Discussion in '日本語 (Japanese)' started by sanjulez, Dec 3, 2013.

  1. sanjulez New Member

    Greetings! I'm trying to approach japanese language.
    One among the many, my issue concerns whether dearu is/can be a verb in its own right.
    I'm assuming it should conjugate as Aru.
    I'm wondering the reason that makes the following conjugated entries, i suspect, utterly wrong:
    "dearanai" and "dearimasen" and thus "dearimasen deshita"
    Given that the renyoukei of aru is arimasu, for dearu i obtain "dearimasu", and
    the mizenkei, should then be dearanai? ( or de nai ? )

    What's the specific reason behind having dearu+ (nai|arimasen|nakatta, etc)?
    Is it still a verb at all? If so,is it in shoushikei or renyoukei?

    My apologies for not using hiragana where needed, for the tenor of the question, and my best thanks! ciao
  2. YangMuye

    YangMuye Senior Member

    Dearu and aru are very special verbs and cannot conjugate like a normal verb.
    I think it's common to see verbs of exsitance are irregular in most languages.
  3. sanjulez New Member

    You are definitely right, irregular are very common in general. Herein I was just trying to get some morphological insight about their behaviour. It's probably something that is taught in highschool but definitely not useful enough to be mentioned in my (italian) grammars of japanese. Thanks!
  4. YangMuye

    YangMuye Senior Member

    Are you a beginner of Japanese?
    As the behavior of aru and dearu are extremely complicated, I think it would be far easier to think about these questions when you are at advanced level.

    For your information:

    • Adjective in European languages decline like nouns while they conjugate like verbs in Japanese.
    • In Classic Japanese, "zu" is the main negation verb/device to negate a verb. However, to negate "aru"(to exist), another verb/adjective "nai" is usually used, although "arazu" can be occasionally seen. Using "nai" instead of "zu" and "arazu" seems to be a character of easten dialects(?).
    • "Aru" is often attached to let a word be able to conjugate like a regular verb. E.g. naku+ ari + te + ari => nakatta, nikuku+ari+zu+ari+mu=>nikukarazaramu. When "aru" is used as an auxiliary verb, it's negative form is usually "arazu".
    • "De aranai" is wrong, but the classic counterpart "ni arazu" was used.
    • In modern Japanese, the negative form of dearu is almost always accompanied by "ha", hence you say "deha nai", "deha arimasen", etc. "de nai" is sometimes used when modifying a noun.
    • There are some stylistic difference between dearu, dearimasu, desu and da. Dearimasu is rarely used, despite dehaarimasen being quite common.
    • The classic form of dearu is "nari", which is a contraction of "ni ari". Dearu came from ni te aru, and is usually shortened to "da". That is why "na" is considered as a rentaikei of "da".
    • Although "da" already has two rentaikeis(na, no) and three renyoukeis(ni, de, datte), there are still some auxiliary verbs(beki, nagara, masen etc.) that only accept regular verbs. "dearu" is used instead and the stylistic difference is neutralized.
    • ....
    I think dearu/da is complicated enough to be treated different from aru.
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2013

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