Tuesday, 23 February 2016

verbs - The meaning of ~がいい


I've read a lot of mangas and I've noticed the use of がいい after a verb e.g.



見る{みる}がいい。


諦めた{あきらめた}ほうがいい。


Does it work as an adverb?



Answer



No, 見る and 諦めた方 are grammatically subjects, not adverbs in those sentences. Words marked with が should be nouns, of course.


As you know, noun + がいい (lit. "~ is good", with exhaustive-listing ga) is usually used when you choose one thing from a few possible options.



「ラーメンとカレー、どっちがいい?」「ラーメンがいい。」



If you want to use this with two or more possible actions (verbs), you normally need a nominalizer, which can turn verbs into nouns:




「寝ると遊びに行く、どっちがいい?」「寝るがいい。」



Alternatively, you can use 方【ほう】, which is a noun. ほう literally means something like "side", but it has many usages, including comparing two or more options. See: What is 方 used for (when attached to a た-verb)? and This usage of 方 confuses me




  • 本を書くほうがいい。 I like writing books (rather than doing something else). / You should write a book about it.

  • ラーメンのほうがいい。 (≒ラーメンがいい)






What I've explained so far is about modern, standard Japanese grammar. However, dictionary-form + がいい existed in classic Japanese, and is still in use in some rare cases. This is one way of giving an order. (To be precise, this verb form is 連体形, which was slightly different from the dictionary form in classic Japanese) See: <動詞の辞書形> + がよい ― How is this allowed?




  • 見るがいい! (≒"Behold!")

  • 諦めるがいい!



Note that this is a very pompous way of speaking, and no one speak like this in real life. In manga, you would typically see this used by a noble princess, old man, etc.


The negative counterpart is perhaps dictionary-form + でない. See: 何も言うでない ! meaning and origin



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