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In "宿題をしなくてはいけなかった" meaning "Had to do homework.", is the word "いけなかった" derived from "いける" (verb conjugation) or from "いけない" (i-adjective conjugation)?

xrac
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  • possible duplicate of http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/3765/whats-the-difference-between-%E3%80%8C%E3%81%84%E3%81%91%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84%E3%80%8D-and-%E3%80%8C%E3%81%84%E3%81%8B%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84%E3%80%8D – cypher Apr 25 '12 at 23:30
  • @cypher I'm not sure. It doesn't seem like the same question to me. – ジョン Apr 25 '12 at 23:47
  • @ジョン maybe not, but I think it's pretty similar. It does explain ～なくてはいけない if not ～なくてはいけなかった. – cypher Apr 25 '12 at 23:54
  • @cypher That's true, the asker would definitely find that question very helpful. This question would be better phrased as a general question about the behaviour of negative/past tense verbs, since that seems to be what's causing the confusion. My answer is probably inadequate but I'm not quite sure where to start. – ジョン Apr 26 '12 at 00:10
  • Might wanna take a look at http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/4746/in-what-way-is-the-negative-form-of-a-verb-an-adjective as well. – dainichi Apr 26 '12 at 01:25

1 Answers1

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It's the past form of いけない, which in turn is the negative form of いける:

  • いける (plain)

  • いけない (negated)

  • いけなかった (negated-past)

Like with any verb, the negative form of いける behaves like an い-adjective.

Flaw
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