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Japanese ’dewa’ - Korean equivalent? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| sebngwa3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6170 days ago 200 posts - 217 votes  Speaks: Korean*, English | Message 1 of 6 21 October 2009 at 10:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I don't understand the concept of 'dewa' or 'ja' in Japanese. Is there a Korean equivalent? Why don't they just use 'ga'? Why is it 'ja' for negatives?
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| YoshiYoshi Senior Member China Joined 5537 days ago 143 posts - 205 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 2 of 6 22 October 2009 at 5:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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１、돈이 없습니다：お金がありません
２、じゃありません／じゃない：じゃ가 では의 구어체 ３、명사＋가／이 아닙니다：명사＋ではありません（です／입 니다의 부정형） ４、그 곳은 조용하지는 않습니다：そこは静かではありません（형용 동사＋ではありません） 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6774 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 3 of 6 22 October 2009 at 9:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I'm afraid I can't make comparisons to Korean (I know very little Korean), but unlike English, Japanese expresses the
concepts of "being (the same as)" and "being (existing)" differently. I'll use the plain forms in my examples rather than the polite forms. "exist" or "have": aru negative form: nai The thing that exists is marked with "ga". "to be" (copula): de-aru (the same as "desu" or "da") negative form: de-(wa)-nai hon-ga nai = there is no book hon de-wa-nai = that is not a book de-wa often contracts to 'ja' in Japanese, as YoshiYoshi explained already. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5772 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 6 22 October 2009 at 11:35am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I don't speak Korean but as this seems to bewilder you, I think it's isn't far-fetched to guess that there probably isn't a Korean equivalent.
As a student it's probably the only way to learn the structures by heart (either drills or exposure, they're frequent and distinct enough that it isn't difficult once one has overcome the fact that it's not directly translatable to one's first language.) aru is the verb in question. You can't look at ja/dewa without looking at aru and, more specifically, its compound de aru. As Captain Haddock explained, aru is a full verb and refers to the state of being in a place, being there, existing. The copula de aru seems to be particle de + aru, and it doesn't follow the normal verb conjugation. I for myself might interpret it as 'being there' + 'as/in the form of' hon wa aru = there is a book (a/the book is here/exists) hon de wa aru = that is a book ([understood subject] exists in the form of a book) This sounds awkwards and way too philosophical to be real language, I know. de aru is conjugated like である de aru; exists ではない de wa nai です desu , it is possibly a contraction of であります de arimasu ではありません de wa arimasen Throughout different Japanese dialects, de aru and de wa nai are contracted to different neutral/informal copula. In Standard Japanese they are 'da' and 'ja nai', in the Kansai region, the contractions are 'ya' and 'ya nai'. Ya is the modern version of Edo period 'dya/ja' which might be where ja nai comes from as well. I have no clue about what function the は in dewa nai has, nor why it's nai and not aranai. Well, language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6774 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 5 of 6 22 October 2009 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Me neither, but it's often optional. It's the same は that can optionally be inserted in negative adjectives.
Modern Japanese is quirky, and nai is actually an adjective which substitutes as the negative form of aru. The "true" negative verb form of aru is aranu, but this is somewhat archaic and it doesn't get used in spoken Japanese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| ericspinelli Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5789 days ago 249 posts - 493 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Italian | Message 6 of 6 22 October 2009 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Keep in mind that the では in ではない is different from other では's. There is also, for example, the では that is equivalent to 에서는. でない / ではない should be treated as a whole unit. Although YoshiYoshi already covered this and more, the simplest explanation is: ではない = 아니다 ない = 없다
Because Japanese is different from Korean!
As a general note, although Korean and Japanese grammar share a lot in common and it is often as simple as swapping in and out equivalent pairs, it's important to note that there are some fundamental differences which are incorrigible. While 는/은 and は and 가/이 and が overlap to a significant extent they are not necessarily equivalent. Their respective use with negatives is one example, their interaction with 뭐 another. 이름이 뭐예요? 名前は何ですか？
The は in ではない is the contrastive. リンゴではない。 As for what it is not, apple. / It is not an apple (but it is something). Though it is by no means restricted to just negatives, use of this は isn't as common with positive statements by nature. This は can also be seen in phrases like 高くはある / 高くはない, してはいる / してはいない, したりはする / したりはしない, etc. As usual, anywhere a は can go a も can go also. You are most likely to see でない (sans は) in a conditional form. でないと and でなければ are the preferred negative conditionals*, though colloquial speech allows じゃないと and じゃなければ. The lack of the contrastive は applies Boolean logic like conditions which are well suited to conditionals (IF / THEN statements). *ではないなら, an interesting case of the copula modifying itself, is an exception and は seems to be included more often than not. Edited by ericspinelli on 22 October 2009 at 7:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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