のは -- Grammar help

[watermen]

Here is the sentence that uses のは, I don't understand why it is being used that way. This is taken from Mango Languages Lesson 10, slide 91.

Why not 歩いて行くは無理ですよ。 or just 歩いて行く無理ですよ。

[プチクレア]

You need to put の in to nominalize the verb.

You can't just put the particule は after the verb 歩いて行く,as は as a theme marking particle has to come after a noun. As for 歩いて行くby itself without particle, I guess it would be used in spoken language in 歩いて行く無理だよ, but that's not textbook japanese.

[Javizy]

You've done all the beginner lessons haven't you? This topic was covered in a few of them I think.

In both English and Japanese you can't treat verbs as nouns, and that is exactly what you'd be doing in a sentence like 歩いて行くは無理ですよ - this would be like 'It's Impossible walk/as for walk, it's impossible'. As for 歩いて行く無理ですよ, this would mean 'the impossibility that will be walked', since verbs preceding nouns take the role of relative clauses (noun-modifying clauses) in Japanese.

What both the 'to' before 'walk' and the 'の' after 歩いて行く are doing is called nominalisation, and allows the verbs to act as nouns grammatically, thus allowing us to describe them directly in an A is B sentence. There's a lot more to mastering this concept though, so I would look into it further.

[プチクレア]

Oops...

Javizyさん,sorry for the simultaneous posting

[Javizy]

Oops...

Javizyさん,sorry for the simultaneous posting

I was the slow one Can't hurt having two replies

[watermen]

You've done all the beginner lessons haven't you? This topic was covered in a few of them I think.

In both English and Japanese you can't treat verbs as nouns, and that is exactly what you'd be doing in a sentence like 歩いて行くは無理ですよ - this would be like 'It's Impossible walk/as for walk, it's impossible'. As for 歩いて行く無理ですよ, this would mean 'the impossibility that will be walked', since verbs preceding nouns take the role of relative clauses (noun-modifying clauses) in Japanese.

What both the 'to' before 'walk' and the 'の' after 歩いて行く are doing is called nominalisation, and allows the verbs to act as nouns grammatically, thus allowing us to describe them directly in an A is B sentence. There's a lot more to mastering this concept though, so I would look into it further.

Now I remember. Thanks. I did finish all the Beginner series. But I am not able to remember everything, that is why I need to revise again.