Questions tagged [copula]
コピュラ. Words such as だ・です or constructions such as である which link a noun or adjective to a subject. Similar to English 'be'.
166 questions
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Noun+なの, when の is the indefinite pronoun?
I've read about how noun+な is only grammatical in usages like 〜なの. However, does this generalize to when の isn't the "explanatory の", but rather serves as an indefinite pronoun? That is to ...
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Is the で in the -て form of adjectives and noun always the -て form of だ?
The grammar books that I have consulted introduce the -て form of verbs along with the -て form of adjectives and nouns (this is the terminology used in my books; I would say they mean in the sense of ...
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Asking "what time is it in Japan？", what particle?
First let me say that I know that there are similar threads, this in particular. There are some things I still want to make clear. So, it appears that the most natural way to ask the question in the ...
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What is the meaning of わかるやろ
I heard on the radio a host said わかるやろ. At first I thought that I misheard what was said and it was わかるだろ, but google search for わかるやろ produced quite a few hits.
What are possible meanings of this ...
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で as です or condition?
A: 美味しくなかった？
B: いつもと同じでおいしいよ。
In this sentence does the で function as manner/condition for the rest of the sentence indicating reason? "By being in the same way like always it tastes good"?
...
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「彼の名前はジョン・レノン。」 Why leave out でした? [duplicate]
From the Genki II textbook, 3rd Edition page 303, there is a story building up to how John Lennon met Yoko Ono at one of her art exhibits. The writer introduces a long-haired man coming in and ...
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Any etymological relation between なる and なり?
I'm wondering if there's any etymological relation between the modern verb なる (also 成る, 為る), meaning "to become, to be completed", and the classical auxiliary verb なり (also 也), a copula with ...
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What is the usage of で here?
"社長の息子で顔も頭もよくて女に不自由したことはない勝ち組" 周囲の俺への評価はこんな感じ.-----ぶっちゃけ異論はない.
My attempt to understand:
The company presidents son, has a good face, smart, doesn't have any problems getting girls and is ...
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How does に+だって work if に＋だ and に＋で is incorrect?
So if we take this sentence 「鳥や魚にだって喜怒哀楽の感情があると思う。」
We can see that the に particle is directly attached to the だ copula. The だ copula really just being である, doesn't this mean the に particle and で ...
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Analysis of -tatte/-datte attached to nouns, adjectives and verbs, equivalent to -demo
There is a suffix -tatte/-datte that attaches to nouns, adjectives and verbs:
sensei datte = sensei de mo
hazukashikutatte = hazukashikute mo
yondatte = yonde mo
kitatte = kite mo
And the meaning is ...
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Nonsense sentences with だ
I recently encountered these sentences which must be nonsense because AはBだ means 'A is B'.
私は１０５号室だ
「ノルウェーの森」は村上春樹だ
東京は初めてだ
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にて / で adverbializer?
にて is older form of で, and now has literary or archaic nuance. にて itself was created by adding suffix て to に, which is form of copular verb n-.
Traditional interpretation (e.g. here) is that 2 main ...
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Does な originating from ~にある mean you can replace な with ~にある today?
It has been said elsewhere that だ, な, and の all originate in some for another from Old Japanese copulas. E.g.:
だ originates from ~である
の sometimes marks the genitive/possessive case, but sometimes it ...
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Tense of sentences ending with のだ such as 楽しかったんだ
From what I can find,
楽しかったんだ
is considered to be in the past tense, which confuses me.
I would have thought that の nominalized the preceding phrase, and the sentences as a whole was then placed in ...
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What's the function of であられる?
I came across another confusing Japanese translation of the Qur'an. Here's the Arabic text:
قُلۡ هُوَ اللّٰهُ اَحَدٌ (the Qur'an chapter 112 verse 1)
Here's the English translation:
Say, He is ...
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For this sentence 本日は晴天なりといったとする, could I replace なり to です, if not, why?
ChatGPT said '"なり" (nari) functions as a copula, which is a word that links the subject of a sentence with a predicate or description. Specifically, "なり" serves as a literary or ...
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Meaning of で in 「1匹で食べています」
Consider
猫が3匹います
1匹で食べています
from 2m50s of this video.
