In this Topic, we’re going to learn more about だけ, しか, and はず. We will learn how to use だけ in the negative pattern だけでなく ‘not only (A)’. We previously learned how しか works with numbers to say there is ‘only (a certain amount)’. This time we will be learning to apply it far more generally. And, we previously learned how to use はず to say something was ‘bound to happen’. Here, we will see it used in the negative with はずがない.

In the details section we will discuss the grammatical logic of はず, and also further compare the ‘only’ words だけ and しか.

Now that we have the positive and negative versions of はず under our belts, and we are revisiting だけ and しか, let’s take some time to talk about them in more detail.

No Way

We have previously discussed the idea that some grammar points are essentially just nouns with other words attached to them. This is also true for はず.

When we attach はず to a verb, it is behaving like a regular ‘relative clause’ (something we learned about in N5). We can see this by comparing a normal relative clause to one using はず.

Another consequence of はず behaving like a noun is that is can be followed by だ or です, the same as any other noun. It is also why the pattern はずがない works, since we are just saying that there is ‘no はず’. Of course, はず is a little conceptual here, representing how things are ‘supposed to be’ or the ‘logical expectation’, but we are still simply saying that it doesn’t exist.

This may leave us wondering if we can say はずじゃない. After all, isn’t it simply a noun? We can in fact do this, although the nuance is different. Rather than saying that the ‘expectation doesn’t exist’, we are saying ‘that is not the expectation’. Less literally, this is used in a slightly dramatic way to say ‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this!’.

We will see this sort of thing repeated the more we learn. When a grammatical structure uses a noun, there will be different ways it can be negated and the nuance will be essentially as we’d expect from the sort of negation used.

You’re Testing My Limits

We have previously looked at だけ and しか, but let’s think about them a bit more, now that we have a better grasp of Japanese.

Before, we discussed the logical and literal meaning behind だけ being a ‘limit’. だけ is used in a variety of ways which show different limits, but how does it feel emotionally? When meaning ‘only’, だけ is quite straightforward and objective sounding. It is the default. This is in contrast to しか〜ない, which has some emphatic weight behind it. It tells us that the speaker feels a certain way (often negative) about the statement.

As we have just learned the だけでなく pattern (which links phrases), let’s also remind ourselves of the positive pattern だけで, and also check out how we can link things with しか〜ない. For しか〜ない, just like だけでなく and だけでなくて, ない can become なく or なくて to link together phrases.