1

So I kept searching on the net about 会える conjugation but nothing comes up. Why is its past negative conjugated as なくなった? I heard this on an anime by the way and wondered why it wasn't written as 会えなかった?

Rommel Bagasina
  • 389
  • 7
  • 3
    You wrote 会えなくなった in the title, but then 会えなくなかった in the body. 会えなくなった is not one word, it's 会えない in く form, 会えなく + なった (なる in past tense). Just making sure you are clear on what you're asking about. – Leebo Aug 18 '23 at 12:13
  • Is 会え an adjective perhaps? @Leebo – Rommel Bagasina Aug 19 '23 at 03:25
  • 1
    ない is an adjective-like auxiliary if that's what you mean. 会える is just a normal potential-form verb. ない attaches to verbs to form a negative even though it acts like an adjective. – Leebo Aug 19 '23 at 05:04
  • Ohhh i see thanks @Leebo san – Rommel Bagasina Aug 19 '23 at 05:30

2 Answers2

2

会えなくなった -> 会えなく + なった

会えなく is the adverb form of 会えない

なった is なる in past tense

(It) becomes not being able to meet. -> (We) stop being able to meet

0149234
  • 813
  • 1
  • 15
  • Is 会え and i-adjective perhaps? – Rommel Bagasina Aug 19 '23 at 03:30
  • @RommelBagasina 会える is Potential form of verb 会う, and negative form of 会える is 会えない. See also https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/potential-form – Arfrever Aug 19 '23 at 03:48
  • Then why does 会える have an adverb form? I was thinking it's an i-adjective because it works as an adverb in its く form. @Arfrever – Rommel Bagasina Aug 19 '23 at 04:43
  • Any negative verb ending in ない can be turned into an adverb by replacing the い by く. This is the same process to turn い adjectives into adverbs, but it does not mean that negative verbs are adjectives. – jarmanso7 Aug 19 '23 at 08:33
  • As a matter of fact, the so called "い adjectives" come from contracting an adverb ending in く + the verb ある (which is ない in the negative form). For this reason, if you speak very formally you can say things like さむくあります or さむくありません instead of さむい or さむくない. See In what way is the negative form of a verb an adjective? But it's better if you focus first on learning adjectives and (negative) verbs as separated things. – jarmanso7 Aug 19 '23 at 08:38
  • @jarmanso7 Your statement 「"い adjectives" come from contracting an adverb ending in く + the verb ある」 is not exactly correct. It is correct for forms with -kar- (including past tense, e.g. samukatta), but not for simple Conclusive and Attributive forms, which were -si and -ki in Old/Middle Japanese (e.g. samusi, samuki). Original form of Conclusive died out, while Attributive had elision of k: -ki → -i, and took over Conclusive function. Neither -si nor -ki come from contraction of -ku ar-. Vovin speculated that these suffixes may be borrowings from Koreanic. – Arfrever Aug 19 '23 at 13:00
  • -si and -ki are supposedly not attested in Ryukyuan, and would have been borrowed to Japanese branch after Proto-Japonic split into Japanese and Ryukyuan branches. According to both Frellesvig and Vovin, adjectives in Old Japanese could have been used in their bare stems (without -si and -ki), both as predicates and attributively. This was already archaic feature of grammar of Old Japanese, and died out in Middle Japanese. – Arfrever Aug 19 '23 at 13:09
0

Both 会えなかった and 会えなくなった work as negative conjugation of 会える. Difference between the two is the moment when the meeting proved not to take place:

会えなかった -> (before, on or) after the scheduled time

会えなくなった -> before the scheduled time

You can say 会えなかった for any unfulfilled meeting in the past, and ofen implies you tried but failed. When you say 会えなくなった, it often implies that the meeting is now less prioritized for some reason.

Ryo
  • 361
  • 1
  • 4