2.3. NOUN INFLECTION 75for , which is. It also explains its past tense: , since is
a normal verb and thus contracts in its past tense.
For the story is a bit simpler: its is , and so its past
tense is.”That was a book.””That was a book.”Again, no difference except in perceived politeness.NegativeThe negative forms for and are more interesting. For , the plain
negative is , which is plus the adjective for negation that we
already saw for verbs,. Again we see evidence of the presence of. However, what is this? Interestingly, is (and not just for this
particular inflection, but in general) the ”particle” , which is the
for , and the disambiguating particle (pronounced ). This
can either be used by itself (and frequently is), or its contraction can
be used, with the only difference between the two being that is more
formal than. To illustrate:
”This is a book.””This is not a book.””This is not a book.”There is no difference in meaning between the laĴer two sentences,
just in formality.
For the story gets more complicated, because instead of using
the negative form of itself, the polite form is used, meaning
that the polite past tense for is used, and to see what that is we need
to introduce the classical helper verb of politeness:.