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I've been listening songs and anime dialogues that end sentences with ～もの or even cuter version ～もん for so long that I am able to see how the word denotes reasons or excuses like:

おなか空いたもん (when the character was asked why she finished the cake all by herself)

I have no problem with the grammatical structure of the sentences that end with ～もの when the words before もの are verbs or adjectives, but I am confused when the words that precede the もの are nouns, they need to put the copula だ or です before the もの, for example:


Shouldn't it be の or な particles between the nouns and もの? How does that work, in term of grammar? Or is this usage of もの simply colloquial or slangy that does not have to follow any grammar rule?

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Just a note that both are in fact 「物」. –  Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Jul 27 '11 at 9:18
@Ignacio Yup. That's why I'm puzzled because normally when [noun]+[?]+[noun], the [?] is a particle (の/な/と etc) but in this case it's だ or です. –  Lukman Jul 27 '11 at 9:26
Huh? It is perfectly acceptable to have a verb before a noun, and a copula is just 「で」+「ある」/「あります」. –  Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Jul 27 '11 at 20:07
@Ignacio Huh? I'm talking about putting です between two nouns. Although です was derived from である, can you say 好きです猫? –  Lukman Jul 28 '11 at 1:26
That is syntactically correct, but is semantically odd. It would translate to "the cat that has liking", although no one would write it that way. –  Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Jul 28 '11 at 7:00

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Because it's not the noun もの, but a grammatical final particle on its own. You do say "お腹が空いたから" and "好きだから" with particle "から" don't you? It's the same thing here!

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Well, it's basically a JLPT 2 particle, so you may not yet have studied it. Moreover, we all know that Japanese language overloads a lot of words, so it might not be obvious at first glance. (On an unrelated note, I wish there was a medal for an accepted answer with a score of zero :P) –  Axioplase Jul 27 '11 at 9:41
That totally makes sense! Thanks! Now that I know it's a particle, it just seems to follow the way some other particles work (e.g. と -> だと思う, し -> だし, ねえ -> だねえ) .. I realized how stupid the questions is >___< .. –  Lukman Jul 27 '11 at 9:42
The truth is, I have never taken any JLPT courses or tests. I just took three years of Japanese classes in college just for the fun of it and for the electives credits :P –  Lukman Jul 27 '11 at 9:44
Yes, this 〜もの is a "reason giver" word, usually used for personal excuses. So since the character was asked why she ate all the cake, this makes it her excuse. –  istrasci Jul 27 '11 at 14:15

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