Adjective Question

[Fantt]

I'm learning adjective stuff now.

For these two sentences:

天気は暑くありません。

天気は暑くないです。

(In case, I totally mangled the sentences, I mean for them both to say "The weather is not hot")

Are there any differences? From what I understand, they both mean the same thing. Is one more formal than the other? Are both acceptable in the same circumstances? Is one heard more often than the other?

Just curious.

Thanks!

[Damicci]

more often i hear the adjectives conjugated negatively.
2nd sentence I would say is correct. or better to use.
the first one sounds to me like it should be a subject/topic not having something
EX
今日は雪ありません　Ｔｈｅｒｅ　ｉｓ　ｎｏ　ｓｎｏ ｗ　ｔｏｄａｙ(topic)．　（Ｌｉｔ．Today does not have snow)

I of course am probably be wrong. :p

[Mike Cash]

Sorry to say, Damicci....you're wrong.

Grammatically, the two are equivalent. The only difference is that the pedantic Grammar Police would tell you that the second one is ungrammatical, the "desu" being unnecessary, incorrect, and inappropriate after a "-nai" formation. As you very correctly pointed out though, in spite of the Grammar Police it is actually very common in actual usage.

[Damicci]

So would that also determine useage depending on politeness/professionalism and plain/casual text?

Like fantt was asking what determines which you should use?

[Mike Cash]

The "desu" serves no other function than to dress it up a bit. It is the equivalent, let us say, of hurriedly sticking in your shirt tail.

[Kansai]

Both sentences are a bit awkward to japanese nativespeakers because 天気 and 暑い don't go together in Japanese. Do you say "The weather is hot." in English? (I just wonder...)

今日は暑くありません。
今日は暑くないです。(mikecash, ない+です= correct)
今日は暑くない。(the most colloquial of these three)

These sentences sound more natural than those you mentioned I think.

[Damicci]

暑くない　is also what i was thinking. but wasn't sure.
I under stand the desu just didn't know if there truly was a useage difference between the 2
i'll stick with 暑くない（です）。
Ｓｉｎｃｅ　Ｉ　ａｍ　ａｌｓｏ　ｓｔｕｄｙｉｎｇ　 ａｄｊｅｃｔｉｖｅ　ｕｓｅａｇｅ　ｉｎ　ｊａｐａｎ ｅｓｅ　ｇｒａｍｍａｒ．　I get a basic understanding of how it works but I always lose the why it is that way.

[Fantt]

Thanks guys!

So, the adj+くない is more common, though adj+くありません means the same thing, right?

Is adj+くありません more proper? I'm just wondering because the adj+くない formation is only shown in a footnote in my Genki Vol. 1 textbook.

[Elizabeth]

I'm learning adjective stuff now.

For these two sentences:

天気は暑くありません。

天気は暑くないです。
It would be my guess that arimasen is used more as a polite past tense (arimasen deshita) conjugation and nai desu a semi-formal way of speaking about the present.

[Kansai]

These two sentences mean the same thing. I personally don't think it's a matter of politeness. "暑くないです。" and "暑くない。" appear both in spoken and written Japanese more often than "暑くありません。" I think that learning "暑くありません。"-form is a kind of a must for a japanese language beginners, though.

[Mike Cash]

Both sentences are a bit awkward to japanese nativespeakers because 天気 and 暑い don't go together in Japanese. Do you say "The weather is hot." in English? (I just wonder...)

今日は暑くありません。
今日は暑くないです。(mikecash, ない+です= correct)
今日は暑くない。(the most colloquial of these three)


Go tell the serious hardcore grammar pedants over on sci.lang.japan that the second of those is correct. Technically, it is incorrect. But it is extremely common in everyday usage. I don't know if you have a similar situation in your native language, but for English speakers it is similar to use of the word "ain't". Pedants often despise it, while the masses embrace it.

[jt_]

Go tell the serious hardcore grammar pedants over on sci.lang.japan that the second of those is correct. Technically, it is incorrect. But it is extremely common in everyday usage. I don't know if you have a similar situation in your native language, but for English speakers it is similar to use of the word "ain't". Pedants often despise it, while the masses embrace it.I don't doubt your sources, Mike, but this comes as news to me as well. I know that there are a number of forms that would be shuddered at by hardcore grammar prescriptivists despite being in common use in the everyday language, but is the "-ku nai desu" form of adjectivals really one of them? I don't know if you'd consider Eleanor Jorden to be one of those "hardcore grammar pedants", but her Japanese: the Spoken Language textbook lists both "-ku nai desu" and "-ku arimasen" as being equally acceptable negative forms of the Japanese adjectival, and goes on further to point out that the former is probably more common in the spoken language.

I can't quite see why anyone would consider it ungrammatical, either, when "nai" itself is just as much of an adjective as the affirmative forms. If "ii desu" is grammatical, there's no reason that "yoku nai desu" shouldn't be.

