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Ok, so there seems to be some controversy over whether we can really say that there are 'の-adjectives', or whether we simply use a noun in an "attributive" way (a term which I don't actually really understand). But it's clear that there's something interesting going on here, a deviation from the "default" understanding of の (as marking the genitive case), and I'd like some clarification.

Let's look at what seems to be for whatever the classical example:

○　「永遠の愛」 "eternal love"

It's clear that we can't just apply the pattern "X の Y ⇔ Y of X" here*. But what is really going on? How do we know that the usual pattern doesn't apply here - is it contextual? A matter of set-phrasing? Is it because 永遠, being abstract, would need to be reified to be used in the normal way?

* It's worth noting that the pattern doesn't even hold in English here, which does seem to be a special case.

"love of eternity" - a strange thing to talk about, but in English, reification is implicit so this works just as well as "love of gold".

But what is more strange is that with "love" in particular, this doesn't have the normal genitive-case meaning - an English speaker parses "love of gold" not as the love which is expressed by gold, but love such that gold is the thing that is loved. Similarly for "eternity", following the same role.

And it doesn't even work the same way with similar words... * "desire/lust of gold" - should be "desire/lust for gold". But regardless, a love which is eternal is not the same thing as a love which is expressed by (belongs to, really; but in what other sense can love be possessed than by expressing it?) eternity-seen-as-an-entity, which would be the default interpretation of the pattern.

What happens in Japanese with that example? 「金の愛」 - grammatical? How would it be interpreted? How about with explicit reification (「金のことの愛」・「金のものの愛」）？

And how literal is it to translate 「永遠の」 as "eternal"? Can we describe what's going on here more pedantically? What determines our ability to use a noun this way with の?

And am I getting too philosophical? :)

Karl Knechtel
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    Don't expect a one-to-one correlation between languages. Languages are different. –  Aug 21 '11 at 00:03
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    Of course not; the point is to understand the difference more properly. – Karl Knechtel Aug 21 '11 at 00:21
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    According to dictionaries, the English preposition "of" has 17 different meanings and the Japanese case particle "の" has 20 (=14+1+1+1+3) differnt meanings. If you were taught the 20 meanings of "の" individually, would you be satisfied? – Gradius Jul 30 '12 at 22:47
  • Short answer: の works kind of the same way as 的 in Chinese. – sigs Oct 08 '14 at 06:26
  • It seems to me that "eternity's love" would be a perfectly idiomatic, if unduly poetic or old-fashioned, way of saying "eternal love" in English. – Obie 2.0 Apr 24 '19 at 12:48
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    There is such thing in English as "attributive nouns", nouns that modify the nouns following them as if they were adjectives (look for "noun adjunct" on Wikipedia). "First-class flight", "communications system", etc. Grammatically there's no point to distinguish these nouns from adjectives in English because modern English grammar has no inflection for adjectives (adjectives never change form), but in languages like Japanese, or even English's close relatives like German, the grammatical difference must be taken note of. – Vun-Hugh Vaw Dec 25 '21 at 05:22
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    "Attributive" means it gives "attributes", quality, character, what have you, although strictly speaking an attributive adjective or noun must be close to the noun it modifies without being separated by a verb like "to be", in which case the adjective or noun is called "predicative". "Red" in "a red balloon" is attributive, but "red" in "the balloon is red" is predicative. – Vun-Hugh Vaw Dec 25 '21 at 05:26

3 Answers3

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As I understand it, the term “no-adjective” simply means “nouns which are typically translated to adjectives in English and other languages.” If we treat Japanese as a language in its own right, distinguishing them from nouns as different parts-of-speech is completely artificial.

The particle の makes a modifier of a noun. The exact relationship between the modifier and the modified noun can be almost anything; Daijisen lists fourteen relationships such as ownership, belonging, location of existence, location of action, time, and so on, and one of them is “attribute and condition.”

[瀕死]{ひんし}の[重傷]{じゅうしょう} a life-threatening injury
[縦]{たて}じまのシャツ a shirt with vertical stripes

(The examples are from Daijisen, the English translation of the first example is by FumbleFingers on english.stackexchange.com, and the translation of the second example is by me.)

