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What's wrong with this sentence? (particle で)

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thegooseking
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Joined: October 17th, 2008 8:24 pm

What's wrong with this sentence? (particle で)

Postby thegooseking » March 8th, 2017 12:11 pm

みなさん、こんにちは、

I'm reading Iwasaki, and he has a section talking about "adverbial head" relative clauses, which are relative clauses where the head-noun indicates a cause or instrument for the relative clause, even if it couldn't be included in the source sentence with the particle で.

The example he gives (after Matsumoto) is:-
1) 頭のよくなる本 - a head-improving (mind-expanding?) book

It seems what makes this an "adverbial head" relative clause is that you cannot say:-
2) その本で頭がよくなる - Your head improves with that book
But what's wrong with this sentence?

He says you could instead say:-
3) その本が頭をよくする - That book improves your head.

So I get the impression the reason you can't use sentence 2 is something to do with よくなる being intransitive, but I still don't quite get it. Could someone explain?

よろしくおねがいします、
小狼

community.japanese
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Posts: 2704
Joined: November 16th, 2012 8:54 am

Re: What's wrong with this sentence? (particle で)

Postby community.japanese » March 14th, 2017 12:48 am

小狼さん、
こんにちは。 :)
Sentence 2 is also good so you can use it.
Yuki 由紀
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