I noticed there are many 形容詞{けいようし} (i-adjectives) that end in 〜ない, where the な is not part of the kanji, and doesn't seem to have the meaning 無い.
Examples:
- 危{あぶ}ない means "dangerous", while 危 means "danger"
- 少{すく}ない means "few"/"scarce", while 少 means "few"/"little"
- 切{せつ}ない means "heartrending"/"trying", while 切 means "earnest"/"ardent"
(For contrast, examples where it's clearly 無い: 心ない, 情けない, 力ない.)
I wonder where exactly this ない is coming from. It is not a classical Japanese ending to my knowledge (like 〜しい).
I speculate that it could be an alternative shortening of the classical Japanese copula 〜なり, but this is odd to me because I suspect the usual shortening of 〜な would be used if this were the case (as we see in 形容動詞{けいようどうし} (na-adjectives)).
Does anyone know the etymology of these words and/or the meaning of this 〜ない?
Answer
Thanks to snailplane's and Dono's links, it seems that the answer is fairly established:
大辞泉
形容詞・形容動詞の語幹など性質・状態を表す語に付いて形容詞をつくり、その意味を強調する
大辞林
性質・状態を表す語（形容詞・形容動詞の語幹など）に付いて形容詞をつくり、程度のはなはだしい意を表す
Namely, 〜ない is also a suffix that attaches onto words describing state or quality, turns them into a 形容詞, and emphasizes them.
No comments:
Post a Comment