On the other hand, I can possibly see some 'pedants' taking issue with using the "-nai desu" form when negating _verbs_ (e.g. 行かないです, 買わないです instead of 行きません and 買いません), although clearly these are also in use in the everyday language, and strictly speaking should also be acceptable grammatically for the reasons above (the negative direct-style of any verb is actually an adjectival form).

I don't doubt that such people are out there, but I'd be very interested to hear any of these prescriptivists try to justify why forms like "よくないです" are ungrammatical.

[epigene]

Mike,

I read your post and was wondering why暑くないですcould be wrong with this pattern used even in Japanese first grade "kokugo" textbooks... :relief:

I've been thinking hard and came up with something I think you were pointing at. It might be this:
この話、違うくないですか？(Used to mean: Isn't this story wrong/different?)

This one is certainly grammatically wrong. However, it is also used in colloquial speech by young native-speaking Japanese very often in question form.

Sorry if I'm totally off. :p

[Mike Cash]

People seem to be misunderstanding me here. Allow me to clarify:

I personally don't claim the formation is wrong. I'm one of the masses who uses it habitually.

I said that there are uptight pedants who will argue that it is incorrect. I'm not one of them. I pointed out where you can find some of them, if you wish to hunt for them.

[Mike Cash]

My memory of the long ago mind-numbing discussion on this seems to have been somewhat faulty, as the following link will reveal. It does, however, also reveal that some folks (other than us) have nothing better to do than to discuss this point:

http://tinyurl.com/9v48s

[jt_]

People seem to be misunderstanding me here. Allow me to clarify:

I personally don't claim the formation is wrong. I'm one of the masses who uses it habitually.

I said that there are uptight pedants who will argue that it is incorrect. I'm not one of them. I pointed out where you can find some of them, if you wish to hunt for them.I can't speak for any of the others, but I certainly wasn't under the impression that you yourself were claiming the formation is wrong. All I was trying to say was that with all of the textbooks and grammar references by some of the more well-known pedants in the field (Jorden, Makino and Tsutsui, etc. etc.) I've seen, I've yet to come across anyone that makes the claim that this form is ungrammatical. Epigene's example seems to suggest that kokugo scholars in Japan, as well, have no problem with it. So basically I'm just curious as to what crackpots are making this claim and how they could possibly justify it.

Maybe I just need to look harder.

edit -- Thanks for the link. A somewhat interesting discussion, I guess, although I think some of these people are full of it. ("takai desu" is derived from "takai n(o) desu"...? Sounds like a bunch of hooey to me.)

[epigene]

Mike-san,

Sorry if I gave the impression that you're wrong.... :relief:

I understood very clearly what you meant and that there are people who think so at the newsgroup.

Just to let you know that I have great respect for the wry humor and great understanding of the language in your posts! :bluush:

[Mike Cash]

Mike-san,

Sorry if I gave the impression that you're wrong.... :relief:

That's quite alright, because it turns out that I was wrong.


I understood very clearly what you meant and that there are people who think so at the newsgroup.

Just to let you know that I have great respect for the wry humor and great understanding of the language in your posts! :bluush:

I put on a good act. If you'll pay careful attention, you'll notice that I never actually post anything in Japanese myself.

[epigene]

I put on a good act. If you'll pay careful attention, you'll notice that I never actually post anything in Japanese myself.
Hey! I have decades of experience interacting with foreigners (mostly Americans) and can tell readily (from comments made in English, as well as reactions) who can speak and who can't... even when they don't speak Japanese in front of me...

I cannot assess your language ability in terms of writing, but I'm sure you speak it well! :cool:

[orochi]

I'm with Mike on this issue, myself. In a couple books published recently in Japan about common misconceptions about the Japanese language, this issue of nai + desu has come up.

One example is in a book titled Mondai na Nihongo, a very good one if you can get your hands on it, actually. The article on nai + desu starts off saying that although it has been used for years, citing examples from the Meiji Period, and that it is often used in spoken language, it is not appropriate for the written language. It is a colloquial form of speech.

The article then goes on to discuss a series of other related points, but concludes that arimasen is much more appropriate than using nai + desu if written down. These seem to be the opinion of major linguists of Japanese here in Japan, so I believe their arguments hold more weight than foreign text book authors.

Therefore, nai + desu is both appropriate and inappropriate, depending on how you use it. As a piece of colloquial language, it's alright to use. On the other hand, if you use it in an essay or for your graduate thesis, you should be corrected on it.

A similar example of this in the English language is the can I vs. may I debate.

In proper American English (I'm not sure about other English-speaking countries), it is inappropriate when asking permission to say, "Can I open the door?" for example. Of course you can open the door. Unless you had no arms... The correct question to ask is "May I open the door?" Both are used in the spoken language, similar to the problematic ain't mentioned above. When it comes down to it, though, can I is wrong in this situation, at least so far as modern American linguists have to say about it.

Irregardless of this, I have seen many English textbooks here in Japan that teach Can I ~? as proper English and as an equivalent to ~shitemoiidesuka? It is not, of course.

