volitional form?

[danfernold7261]

こんにちは。Danです

しつもんがあります。"volitional form"はどちですか?

I'm asking because I read on Wikipedia' s "Japanese verb conjugation" page that the volitional form is the masu-mashou form, and on the "japanese particles" that the "-eba form" is the volitional form (under "dake" with the example sentence "netai dake nereba ii - you can sleep as much as you want (to sleep))

ebaまたわmashou。それはどちですか

よろしく

Dan (ダン)

[mmmason8967]

The volitional form ends in mashou. For neru the volitional form is nemashou, meaning "Let's sleep".

The ~ba ending is conditional. It sets up an "if..." condition and the rest of the sentence gives the result of the condition. The nereba in the sample sentence means "if <someone> sleeps" and the result is ii, "it's good" or "it's fine".

マイケル

[Tracel]

Hello Dan,

Michael is correct. One type of volitional form is made using the -masu verb stem. So you would get this kind of construction:

食べます　－－　食べましょう　let's eat
読みます　－－　読みましょう let's read
買います　－－　買いましょう let's buy

This is the more formal construction. There is another one, which is used when the shorter version of the verb is needed. This happens when you use the volitional form to make more complex sentences, or when you are talking informally. The informal version looks like this and it is formed from the dictionary stem of the verb:

食べる　－－　食べよう
読む　－－　読もう
買う　－－　買おう

The sentence that you have there isn't really a volitional sentence grammatically speaking, I don't think.

寝たいだけ寝ればいい。（ねたいだけねればいい）　Sleep as much as you want to.

This phrase is pretty complex.　You need to start at ねればいい　which means "it's good if you sleep". So that is a conditional form, or an "if" statement. Then ねたい　which is a combination of the V-masu form and -tai, which makes a construction that means "to want (to do something). In this case it is of course, "want to sleep". The だけ　part means "only". You can probably use this type of set phrase using other verbs．Although I am not completely sure.

食べたいだけ食べればいい。（たべたいだけたべればいい）　Eat as much as you want.

I find Japanese sentences are put together almost completely backwards to English sentences.　

Good luck, and I hope this helps you a bit.
Tracel

[danfernold7261]

Yeah, that´s what I figured.

Tracel, doumo arigatou.

Although, the question is why Wikipedia refers to the "eba"-form as the volitional form in that particular case. That´s what got me confused.

Anyone who knows?

If so, oshiete kudasai

Yoroshiku

Dan Fernold

[mmmason8967]

Although, the question is why Wikipedia refers to the "eba"-form as the volitional form in that particular case.

Probably just a typo -- it should have been "conditional" or "provisional" instead of "volitional".

マイケル

[japanese.innovative]

Yeah, that´s what I figured.

Tracel, doumo arigatou.

Although, the question is why Wikipedia refers to the "eba"-form as the volitional form in that particular case. That´s what got me confused.

Anyone who knows?

If so, oshiete kudasai

Yoroshiku

Dan Fernold

I agree with Michael san!

Nanatsu 菜々津
TeamJapanesePod101.com

[danfernold7261]

Okee na, doumo ariagatou

Dan Fernold

[danfernold7261]

Ano... tokorode.

tai-form wa dono bunpou keishiki desu ka?

Yoroshiku

Dan Fernold

[cloa513ch2629]

あの　所で

たいの語形　は　どの　文法形式　ですか？


form(word) is gokei　語形

箏え　は　ほしいの動詞　です
A want type of verb.

[japanese.innovative]

Hi Dan san,

The tai form expresses one's desire to do something.
When you say "Ramen ga tabetai desu," it means "I wanna eat Ramen."
(tabetai is a tai form of tabemasu/食べます.)
When you say "Kaimono ni ikitai desu," it means "I wanna go shopping."
(ikitai is a tai form of ikimasu/行きます.)

I hope this explanation will be an answer for your question

Kaori(香織)
TeamJapanesePod101.com

[danfernold7261]

Konnichiha

My reason for asking "which grammatical form" is because Wikipedia, and also Natsuko-sensei in my other post (as much as) said that the pattern I described earlier (netai dake nereba ii) was
Natsuko-sensei

1. [volitional form of verb] dake [same verb in dictionary form] (like "netai dake neru")
2. conditional using "ba" (as in "nereba") + ii (like "nereba ii)

Wikipedia

Verbs (volitional) Netai dake nereba ii.
寝たいだけ寝ればいい。You can sleep as much as you want [to sleep].

and when writing this it hits me, that it wasn´t the -eba form Wikipedia was refering to, but the -tai-form (sorry for that Wikipedia, and sorry for the confusion)

Now, is the -tai form volitional? I don´t think so, but is it?

