3.2. FURTHER INFLECTIONS 107
tends to be preferred; for a chaining with an implied contrast of
sorts, is typically preferred.
”(it) is a not (so) tidy, (but) bright room.”
(no real contrast, although in English the phrasing makes it sound
like one)”Rather than quiet, it was a very lively atmosphere.”
(real contrast, explicit ”rather than X, Y instead” connotation)
Of course this continuative also works for verbal adjectives and verbs
in plain negative form, as this ends on :
”(It) was a big, not red, heavy box.””(I) didn’t eat, (then) went home.”
As mentioned in the section on negatives in this chapter, the nega-
tive continuative / is actually similar in role to using a verbal
- , meaning ”without ...”, but there is the subtle difference:
is a verb form, while - is an adverbial form. Chaining many af-
firmative and negative verb actions using the negative form is possible,
while + doesn’t allow you to ’chain’:
- , meaning ”without ...”, but there is the subtle difference:
”[I] didn’t eat, went to school, didn’t take the bus and arrived.”
We can interpret this sentence as the more natural sounding ”I went
to school without eating and (then) arrived without taking the bus.” but
this misrepresents the actual Japanese, which chains four verb phrases. For
actual Japanese that reflects this English sentence, we must use the follow-
ing:
In the form sentence, we’re chaining four different actions, namely
not eating, going, not boarding, and arriving. However, in this sentence
using - , we’re listing just two actions, and both of these are adverbially
constrained: is ”going without eating” and
is ”arriving without having taken the bus”.