The の in 永遠の愛 is the same thing. The noun [永遠]{えいえん} (eternity) is turned to a modifier 永遠の, and it describes an attribute of the love.

chocolate
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Tsuyoshi Ito
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  • How do we figure out which relationship is associated with a given noun? – Karl Knechtel Aug 20 '11 at 23:39
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    @Karl: Because の does not specify the exact relationship, we figure out the relationship from the meaning and the context. For example, 校長の話 can be both “story by the principal” or “story about the principal” depending on the context. – Tsuyoshi Ito Aug 20 '11 at 23:43
  • *sigh* So I have to figure it out again for each case? Ok, and how about the 金 examples? – Karl Knechtel Aug 21 '11 at 09:00
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    @Karl: I would translate “love of gold” to 金に対する愛 or 金を愛すること. None of 金の愛, 金のことの愛, and 金のものの愛 is understandable. – Tsuyoshi Ito Aug 21 '11 at 11:35
  • 金を愛すること makes sense (I can't understand how 対 is being used here), but that doesn't really leave me any closer to understanding how this works in general. :( – Karl Knechtel Aug 21 '11 at 18:34
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    @Karl: I am not a language teacher and am just answering your question. At least these examples show that “XのY ⇔ Y of X” is not a good correspondence in either direction. – Tsuyoshi Ito Aug 21 '11 at 18:37
  • I change the translation of 瀕死の重傷 on the basis of the answer by FumbleFingers to my question on english.stackexchange.com. – Tsuyoshi Ito Aug 22 '11 at 11:09
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    @Karl Knetchel: "no" is ambiguous, there's nothing you can do about it. So is "of" in English: "the love of a mother" could mean either that "a child loves his mother" or that "a mother loves her child". – Axioplase Aug 23 '11 at 02:02
  • @Karl - 対 has a general meaning of facing something, and is used to indicate a relationship between two things: adversary, partner, comparison, et alia. 一対一, one-on-one; メッツ対ヤンキース, Mets vs. Yankees; 対NATO同盟, an alliance with NATO. に対する just specifies that there's a relationship going on between two things: gold, and someone who loves it. In other words, somebody's love toward (that's the "facing" sense) gold. I hope that makes some kind of sense. – rdb Aug 23 '11 at 09:11
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    @Karl Languages were not defined by rules. This is important. We will use an expression if it works in a certain context. Although languages are ambitious by nature, native speakers know commonly used patterns, for example, we never say "金の愛". This is the same as all languages including English. You probably counldn't figure out the meanings of fireball, firearm, firewall and fireball if you didn't know their meanings. – Gradius Jul 30 '12 at 22:21
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Two things to consider here I feel. The first one is analysing “〜の” as a genitive per sē rather than a generic adnominal marker. It should be noted that “〜の" can follow many more things than nouns, as “〜だ” can and it's commonly analysed as one of the two adnominal forms of “〜だ" the other being “〜な”. Indeed, we can also for instance say:

  • “食べただけの人” - “A person who merely ate”
  • “処刑するほどの罪” - “A crime worthy of execution”
  • “破壊神がベルス様の宇宙” - “The universe where Lord Beerus is the destroyer god”, note how here “〜の” follows an entire clause that has it's own subject, really showing how it's an adnominal form of “〜だ”
  • “子供の社長” - Typically interpreted as “a child company head” not “the company head of a child”

So it would be a mistake to begin with to assume that it's the non-genitive function of “〜の” that gives rise to the idea of “no-adjectives”. Some might however argue that it's merely a matter of translating it to adjectives in English and that they are nouns. That I don't agree with; they seem to grammatically behave as adjectives in Japanese. To use the common example of “病気の人”. The major thing that's going on here is that “病気” can be modified by adverbs. We can for instance say “少し病気の人". We can't say “少し子供の社長” This sounds as odd as “a company head who is slightly child”. “slightly child” does not make sense and neither does “少し子供”. “子供” is after all a noun, not an adjective, and it thus cannot be modified by an adverb and we need something like “少し子供っぽい”, but “病気” seems to be able to function as both a noun and an adjective.