Oshiete kudasai

Dan Fernold

[japanese.innovative]

Dan san
I'm so sorry but it's a little bit confusing. Can you make it clearer please??　(I know you did already but..)
Tai form is volitional. It pretty much means "want to [verb]"

Nanatsu 菜々津
Team JapanesePod101.com

[Tracel]

Hi Dan, and anyone else who may be interested:

I was just going to let this go, but I am afraid that the word classifications were starting to get to me. Having studied linguistics some 20 years ago, I started having flashbacks to grammatical classifications classes that, although they were fascinating, really didn't help you learn a language very effectively. Try not to get caught up on the grammar labels, unless you want to analyze the language in minute detail and not necessarily learn how to speak it. Anyway, I looked up the terms being used in this thread and this is what I found out.

The reason that this is all so confusing, I think, is because Japanese and English use completely different methods of expressing these ideas. English uses separate verbs (auxiliary verbs) to express these ideas, but Japanese actually conjugates the one verb stem. English does not have one verb form that expresses volition. For us, it becomes a verb phrase. In Japanese the main verb itself changes.

So, what exactly is this volitional form? For our purpose here, the "Volitional form" is a grammatical classification of a verb conjugation in Japanese. A volitional sentence is one in which a person expresses his will or intention or a suggestion for initiating an act. Sorry for the linguo-babble. So you can use the volitional form to make sentences such as: "I am going to study Japanese" (intent) or "I will buy a kanji dictionary" (intent) or "Let's study Japanese together" (suggestion). If a text book asks you to use the volitional form of the verb, they mean the one like: 食べよう,　Or 食べましょう. This form is used in the formation of quite a few other phrases in Japanese, so it is an important conjugation to learn.

I needed to look this up to make sure, but the -tai form of the verb is NOT considered a volitional verb form in any of my grammar dictionaries. It is an auxiliary adjective which expresses desire or hope or aspiration. In English, we use the auxiliary verb "to want" to make this construction. There is another way to express "want" in Japanese (-hoshii), but it still is not considered a volitional.

Hope this helps you out a bit. Also, I find that most of the translation programs out there do not work very well past very short phrases. I use them with a longer Japanese passage to get the gist of meaning in English but that is it. If you use it to go into Japanese, I suggest that you just type in short two or three word phrases, not the whole sentence. The parsing on these translators cannot handle anything long or idiomatic. Good luck

Tracel

[danfernold7261]

Nanatsu-sensei & Tracel.

The reaason this came up, is because I thought the volitional form was the "Let´s [verb] or Shall we [verb]-form (the masu-mashou, u-ou, shiyo, koyou, etc,) and I looked it up on wikipedia, which doesn´t mention the -tai forn under "Volitional (presumptive) on the japanese verb conjugations page, it only says this (under usages)

Usage

In general, the volitional form expresses intention, such as in these cases:

In volitional ("let's" or "I shall") statements: 勉強しよう benkyō shiyō: "Let's study" or "I shall study".
To ask volitional ("shall we") questions: 行こうか ikō ka: "Shall (we) go?"
To express a conjecture with deshō: 明日晴れるでしょう ashita hareru deshō: "Tomorrow will probably be sunny."
To express what one is thinking of doing, via 思う omou: 買おうと思う kaō to omou: "(I) am thinking of buying (it)".
In the form しようとする shiyō to suru: be about to or be trying to. 犬が吠えようとしている Inu ga hoeyō to shite iru: "The dog is about to bark."

(source: Wikipedia)

so, maybe now you see the confusion for me, I can´t place the tai-form (to want to do something) under one of these catagories. Is wikipedia maybe omitting something?

oshiete kudasai

Yoroshiku

Dan Fernold

[Tracel]

Hi Dan,

The reason -tai isn't in that list is because it is NOT a volitional form. -tai expresses desire and not intention. I can see how intent and desire are similar in nature, but they are two distinct meanings.

I want to go to the park tomorrow.
I will go to the park tomorrow.

Tracel