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その番組をお見れなくなったら、生きていけません。
This is a sentence I posted on italki and Lang-8. It’s based on suggested corrections I received. Would someone mind explaining to me what’s going on in that verb?
見れなくなったら
Best I can figure is that 見れなく is a negative adverbial form of 見れる or somesuch biz. and that is pointing to なったら。the whole thing meaning (As I intended–thus the corrections) “If I cannot watch” or maybe? more precisely “If I become unable to watch.”
Am I close? If so, why would the adverbial form be used, and on what grammar/verb is it based?
これからよろしく。
I’m having trouble seeing where you are confused, since the explanation you gave is correct.
見れなくなったら is 見れる + なる with some conjugations thrown in.
To say “unable to watch”, 見れる becomes the negative 見れない.
And to say “if it becomes the case that…”, なる turns into the conditional なったら.The く is just to make the adjective 見れない (it’s an adjective, remember) into an adverb, since it’s modifying the main verb なる.
The …くなる construction is something you will hear a lot.
寒くなる to get cold
無くなる to get lost (lit. to become not here)
小さくなる to get smaller (basically synonymous with 縮む)
あたたかくなくなる to get not warmTo see it used with a more verb-y feel:
電気が切られたからぜんぜん見えなくなった.
I can’t see anything since the lights got turned off.thanks, thisiskyle. Yeah it seems obvious to me now, thanks to your pointing it out! I’m still a noob at this Japanese thing, so…I’ll figure it out. I guess I was confused about the fact that 見れない is an adjective, and in fact, what the meaning of the word was in the first place.
anyway, got it now, thanks so much!
mb
Actually, the structure is V-neg+なくなる (where “V-neg” = the negative verb stem) which means “not X any more”. According to the grammar dictionary, the verb tends to be a potential verb, but it doesn’t have to be. So 見れなくなる = not able to watch any more
The correct adjective conjugation is A-stem+くなくなる for い-adjectives, and (A-stem/N)+(では/じゃ)なくなる for な-adjectives and nouns. For example, 寒くなくなる (not cold any more), 元気じゃなくなる (not lively any more), 先生ではなくなる (not a teacher any more).
Joel, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t what you said just a specific case of what I said?
To me there is no real grammatical difference between the constructions 寒くなる and 寒くなくなる.
In the first case, something becomes cold (implying that it didn’t start cold) and in the latter, something becomes ‘not cold’ (implying that is started out cold).I was trying to be more general with my description, but if I was wrong in some way, I’d like to know.
Adverb+なる is not quite the same as V-neg+なくなる. Among other things, なくなる is word in its own right. Oh, it’s probably got the same etymology, sure, but I suspect you’re going to see なくなる traipsing around a fair bit more…
Thank you both for your input! Hearing different views helps alot. Best, MB
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