Wednesday, 24 August 2016

grammar - Meaning of ~と言えよう


Just as the title says, I'm looking for the meaning of this construction, as it is used in the following sentence:



野菜や果物の害虫を防ぐために、さまざまな農薬が使われているが、これは人間の健康の面から考えると、問題があると言えよう




Answer



言う means to say. 言える means can say. 言えよう is the volitional form of 言える.


Therefore 言えよう means something along the lines of "It can be said" or "It could probably be said" and expresses a little bit of uncertainty in the statement. It may also be that the speaker doesn't want to express absolute agreement with the statement by using 言える in this way.


In context, 問題があると言えよう means something like "It can be said that there is a problem." or "It could probably be said that a problem exists".



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