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This a part of the song "Donut hole" by hachi

何も知らないままでいるのが   
あなたを傷つけてはしないか

I asked a japanese person and they told me it's similar to あなたを傷つけるのではないだろうか. However I don't understand how it works grammatically. As far as I know the は particle cannot topicalize verbs in the TE FORM.

Manab
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    https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/24661/what-does-the-word-%e3%81%97%e3%81%a6%e3%82%84%e3%81%9b%e3%82%93%e3%81%a3-mean/24666#24666 - related, but I'm not entirely willing to say duplicate because of some remaining confusion – Angelos Nov 25 '22 at 23:20
  • @Angelos It is indeed the same question, but that person seems to have arbitrarily claimed that 連用形+は+しない is the same thing as て+は+しない without any further explanation. I guess I could take that for now. – Manab Nov 25 '22 at 23:29
  • 傷つけてはしないか makes no sense to me. 傷つけてはいないか does. – aguijonazo Nov 26 '22 at 00:14
  • Well, that is what is sung. It`s very clear and there are subtitles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct_YOfxc7Hw – Manab Nov 26 '22 at 00:15
  • It still makes no sense. I was not suggesting it was your error. – aguijonazo Nov 26 '22 at 00:35
  • Oh, I see. It does not really make any sense to me too. I suppose it's something that Japanese speakers might say thinking is correct (???). My take is that since テ形 can be used as conjunction like 連用形 due to 中止法, they might wrongly say てはしない with the meaning of 連用形＋は＋しない aka 傷つけはしない. Yet, I'd like someone to confirm this. I have no other ideas though. – Manab Nov 26 '22 at 00:51
  • @aguijonazo Two native speakers in the question I linked(nartuo and l'électeur [now user4032]) seem to have no trouble interpreting ～てはしない as a variant of ～（連用形）はしない, so saying it makes no sense seems a bit forceful. – Angelos Nov 26 '22 at 10:28
  • @Angelos - The linked question is about a dialectal phrase that ends with 〜やせん. I have little trouble understanding it. This one is different. It makes no sense to me, and I have no idea why they didn’t correct it before they published the song. I found two related questions on HiNative (食べない と 食べてはしない はどう違いますか？ and What does 気つけてはしない (てはしないってどういう意味？) mean?). Natives there say “we don’t say that.” – aguijonazo Nov 26 '22 at 11:10
  • @Angelos - And only one person, by the name of Axe, brought up 〜してはしない in the linked question, not l'électeur or naruto. – aguijonazo Nov 26 '22 at 11:36
  • Axe was the only one to bring up the topic in the comments, but user4032 mentioned it in his answer as if both patterns were the same. @aguijonazo. But he did it without further explanation. – Manab Nov 26 '22 at 18:04
  • l'électeur (user4032) said ～してやせん was the same as ～してはいない. As I said, the former is a dialect. や may be は and せん by itself does mean しない, but it doesn’t necessarily mean ～してやせん equals ～してはしない. You cannot understand the nuance of a dialect by translating it into standard language portion by portion like that. ～してはしない is not a valid form. – aguijonazo Nov 26 '22 at 18:13
  • He indeed says as they were the same indirectly:「誰も食べやせん！」＝「誰も食べはしない！」 = "No one will eat it!". With the topic of "other examples with the same structure" – Manab Nov 26 '22 at 18:17
  • That 食べやせん corresponds to 食べはしない doesn’t mean 食べてやせん corresponds to 食べてはしない, which is not a valid form anyway. – aguijonazo Nov 26 '22 at 18:31
  • Although I agree with you that 食べてはしない is an odd sentence, I don't think it is wrong. I don't think Hachi aka Kenshi Yonezu would release a song with wrong lyrics. I also don't think it is for poetic reasons because the rest of the song is very ok. Asking 傷つけてはいないか and 傷つけはしないか (assuming that 食べてはしない means the same as 食べはしない) result in really similar questions that use the は topicalizing function. With the assumption that it is not wrong, I think the meaning should probably be what I said before "wrong grammar trying to say something else". I think calling it not valid is a bit forceful. – Manab Nov 26 '22 at 20:33
  • Missing the distinction between 〜しはしない and 〜してはいない is missing the distinction between する and している. This mixed-up 〜してしない destroys this crucial distinction. Some might call it "creative destruction". I don't. – aguijonazo Nov 27 '22 at 01:44
  • しはしない and してはいない are not being mixed. I just gave examples to show that the meaning is similar and should probably be around that spectrum of meaning. The thing is that てはしない / しはしない seem to be related. It's not something out of nowhere like I explained before (the 中止法 thing). Aside from that, language is a living thing and evolves regardless of people's will. – Manab Nov 27 '22 at 02:08
  • I’m a native and I would never recognize 〜してはしない as a variation of 〜しはしない. It’s closer to 〜してはいない because of て. That’s how I would understand it if I need to make some sense out of it. – aguijonazo Nov 29 '22 at 16:19
  • I appreciate your point of view but, in my opinion, since it's a pseudo-correct grammar, it's not really more correct to think of it as a variation of てはいない because of て instead of しはしない because of し. That's at least what my Japanese friend told me. Anyway, I think you should consider making your point of view an answer for posterity in case someone in the future questions that too. – Manab Nov 30 '22 at 09:53

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The sentence was probably made by two steps.

Firstly, why we use 傷つけてはいないか,not 傷つけていないか. Because ”ては” can emphasis the sentence.

Secondly, why Yonezu uses 傷つけてはしないか,not 傷つけてはいないか. This is difficult problem. Although I'm Japanese, I think this expression is a little wrong. But, I guess he wants to give us to a little weird feeling.

I translate them forcibly, あなたを傷つけていないか means ”Am I hurting you?”, あなたを傷つけてはいないか means ”Am I even hurting you?”, あなたを傷つけてはしないか means ”Do I even hurting you?”.

鯛のお造り
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  • I agree with you. I also think he was trying to be a little poetic and forceful. Thank you. – Manab Dec 28 '22 at 20:59
  • I found another Vocaloid song that uses it, ラジオスターが消えたって by 皮肉骨. It has the following verse:

    失ってはしないか　何かを そんな不安が　頭を喰う

     – Jerry Fielder Jan 07 '24 at 11:07