Structure
Noun + である
［な］Adjective + である
Details
Formal
About である
である (or であります) is a construction in Japanese that is considered to be the formal equivalent of だ. This should not be confused with the polite speech word です, as である is simply a combination of the conjunctive form of だ, and the う - Verb, ある.
である may be used in any place that だ would usually be used, but is most likely to be found at the end of sentences/statements.
Fun Fact
Because the な that is used with な-Adjectives is simply the attributive form of だ, である may replace な or の when connecting one noun to another. The attributive form just means the form of a word that can be directly linked to a noun. As ある's attributive form is just ある, it does not need to be modified at all.
However, although this is grammatically correct, it would sound quite stiff in many circumstances, and should be avoided in standard speech.
Caution
であります (as opposed to である) is very formal, and will almost exclusively be used by people within jobs that absolutely require this level of formality (politics, police force, military, etc). Due to this, its use within regular conversation will sound stiff, or perhaps even like the speaker is jokingly being over polite.
Synonyms
Related
Vocab Coverage
All Bunpro Vocab that appears on this item.
Examples
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彼はとてもハンサムである。
He is very handsome.
彼はパイロットであった。
He was a pilot.
とても面白いドラマである。
It is a very interesting drama.
題名：「吾輩は猫である。」
Title: 'I am a cat.'
夢は海外で成功することである。
My dream is to be successful overseas.
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である – Grammar Discussion
Most Recent Replies (17 in total)
JamesBunpro
Fixed!
Good catch - thank you
prolezone
I understand the logic somewhat, but I’m still not sure I’d make the same call. I think analyzing it as the 連用形 of the だ breaks its own set of rules, and though school grammar lists it as such, I’m not sure there are any linguists alive that agree with school grammar’s approach. School grammar itself is broadly rejected by contemporary linguists. This can introduce a bit of dissonance in japanese learning, because linguists (and other specialists adjacent to linguistics) are often recruited to write the second language teaching material, and thus pedagogical grammar heavily deviates from school grammar. Even more than it might if it just wanted to streamline grammar for adult learners.
And, I’ll admit that analyzing the で as the case particle is possibly just as arbitrary as school grammar’s approach. I have seen linguists characterize it as a distinct morpheme, separate from either of those two. (My claim that である is ‘fused’ is more of an inarticulate way of saying that it ...
JamesBunpro
This is something we do consider and discuss internally (passionately, sometimes). It is a tightrope walk between the competing perspectives. A lot of these thi...