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I came across すすんで行く and さいて行く in a vocabulary list, and it was immediately obvious that there was probably some sort of grammatical construct involving て行く that was in use here. I don't really know what this grammatical construct means though, and it's apparently something different than just compounding two arbitrary verbs together with base te.

A quick Google search brought this lesson up, and he starts to explain what the construct means (as well as て来る), but he doesn't do a very good job of it. He also starts to deviate from the special grammatical construct towards just the base te verb compounding, and many of the other search results are focusing almost exclusively on the compounding.

I vaguely get the notion of this construct meaning to get into the state of doing something (て行く) or to have come into the state of doing something (て来る), but I really don't understand it.

Could somebody please explain this? I'm mainly wondering about the general grammar being used here, but I also kind of wonder about how it applies to these two words, since they're apparently decent examples. Thank you.

Panzercrisis
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  • You aren't asking about any particular example sentences, just the possible meanings for each of these phrases? –  Jul 28 '14 at 17:56
  • Either way. I'm mainly wondering about the grammar in general, but also a little bit about how it applies to these two words. – Panzercrisis Jul 28 '14 at 18:00
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    Oh, okay. Have you had a chance to look at our existing question on 〜ていく and 〜てくる yet? –  Jul 28 '14 at 18:03
  • I'll take a look in a little bit. Thanks. – Panzercrisis Jul 28 '14 at 18:34
  • Learned something new from this question -- but perhaps what I was thinking is still a problem re: the "I vaguely get ..." paragraph. When いく and くる mean the "heading towards" and "arriving at" non-physical meanings, they are usually only written in kana. But 進んでいく is indeed written with the 行く can indeed be written in kanji under conditions laid out here: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A3%9C%E5%8A%A9%E5%8B%95%E8%A9%9E – virmaior Jul 29 '14 at 15:19
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    By さいて行く, do you mean 咲いていく? –  Jul 29 '14 at 16:43
  • @Choko I'm just going by what I saw; I'm not sure whether it's right. – Panzercrisis Jul 29 '14 at 17:23
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    It looks pretty strange to write the main verbs in kana and the auxiliary verbs in kanji. That is just the opposite of what the better writers do. –  Aug 01 '14 at 15:08
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    when rifling around to be understand when to use kana vs. kanji on ~くる and ~いく I ran across some interesting claims about when the ~来る and ~行く make sense -- when they refer specifically to physical motion. – virmaior Sep 28 '14 at 04:03
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    @virmaior Yes, that is when they are not 補助動詞 but are used as regular verbs with their literal meaning. (It makes sense to use the kanji when the meaning of the word matches the meaning expressed by the kanji.) –  Sep 28 '14 at 05:55

2 Answers2

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The meaning of て行く is that something is happening now and continuing into the future. So すすんで行く would be an advance that has begun and will continue into the future, or a continual state of advancement. And with a quick check on Google Translate, さいて行く is "beginning to bloom". So your definition of "getting into the state of doing X" would be applicable in this case.

NiKaotix
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  • I guess て来る　is something that was continuing to happen before and that has already finished then? Is that the gist of て行く and て来る? – Panzercrisis Jul 29 '14 at 17:25
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    Problem is that 「～～てくる」 also describes something that is happening and continuing into the future. From this answer, I cannot tell if you really know the difference. –  Aug 01 '14 at 15:12
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すすんでいく can mean "to willingly go" or "to keep progressing".

As for さいて行く, for example, "氷を割いて行く" means "to break the ice and go" or "to go breaking the ice".

user4092
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