vix86
Member
From: Tokyo
Registered: 2010-01-19
Posts: 1469
So I ran across a verb conjugation form I haven't seen yet, on 2ch.
I was checking the details on an earthquake that I had felt last night in the Kansai region and noticed a reply that someone had put up.
"起きてた。ビクリした。” I understand what was being said but wonder if 起きてた is slang or not. The meaning should be "It woke [me] up." with an emphasis on the fact that the quake "forced him" (imperative form) to wake up. Can you actually conjugate this way sort of like 食べてた, 掃除してた、etc.
Thanks
-Vix
Jarvik7
Member
From: 名古屋
Registered: 2007-03-05
Posts: 3946
The meaning is "I was awake", not "It woke me up", otherwise it would be causative form. Imperative form is a command, as in "Wake up (you lazy ass)!", which is not the form it is, or the form it would be if it meant what you thought it meant...
Plain Past Continuative = 起きていた (Was awake)
Imperative = 起きろ (Wake up!)
Plain Past Causative = 起こされた (I was woken up)
Plain Past Causative Continuative = 起こされていた (I was being woken up)
Last edited by Jarvik7 (2010 January 21, 8:36 am)
vix86
Member
From: Tokyo
Registered: 2010-01-19
Posts: 1469
Codexus wrote:
vix86 wrote:
I understand what was being said but ...
No, you don't. Guessing from context is fine, but be careful as it's very easy to guess wrong. Don't assume you understand or you'll draw the wrong conclusions.
That's true and important to keep in mind when making important decisions on stuff based on something you hear or read, but there's still point where you are going to have to say to your self "I think I understand this" if you walk around all the time being like "I probably don't understand this" then you'll never gain anything. Not only that its a bad attitude to have when it concerns language learning I think. Kind of like if you are reading a book and are always like "I probably don't understand this correctly" so you are always constantly looking up words, and even then, you may still be misinterpreting the entire sentence's structure. As a result you may never finish the book.
Regardless, for what the actual meaning was, I wasn't far off. I knew the person was awake to some extent and surprised, it just happened to be that he wasn't awoken from sleep.
Last edited by vix86 (2010 January 21, 9:28 am)
vix86 wrote:
Ah okay, that makes sense.
I'm pretty sure I've read that you can use the -て form for informal commands as well, ie: 母:「 食べて！」 教師：「書いて！」
That's true, but you cannot use these imperative forms to mean that something forced someone else to do something. That's a different conjugation. There's no way you could make a Japanese sentence using 起きて！ to mean "I was forced [by something/someone] to wake up."
Also I think the answer was implied but perhaps not outright stated -- ている -> てる is not slang, it's just a contraction that often occurs in speech. It's no more slang than "It's" in English.
Last edited by yudantaiteki (2010 January 21, 10:30 am)
liosama
Member
From: sydney
Registered: 2008-03-02
Posts: 896
Tobberoth wrote:
Ben Bullock wrote:
Tobberoth wrote:
-te as a command is just short for -てください and can only be used in the same situations.
I'm not sure what you mean by "the same situations", but it could be short for てくれ as well.
Yeah, kudasai being a keigo form of kureru. By same situations, I mean it has the same grammatical use. Like yudanteki said, you can't use it in some wierd passive way, just like you wouldn't be able to use -te kudasai in such a way.
in order of politeness
~て！
～なさい (don't really know where this goes but I'm guessing it goes down here, and of course depends on the relationship with the other person)
～てくれ？
～てくれる？
～てくれますか
～てくれない？
～てくれませんか
～てください (depending on relationship with other person)
～ていただけますか (depending on relationship with other person)
～てくださいませんか (depending on relationship with other person)
～ていただけませんか(depending on relationship with other person
the differences between 下さる｛尊敬語｝ and 頂く ｛謙譲語｝depend on your social status and relationship to the other person. No one is 'more polite' than the other, it's just one that you use if you're in this position or that position. The same applies for the くれる conjugations.
Edit: you could also do the conjugations for the raw verbs kudasanai and itadakenai but it doesn't really make sense to use any keigo verbs in their plain form. At least I think so anyway
Last edited by liosama (2010 January 21, 7:36 pm)
liosama wrote:
~て！
～なさい (don't really know where this goes but I'm guessing it goes down here, and of course depends on the relationship with the other person)
I would reverse these; なさい sounds like a command from a superior, where as て can just be a casual request. ちょっとペンを貸して is fine, but ペンを貸しなさい sounds too rude even to a friend.
Edit: you could also do the conjugations for the raw verbs kudasanai and itadakenai but it doesn't really make sense to use any keigo verbs in their plain form. At least I think so anyway
In this case you're right; things like くださらない？ are found in somewhat old-fashioned women's speech, but AFAIK even most women nowadays don't talk like that. The only place you're likely to see it "in the wild" is in fictional stuff.
(Now, of course keigo verbs can be used in plain form when you are (for instance) talking to a friend about a teacher/boss, or when the keigo verb is being used in a grammatical structure that usually takes plain form.)
Last edited by yudantaiteki (2010 January 21, 8:26 pm)
Jarvik7 wrote:
It's not rude, it's just a superior talking to an inferior.
If that's the context. If a friend says it to another friend, that's not superior to inferior.
It is the westerner's lack of acceptance of higher and lower positions that translates that into "rude".
I can guarantee you that if I went around telling my friends to do stuff with なさい, at least some of them would be offended or upset (assuming they didn't think I was joking).
Last edited by yudantaiteki (2010 January 22, 12:42 pm)
