first is more polite than the second. Be careful not to be confused, as the two later expressions have a slightly different nuance than the pair 高くありませんでした/高かった:
The pair 高かったのです/高かったんです is acceptable only in contexts where they are said as an explanation. If the context does not involve an explanation (or a request for explanation), they cannot be used.

For example, it is OK to say:

Why didnt you buy it?
なぜ書かなかったんですか。

Because it was expensive, you know?
高かったんですよ

Here are the top 4 Google matches when searching for "ないです　ありません":

1. http://soudan1.biglobe.ne.jp/qa407203.html
2. http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/...q128783262
3. http://lang-8.com/27267/journals/70397
4. http://lang-8.com/56702/journals/222523

To summarize:
1. Same as what I said.
2. ない+です is an abbreviation of ない+んです and is for use in casual situations. But this one doesn't really deal with the くないです situation.
3. Same as what I said.
4. No really clear answer. General response is that both are polite.

gesserit Wrote:The pair 高かったのです/高かったんです is acceptable only in contexts where they are said as an explanation. If the context does not involve an explanation (or a request for explanation), they cannot be used.

For example, it is OK to say:
Why didnt you buy it?
なぜ書かなかったんですか。
Because it was expensive, you know?
高かったんですよ

高かったんですので、・・・ is grammatically incorrect therefore, isn't it? I would rather say like 【理由】、高かったんです。

Saying that です after an i-adjective is grammatically incorrect is extremely conservative and prescriptive. The construction is very widely used and no longer considered wrong except in a technical sense. The problem doesn't show up that much in formal writing because formal writing usually doesn't use desu/masu forms.

There really shouldn't be anything wrong with ですので; it's more formal than most people speak or write but the construction is used. んですので is sort of unusual because ので is already the -te form of the underlying んです construction so you're basically putting it in there twice.

yudantaiteki Wrote:Saying that です after an i-adjective is grammatically incorrect is extremely conservative and prescriptive.

You mean です after ない, right?

JimmySeal Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:Saying that です after an i-adjective is grammatically incorrect is extremely conservative and prescriptive.

You mean です after ない, right?

What are you saying is incorrect - です after ない, or です after い? And why is that so?

高くありませんでした is more polite

JimmySeal Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:Saying that です after an i-adjective is grammatically incorrect is extremely conservative and prescriptive.

You mean です after ない, right?

ない is an i-adjective, so any objection to ないです should equally well apply to 高いです.

yudantaiteki Wrote:ない is an i-adjective, so any objection to ないです should equally well apply to 高いです.

:o

The -ない suffix we are talking about here is a helping verb, not an i-adjective:
http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/162...%E3%81%84/
It conjugates like an i-adjective, but that doesn't mean it can be treated exactly like one.

And while it is true that there is a ない that actually is an -i adjective, semantically it is treated as the negative form of ある and therefore is subject to the same conventions as other negative verbs.

fakewookie Wrote:What are you saying is incorrect - です after ない, or です after い? And why is that so?

I'm saying that です after ない is not grammatically correct, simply because that's the way it is under typical grammatical conventions. Nonetheless, people still use it all the time, even in rather polite settings.
です after い at the end of an i-adjective in its dictionary form is perfectly fine.

.

As I already pointed out above, the verb does not become an adjective; that's nonsense.

And no, under prescriptive grammar, the correct form for your example would be あの映画が観たくありません。

.

This point is covered better by this page than by anything I could say to add to this ancient debate: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/polite

(Scroll or search down to where it says 'Reality Check' for the relevant part)

Also, i-adjectives are sometimes called descriptive verbs, so I wouldn't get too hung up on whether or not a word ending in ない or たい is a verb or an i-adjective when i-adjectives are almost verbs anyway.

.

I'm not very polite, so I know next to nothing about politeness levels.
I asked my grandmother and she showed me a passage in an old elementary handbook.

N.B. ないin the negative examples is, in fact, the plain form of ありません. It follows then that 早くありません and 早くありませんでした will be alternatives for 早くないです and 早くなかったです. Note here also that では/じゃ ありません and では/じゃ ありませんでした have rather more common forms in では/じゃ ないです and では/じゃ なかったです respectively.

JimmySeal Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:ない is an i-adjective, so any objection to ないです should equally well apply to 高いです.

:o

The -ない suffix we are talking about here is a helping verb, not an i-adjective:
http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/162...%E3%81%84/
It conjugates like an i-adjective, but that doesn't mean it can be treated exactly like one.

I don't see why. Except in one instance (going after the 未然形 of verbs) it works identically. 高くない and すごく高い are the same patterning. That's what defines a part of speech or role -- it's the patterning and the conjugation.

The link above says 語源については、打消しの助動詞「ぬ」を形容詞化したとみる説、形容詞「なし」、または、東国方言「なふ」の音変化説など諸説がある。 In all but the last theory it's treated as a 形容詞. In classical Japanese there was a specific negative auxiliary, but in modern Japanese that has been replaced by the i-adjective ない.

Historically I don't know whether 高いです or 分からないです came first, but once one develops it's inevitable that the other would occur too.

Quote:I'm saying that です after ない is not grammatically correct, simply because that's the way it is under typical grammatical conventions. Nonetheless, people still use it all the time, even in rather polite settings.
です after い at the end of an i-adjective in its dictionary form is perfectly fine.

I've never seen any source that says the latter is perfectly OK but the former is incorrect.

.

The replies in this thread just make me realize the more I learn, the less I know that I know. :[ Great stuff from everyone, though, thank you!

-Tom

This whole argument is like arguing that splitting infinitives is wrong in english. It's a BS prescriptive rule.

I'll grant that perhaps there is some rule that says ない can't be followed by です and perhaps it's more polite to say ありません but how polite? There's such a thing as *too* polite, or to put it another way, in many contexts if you say 高くありません, you sound like a wanker. I'll grant that there are situations where it's possibly the preferred form, but even in a normal business setting, ないです is the norm, at least where i work. As merlin.codex points out, みんなの日本語 doesn't even bother teaching constructions like 高くありません.

Now, constructions like 知らないです are a *little* different, but i've had japanese teachers who just shrugged when i questioned them on their use of it. It's got a colloquial feel to it but people generally don't seem to consider it a blatant grammatical error.