Thursday, 1 September 2016

grammar - volitional + nimo 作ろう+にも?


What does the 「にも」 after the volitional form 「作る」 do here?



死んだら食べ物は必要ないし、死んでるんだから、物は当然産まれない。作ろうにも材料も何もないし。 がっかりさせて悪いけど、天国にはね、何にもないのよ。




I would assume it means something close to "in order to" but I'm not entirely sure.


I would assume the sentences together mean something along the lines of:



When you die, there's no need for food, because you're dead, so it's natural things are not produced. There's not even any ingredients to make anything. It's difficult to feel so disheartened but that's heaven, there's nothing.



I feel like I'm missing quite a few things here but there one thing I know I don't understand is the 「作ろうにも」材料も何もないし.



Answer



This is an instance of the pattern VようにもBない


作ろう is what is often called the "volitional form" in English. The root verb is 作る [to make].


にも expresses "even though" and when joined to the volitional form makes a conditional "even if you wanted to V". Here, it means "even if you wanted to make some thing [to eat]"



材料 = ingredients in this context


も何もない = there is not anything to


So altogether it becomes



Even if you wanted to make [food], there are no ingredients [to use].



See http://www.jgram.org/pages/viewOne.php?tagE=younimonai


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