I would say　走ったが静かじゃなっかた。But, who knows...

I just don't think any of those are natural (did you try googling any of them?).

I don't see what's wrong with 静かに走らなかった.  If it was really important in the context that you explicitly said "He ran, but not quickly", then you could say 走ったけど、静かじゃなかった　as thistime indicated.  But in most contexts that's not going to be necessary.

btw, how do you change 静かに走らなかった into "he quietly didn't run"? Is it に -> で？

na-adjectives usually modify verbs with に.

Maybe 「静かでなく走る」is not really that strange?

Maybe it works for some -i adjectives but that still gets 0 google hits (even deleting the る at the end) so I'm still going to say it's strange.

where's a Japanese person when you need one, everyone I know is offline ><

caivano wrote:

where's a Japanese person when you need one, everyone I know is offline ><

Here I am

Last edited by masaman (2010 June 18, 9:09 pm)

iSoron wrote:

masaman wrote:

「らしくなく」「恥ずかしくなく」are verbs, so they're different.

Can you elaborate a bit on this?
They look exactly the same to me:

    恥ずかしい → 恥ずかしく → 恥ずかしく無い → 恥ずかしく無く
    静かだ → 静かで → 静かで無い → 静かで無く

I'm really bad at this that's but I'll try.

静か is a word to describe a state.  彼は静かだ means He's quiet.
恥じる is a word to describe an action you take. 彼は恥じた means something like "He abashed himself."

So, when it is a word to describe a state, like red=赤い, it is hard to use it with a negative. 「リンゴは赤くなく実った」"Apples ripened not red" sounds odd just like it is in English. But if it's a word to describe an action, it is OK to use it with a negative. 「リンゴは落ちずに実った」"Apples ripened without falling" sounds totally legit.

I'm saying this completely from my guts though. But sentences like

彼は遅くなく走った
彼は速くなく走った
彼は力強くなく走った
彼は弱々しくなく走った

all sound strange while

彼は泣かずに走った
彼は遅れずに走った
彼は喋らずに走った
彼は止まらずに走った

sound completely natural, so I think I have some ground here.

Last edited by masaman (2010 June 18, 9:43 pm)

masaman wrote:

iSoron wrote:

masaman wrote:

「らしくなく」「恥ずかしくなく」are verbs, so they're different.

Can you elaborate a bit on this?
They look exactly the same to me:

    恥ずかしい → 恥ずかしく → 恥ずかしく無い → 恥ずかしく無く
    静かだ → 静かで → 静かで無い → 静かで無く

I'm really bad at this that's but I'll try.

静か is a word to describe a state.  彼は静かだ means He's quiet.
恥じる is a word to describe an action you take. 彼は恥じた means something like "He abashed himself."

恥じる is different from 恥ずかしい, though.  The former is a verb, the later is an adjective.

So, when it is a word to describe a state, like red=赤い, it is hard to use it with a negative. 「リンゴは赤くなく実った」"Apples ripened not red" sounds odd just like it is in English. But if it's a word to describe an action, it is OK to use it with a negative. 「リンゴは落ちずに実った」"Apples ripened without falling" sounds totally legit.

落ちる is a verb as well.

I'm saying this completely from my guts though. But sentences like

彼は遅くなく走った
彼は速くなく走った
彼は力強くなく走った
彼は弱々しくなく走った

all sound strange while

彼は泣かずに走った
彼は遅れずに走った
彼は喋らずに走った
彼は止まらずに走った

sound completely natural, so I think I have some ground here.

The first group is all adjectives (or i-adjectives) while the second group is all verbs.

Back to the OP:

What would adding a past tense adverb to a past or present tense verb mean? Is it grammatically correct?

I don't believe there's any way to do this.  You can modify nouns with past tense things, but not predicates.  English doesn't have past tense adverbs either, does it?  Does any language?

And, can adjectives that describe states be turned into adverbs at all?

All adjectives describe states, as far as I know.  They can all be adverbs, it just depends on the context whether it actually makes sense or is natural.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2010 June 18, 9:52 pm)

OK. I think I got it.

動詞 + negative + 動詞 is always OK. Like yudantaiteki said,
彼は泣かずに走った、彼は遅れずに走った、彼は喋らずに走った、彼は止まらずに走った
are all 動詞 + negative + 動詞. That's why they sounded natural. These aren't adjectives so please disregard my previous post about this.

Now, 形容動詞（na adjective） + negative + 動詞 sounds really odd.
静かでなく走る 、高速でなく走る 、奇麗でなく飾る 、赤色でなく塗る

They all sound incorrect. There may be some exceptions, like 奇麗じゃなく見える
sounds somewhat OK to me if it's in a conversation, but that's the only thing I can think of.

形容詞（i adjective）+ negative + 動詞 sounds a bit better.
うるさくなく走る、速くなく走る、美しくなく飾る、赤くなく塗る、明るくなく照らす

I may use this type of expressions if the context and the combination of the words are right. For instance, 美しくなく飾る sounds odd to me but 恥ずかしくなく喋る sounds OK. It seems this sounds more natural when the verb is followed by 助動詞 られる like うるさくなく喋れる、熱くなく食べれる etc. These are all colloquial expressions and I'd avoid them in formal writing though.

Dragonsheep wrote:

What would adding a past tense adverb to a past or present tense verb mean? Is it grammatically correct?

I don't quite get this part. Can you give me an example?

yudantaiteki wrote:

masaman wrote:

Now, 形容動詞（na adjective） + negative + 動詞 sounds really odd.
静かでなく走る 、高速でなく走る 、奇麗でなく飾る 、赤色でなく塗る

They all sound incorrect. There may be some exceptions, like 奇麗じゃなく見える
sounds somewhat OK to me if it's in a conversation, but that's the only thing I can think of.

Do you agree that なる and する are exceptions to this?  Is 静かじゃなくなった natural?

For the most part, yes.

「静かじゃなくなった」: natural.
「静かではなくなった」: natural, but I prefer something like 静かとは言えなくなった better.
「静かじゃなくする」: natural, but a bit slangy.
「静かではなくする」: a little odd. I'd find some other expression like 静かではない状態にする or  静かさを破る.

Last edited by masaman (2010 June 19, 8:00 pm)

masaman wrote:

caivano wrote:

where's a Japanese person when you need one, everyone I know is offline ><

Here I am

cool... thanks for the explanations!