An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language

94 CHAPTER 3. MORE GRAMMAR

3.1.5 More negatives

The basic negative form was already discussed in the previous chapter, but

it only covered one of the two plain negative forms, and didn’t cover polite

negative forms at all.

Let us first look at the second plain negative form. In addition to

the helper adjective of negation, , there is a classical helper verb of

negation, , which is used quite frequently informal speech(in its

form ) and even more often in daily speech as part of the polite negation

in the form of at the end of.

bases form

( )

Technically, the for this classical helper verb can be placed

at the end of any verb’s , to form a curt negative. While not in use

in standard Japanese, this use is still prevalent in several modern Japanese

dialects, such as Kansaiben. In addition to this, it is used (as already men-

tioned) for the negative of the helper verb of politeness, , to form its

(polite by very definition) negative form.

The form, , is used frequently to form a rather special kind

of word: the adverbial negative. Added to a verb’s

, paired with

(as it acts as a noun adjective) it turns the verb action into a not-taken verb

action instead. To illustrate this, an example:

”I came (over) without eating (my) breakfast.”

In this sentence, the phrase acts as adverb to
, so that we can say that ” is performed in a
manner”. In this sentence, itself has no temporal aspect, so it
gets its tense from whatever follows. As such present or past tense comes
from the final verb:

”I came (over) without eating (my) breakfast.”

”I will come (over) without eating (my) breakfast.”

This is considered an elegant form of negation, and is in formal and