Structure
［い］Adjective［く］+ なかった
Examples:
おもしろく + なかった
新しく + なかった
Details
Part of Speech
Adjective
Word Type
Auxiliary Verb
Register
Standard
品詞
形容詞
単語の種類
助動詞
使用域
一般
About い-Adjective くなかった
- 私は太くなかったよ！I was not fat!
- 北海道は暑くありませんでした。Hokkaido was not hot.
The semi-polite form is constructed by using なかった, and then simply adding です.
- この車は高くなかったです。This car was not expensive.
Examples
コーヒーは熱くなかったです。（熱い）
The coffee was not hot.
それは、安くありませんでした。（安い）
That was not cheap.
私の犬は強くなかったです。（強い）
My dog was not strong.
私の姉の家が高くなかったです。（高い）
My (older) sister's house was not expensive.
漫画を読むのは難しくなかった。（難しい）
Reading manga was not difficult.
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Online
Adjectives
GuideToJapanese
Adjectives
Imabi
Offline
Genki 1
Page 132
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い-Adjective くなかった – Grammar Discussion
Most Recent Replies (4 in total)
nekoyama
About 2 years ago
I don’t know the reason, it’s just how the language evolved.
When you say that in order to make a verb polite, one conjugates the stem, what happens is that the auxiliary ます is attached to the verb, and ます has to be attached to the 連用形 (aka masu stem). For adjectives, a way to attach ます directly to the 連用形 (the く form) just never appeared. So that’s why it’s not just 連用形 + ます.
Now where does the あり come from? First, the reason い-adjectives can function like verbs (e.g. as a predicate) is that the い-form includes a “to be” meaning - but the く form does not. But since we can use it adverbially, we can just add a verb to add the “to be” meaning, like ある, and then we can make that verb polite because we know how to make verbs polite. It doesn’t have to be this way, but it’s something we can do.
For example, in order to make 美味しい polite, we can use it as an adverb paired with the polite あります and get 美味しくあります. Like I wrote, it doesn’t have to be this, and there are ot...
mrnoone
About 2 years ago
@nekoyama @Superpnut
Adding to nekoyama answer, the ありません comes from the negative polite form of the ある.
In other words, with verbs, you simply attach ない to the stem, while for いadjectives you technically attach the negative form of ある.It all comes way back to classical Japanese, where いAdjectives were called く adjectives. Unlike now, where い of いadjectives conjugates (which is fairly simple) the copula あり (similar to だ and です which are modern copulas, that is words linking predicate to the subject, putting it simply “to be”) had to be added to くadjective so:
Adjective: (寒い cold (weather)
Fun fact 1
Now: 寒い
Classical Japanese: 寒くあり (isn’t it complicated? Japanese thought the same, so it was replaced with い eventually)By the way, ある is the attributive form of the same あり (the form used to describe/modify nouns).<...
Superpnut
About 2 years ago
Oh that makes a bunch of since thanks for saying it in simple terms so I can understand it