Edited to add: The article doesn't specifically mention negative forms of adjectives as being problematic, so I'm not sure if it falls into the same sphere. I'll do a little more checking, though.

[jt_]

Interesting post. I'll have to check out that Mondai na Nihongo book.

I just have to defend myself on one point, though... I think it's important to distinguish between "inappropriate" (especially when it means "inappropriate in 'proper' written language") and "ungrammatical." Sure, I'd use 「ありません」 instead of 「ないです」 in a thesis (assuming I was using -desu/-masu style in the first place.) I'd also prefer 「が」 over 「けど」, 「よう」 over 「みたい」, 「〜のではない」 over 「〜んじゃないか」, 「というのは」 over 「って」, and 「しなければなりません」 over 「しなきゃ」, just as a few obvious examples. Likewise, In English I'd avoid using contractions and first-person pronouns, and choose words like "receive" over "get", "therefore" over "so", "however" over "but", etc. There are plenty of forms in both languages that are just fine (or even preferred) in speech but considered inappropriate in formal writing. But this is a far cry from saying these forms are out-and-out ungrammatical. I don't think you can put them on the level of something like "ain't", which is considered completely nonstandard usage (leaving aside the argument of whether or not it should be considered as such.)

Again, I can't speak for the others, but I wasn't trying to suggest that anything that people say should be equally acceptable in formal writing, just that I've never seen a (reputable) source give a (compelling) argument that "-nai desu" is an outright ungrammatical form.

[orochi]

You should definitely check the book out. It's a good read. Some of the articles are better than others, though. Each topic is covered by a different author and some are better at writing than others. Some of them I skipped halfway through or almost from the beginning. Other chapters I read word for word, glued to each page.

Maybe I was going too far comparing it to ain't. I still think the can I and may I comparison is pretty good, though. The article I mentioned actually said that nai + desu is not a grammatical issue. It seems to be more about style and writing proper Japanese. Issues like these are difficult to cover and deal with amongst native Japanese speakers, let alone foreign learners of the language.

In my opinion, if you want to get your point across in raw conversation, nai + desu is going to work, whether it's beautiful Japanese or not. On the other hand, if you want to write moving, stylistically appropriate Japanese, you might want to avoid the pattern.

[epigene]

I still think "-nai desu" with negative forms of adjectives is totally acceptable and can be "stylishly appropriate" depending on usage. (Of course, it can also be used like a first-grader would. :blush: )

I have a feeling that the issue of "-nai desu" being inappropriate/wrong depends on usage. (Note: I haven't read "Mondai na Nihongo" but know it's a bestseller. The book has been taken up in the media, and I know it discusses problems in the use of "-janai desu," which is not exactly the same as the issue of "-nai desu" with adjective discussed earlier in this thread.)

For your information, please read 3.2 here:
http://www.geocities.jp/niwasaburoo/03keiyousi.html

[Elizabeth]

Maybe I was going too far comparing it to ain't. I still think the can I and may I comparison is pretty good, though. The article I mentioned actually said that nai + desu is not a grammatical issue. It seems to be more about style and writing proper Japanese
Actually "ain't" is simply a contraction of "are not" or "am not" and is therefore only nonstandard, not the same as being grammatically incorrect. It isn't like saying "you's(es)" or "ain't not" which no one could argue are not outside the rules of standard English syntax. In the same way, there are also apparently a certain percentage Japanese that inflect desu with 'i' adjectives (omoshiroi deshita, atarashii deshita) which may fall under the same category of being unacceptable mainstream speech without violating any particular rule (mixing up sentence order, reversing particles etc).

[orochi]

I have a feeling that the issue of "-nai desu" being inappropriate/wrong depends on usage. (Note: I haven't read "Mondai na Nihongo" but know it's a bestseller. The book has been taken up in the media, and I know it discusses problems in the use of "-janai desu," which is not exactly the same as the issue of "-nai desu" with adjective discussed earlier in this thread.)

The issue of nai + desu is also specifically covered. The chapter stems from a question asking if 理由は特にないです is proper Japanese. The author states that while there are not grammatical problems, it is more appropriate to write 理由は特にありません.

[Elizabeth]

In proper American English (I'm not sure about other English-speaking countries), it is inappropriate when asking permission to say, "Can I open the door?" for example. Of course you can open the door. Unless you had no arms... The correct question to ask is "May I open the door?" Both are used in the spoken language, similar to the problematic ain't mentioned above. When it comes down to it, though, can I is wrong in this situation, at least so far as modern American linguists have to say about it.
I personally make the distinction between 'can I,' widely used for 'allowed' in informal English, when asking out of consideration for other persons and the harder-edged, more formal-sounding 'may I' for permission out of my own selfish desire. At least that's my feeling for how the situations for these two uses have evolved and perhaps one reason 'can I' has gained so much currency without being technically sound or grammar-maven correct.