A Grammar question

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Reply #1 - 2013 August 12, 7:01 am
meijin2710 New member
Registered: 2013-06-28 Posts: 5

As far as I know, the conjugation for present negative of "待つ (matsu)” is "待たない (matanai)" but why is that. According to the rule they say replace the final "u" with "anai" then it should be "matsanai" not "matanai" am I wrong? Can anyone clarify this for me?

Reply #2 - 2013 August 12, 7:12 am
RawToast お巡りさん
From: UK Registered: 2012-09-03 Posts: 431 Website

meijin2710 wrote:

As far as I know, the conjugation for present negative of "待つ (matsu)” is "待たない (matanai)" but why is that. According to the rule they say replace the final "u" with "anai" then it should be "matsanai" not "matanai" am I wrong? Can anyone clarify this for me?

Well for a start "matsanai" must be incorrect as it cannot be written with kana. This is because there is no 'ts' or 'tsa' in the kana syllabary. So the final 'u/う' in this case is actually 'tsu/つ'.

Reply #3 - 2013 August 12, 7:22 am
Vempele Member
Registered: 2013-06-16 Posts: 615

RawToast wrote:

Well for a start "matsanai" must be incorrect as it cannot be written with kana.

Mozart モーツァルト would like to disagree.

Regardless, you don't replace the letter "u" (one of the many reasons not to use romaji), you replace the u-row kana with its a-row equivalent (except for わ in the case of う).

Last edited by Vempele (2013 August 12, 7:25 am)

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Reply #4 - 2013 August 12, 7:27 am
meijin2710 New member
Registered: 2013-06-28 Posts: 5

So should this verb be treated as a exception one? Or all the verbs that end with "tsu/つ" will have the same conjugation like this one?

Reply #5 - 2013 August 12, 7:31 am
Vempele Member
Registered: 2013-06-16 Posts: 615

The exception is that つ is pronounced tsu (in all words) and not tu. Nothing to do with grammar.

Last edited by Vempele (2013 August 12, 7:32 am)

Reply #6 - 2013 August 12, 7:50 am
meijin2710 New member
Registered: 2013-06-28 Posts: 5

Ah I'm sorry I just happened to post my previous post at the same time as you did so I didn't know you was posting. Thank for your help, everyone. I fnally graps the problem

Reply #7 - 2013 August 12, 9:27 am
RawToast お巡りさん
From: UK Registered: 2012-09-03 Posts: 431 Website

Vempele wrote:

RawToast wrote:

Well for a start "matsanai" must be incorrect as it cannot be written with kana.

Mozart モーツァルト would like to disagree.

Regardless, you don't replace the letter "u" (one of the many reasons not to use romaji), you replace the u-row kana with its a-row equivalent (except for わ in the case of う).

Interesting, I was going off the ISO romanization (no IME at work) :S

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3602

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