DeepL translates the bottom sentence as "I'm eating one of them", which I'm pretty sure is wrong :] From context, it seems to mean &...
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Particles can be put before copula だ?
In the anime Relife ep1, I met this line "酔ってた勢いでだ".
I don't know what is で here.
Is it an abbreviation, dialect, or particle? Or this is a casual speech that is ungrammatical?
If it is a ...
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Placing the copula だ not at the end of a sentence
In
お酒は、ほろ酔いのうちが最高だと言われる。
It's said that alcohol is the best while tipsy.
there is a だ placed before the end of a sentence. I was under the impression that だ can only be placed at the end of the ...
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What verb is being dropped in 「また、近いうちに」
Consider
また、近いうちに。
Let's meet again soon.
I'm assuming a verb is being implicitly dropped here. Which one is it? Is it the volitional copula (だろう)?
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Using the verb ござんす ["to be"] in modern Japanese
If I use the verb ござんす
As in
しからばこの身を お疑いでござんすか
So, do you doubt me?
Will it be similar to English "Art thou doubting me" or will it give my speech a refined flavour or perhaps a ...
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Can the Copula Be Split From its で-particle, as in「学生でも子供でもない」?
The sentence
学生でも子供でもない
translates to
[It is] neither a student nor a child.
Initial Questions:
First, just confirming: the use of でも here is just で + も, and has nothing to do with with the ...
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Parsing a tricky の [duplicate]
サンプルが腐った色のレストラン (from a 川柳)
I'm confused by the の and how to parse this sentence.
The most straight-forward parse doesn't sit well with me.
サンプルが腐った色 : The color of rotten sample. (サンプル is the ...
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Could you call the い/i - suffix of adjectives a copula?
Now I have seen people call だ the only copula, even excluding its adverbial or attributive forms で and な (and seemingly の), with the argument that only predicative copulas, which are necessary for ...
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Does だ in 予定だ add emphasis?
I thought <noun>+だ at the end of a casual sentence adds emphasis (unlike the constructions where だ is needed for grammatical reasons such んだ, だから, だけど). So when I want to simply share some ...
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What is the function of で in 「家に帰らないで映画を観に行った」?
In the sentence
昨日は授業の後、家に帰らないで映画を観に行った。
Is で the て-form of だ? Or is it the で particle? In either case, wouldn't the clause before it (家に帰らない) need to be nominalized (の) in order for で to attach to ...
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Understanding 「40秒で心臓麻痺だったな…」 [duplicate]
From the first episode of Death Note, the protagonist reads the rules inside the Death Notebook:
“40秒以内に死因を書くとそのとおりになる”
Later, immediately after writing someone's name in the book, he remarks:
...
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Understanding 「それが人質の証言では」
From the first episode of Death Note:
それが人質の証言では
Question: I'm familiar with ではない, but don't understand what では alone means here?
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野原みたいで素敵でしょう？ De purpose
野原みたいで素敵でしょう？
野原みたい素敵でしょう？
Can anyone explain the nuance added by de here? I feel like it may be a conjunctive copula, or perhaps it is meant to be a location marker? I'm not sure if it means "...
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Why is ある required in あるはずない?
From the first episode of Death Note, the main character utters to himself that something can't be possible:
ふん、まさかな…そんなわけあるはずない
Question: What is the ある doing in this sentence? If はずない is an i-...
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What is 人 in 人だ (gramatically)?
In the elementary sentence:
人だ
人 is not marked with a particle. So what does it function as, gramatically?
If we translate the sentence as
A person exists.
then presumably "person" ...
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What's the difference between ending an answer with だ vs だよ・です?
I was talking to someone and they asked me:
出身はどこなの？
to which I responded saying:
イギリス出身だ
My friend then told me that that sounded a bit strange, and it would have sounded more natural if I had ...
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Can a irrealis form verb be combined with the adjective particle "な"
I asked this question because irrealis form and continuative form verbs can be combined with だ, so can't it be combined with na? I mean it looks ungrammatical but da goes with it so...
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にで and でに confusion
So I saw these particles in a definition and a song.
First, as ひとりでに, which got translated as by itself (this got approved by the way) and then "単独にでなく", which I'm guessing means not being ...
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だ in 「別に迷惑だなんて」
別に迷惑だなんて
What kind of difference in meaning or nuances does this だ impart to such an utterance?
Examples with だ:
電車から車椅子が降りる時や、車椅子が階段昇降機を使う時に、駅員さんの「ご迷惑をおかけしまーす」という掛け声が聞こえてくるけど、別に迷惑だなんて思ってないから、「...
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「仕方なくです」 形容詞の連用形 く+ copula です?
I am stumped by 「仕方なくです」 which I have heard/seen occasionally.
用があり仕方なく広島へ。。。仕方なくですね (source)
一年ぶりに来ました。友人に行きたいと言われて仕方なくですが、、、鶏皮は一人5本に減ってました。(source)
仕方なくです！(笑) (source)
I know 形容詞の連用形 く, apart ...
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It seems だ can be omitted in とは思う?
いたずらに会議体を作って、賛否両論を並べ、これ以上時間を費やすのは賢明とは思えません。(source)
しかし、何時までも状況改善を待つことは賢明とは思えません。(source)
今日のあなたの服装はとても仕事向きの服装とは思えませんが。(source)
I am under the impression after a 名詞/形容動詞, 「だとは思えません」 and the だ-less 「...
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〜を。。。だ inside a と言う clause
In the ASK Graded Reader ゴン狐, the following sentence appears:
魚売りは、おれを泥棒だと言って、。。。
I have seen that using を。。。と言う is like saying 'to call somebody something.' My issue is that there is a だ at the end ...
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conditional ば with だ？ [duplicate]
I found this:
でも、考えてみればだ。
Actually this is the first time I've seen a だ with a conditional together. What does it mean?
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What is the difference between 「でがす」 and 「です」？
Here is the sentence I came across the word 「でがす」.
とりあえず これはアッシからのおみやげでがす。 受け取っておくんなせえ。
I'm not sure if it is an archaic form of the copula「です」. Is there any nuance between them?
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Why is ばかり used with だ / です
ばかり, when used to add the connotation of having just done something, usually (or nearly always, in the examples I've seen), takes a copula after it. Either だ or です.
An example:
彼は帰ったばかりだ。
My ...
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Grammatically, how does「である」work? [duplicate]
In「である」、my previous understanding was that the「で」functions the same way as the "method/means" particle「で」by making everything that came before it attached to「で」and that「ある」is just regular「ある」...
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What is the difference between べき and べきだ
Are べき and べきだ one and same thing?
I found many grammars where べき is defined, but examples with べきだ are provided.
知るべき。
両親には従うべきだ。
Or is だ a copula? But then why do we use a copula in such case?
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Dropping だ in sentences
I was again reading Shin Kanzen Master N1 Dokkai when I encountered a passage with a sentence which intrigued me. The second sentence read
最初と言われています。
While I do understand that dropping of だ ...
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is this そうなんだか a valid sentence?
If そうなんですか (sounandesuka) is formal, how come it's not often that I hear of そうなんだか (sounandaka) as casual version or maybe that I just don't hear enough? thanks.
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The grammar of 何でもない [duplicate]
How does 何でもない work in terms of grammar to mean nothing?
I am confused because I'm not sure which of these is happening (or even if it is one of these):
1:
Is it getting 何で (why) and then adding も to ...
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Three grammatical questions about Japanese Manga
The following is an exercise I do daily to better understand grammar.
I’ll claim A and the title.
Title: 第3話75歳の値段
第 is a prefix to form ordinal numbers. In this case, it precedes 3, so third.
話 ...
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Is the で in ～が原因で～ the copula?
In constructs like ～が原因で起こった～ is the で the て form of だ?
For example in:
旦那や子どもへの嫉妬が原因で起こったママ友トラブル
I assume it is for the が to make sense, but I can't find any information on this, so if anyone knows ...
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Obscure verb forms?
Question 1. It my understanding that you can form a negative polite volitional by attaching まい to the ます of the verb. For example, 食｛た｝べます becomes 食べますまい. Is it therefore also possible to turn the ...
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Can you say“ 何が貴方のお名前はですか”？Or does 何 have to come before です？
I’ve read that what’s your name is “貴方のお名前は何ですか“ but can you also put 何 to the beginning or is that incorrect? So can it be: 何が貴方のおなまえはですか。
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