Zorf
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  • I'm pretty sure that 12 years ago I was trying to understand the semantics of の itself, but this was interesting to me today, in that it gave me insight into why J-E dictionaries list some words explicitly as "no-adjectives" instead of or in addition to "nouns". – Karl Knechtel Dec 03 '23 at 10:51
  • @KarlKnechtel I kind of wish people never explained “〜の” to mean “of” and “〜だ” to mean “to be” to me. I can remember being so confused by how they actually functioned until someone told me to simply see the former as an abstract adnominal marker and the latter as an abstract conclusive marker and suddenly things such as “もういないかもだけど” made complete sense. – Zorf Dec 03 '23 at 11:13
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    Well, that's fine for linguists, but... – Karl Knechtel Dec 03 '23 at 11:15
  • There are also sentence-initial constructions なのに…, なので…, （だ／です）から…, （だ／です）が…, （だ／です）としたら…, （だ／です）としても… etc., in which な, だ, です are only used as some "empty" verbs (with no semantic meaning), since they are followed by words, which require any preceding verb. – Arfrever Dec 03 '23 at 14:16
  • @Arfrever, yes. Also inside of sentences such as “僕はですね、そう思いませんでした。” Not only do I reject the idea that “〜だ” means to “to be” in it's entirety at this point, I don't even feel it's a useful simplified thing to teach students and that it will purely confuse them. I believe that it is always devoid of semantics and a purely grammatical thing to form a conclusive form or give a conclusive form more punch. One can even say “心配してるよ、君のことをだ”. I believe that “〜だ” there fullfils the exact same function as in “これはペンだ”. It simply gives the statement more of a finality punch than ommiting it. – Zorf Dec 03 '23 at 16:43
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    病気 is very anomalous, in that it seems be an adjective to the extent it can be modified by adverbs (大変病気だ), but 病気な子供 is unacceptable---病気の子供 is the correct form. And it is a noun in 病気が悪化した. Further, unlike na-adjectives which can be adverbialized with -ni, 奇麗に, 平等に, there is no 病気に to mean 'in a sick manner'. 病気の人 is a relative clause, deriving from 人は病気だ, as explained. To make the structure explicit, 'a person who is sick', semantically equivalent to 'a sick person'. – N. Hunt Dec 04 '23 at 01:43
  • If you don't understand だ・です in 僕はですね、そう思いませんでした and 心配してるよ、君のことをだ, then you need to read up on だによる述部代用化. Given that modern だ・です are derived historically from にある・なる, are these also 'devoid of semantics'? – N. Hunt Dec 04 '23 at 02:03
  • @N.Hunt, while it's true that “病気” as a no-adjective cannot be not be used adverbially, many can: “普通に” and “永遠に” are very common and in English “I did it sickly.” also does not occur, so perhaps the meaning itself makes this so. The same word being both a noun and an adjective is very common in Japanese. In fact, I think “普通に” and “永遠に” existing is another good argument as to why they're also adjectives, regardless of using “永遠の” and “普通の” to modify a noun. Also “病気な子供” can be used, but it means sick in the head. – Zorf Dec 04 '23 at 16:03
  • 'Sickly' is used in English to modify adjectives, so meaning alone does not determine whether a word can be used as an adverb. Bertrand Russell wrote an article called 'An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish'. The idea of 'no-adjective' is part of 'Japanese Linguistics Rubbish'. Unless you can provide some solid argument for why it exists, I suggest you stop using it and misleading the learners of Japanese who read these posts. I gave a clear summary of the arguments why they don't exist, perhaps you didn't read it? – N. Hunt Dec 04 '23 at 19:11
  • @N.Hunt and I gave reasons why they're adjectives and not nouns. “病気に” does occur at any rate; it's simply very rare. But “普通に”, “永遠に”, and “絶対に” for instance are very common. They're adjectives and not nouns because they behave like adjectives: they can be modified by adverbs, they can't be modified by adnominal clauses themselves, they conjoin with “〜で" like adjectives and not with “〜と” like nouns do they can coordinate with other adjectives which nouns cant as in “普通で優しい子”. “犬で優しい子” forms two separate noun phases and “犬” does not modify “子” any more. – Zorf Dec 04 '23 at 19:47
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The notion of 'no-adjectives' was conceived by Mio Isago in 1942; 三尾砂、話し言葉の文法. I would like to say it is 'ill-conceived' but Mio was writing at a time when Japanese linguistics was still in its infancy. Still, considering he was positing a category that doesn't even exist in traditional Japanese grammar, it is puzzling. The impetus may have come from pedagogy, the need to teach Japanese to foreigners, that was probably starting to expand. The misconception was taken up many years later by, for example, 森田千草 in 2010 ('The Internal Structure of Adjectives in Japanese'), and it seems some modern dictionaries, and dictionaries of grammar, for foreigners, teach it.

The idea is based on the lack of understanding of Japanese syntax in relation to the construction of NのN.

の is the form of the copula だ, when it is adnominalized (in Japanese, 修飾語化?). In English, we might have

An ancient mariner

and we can derive this from an underlying

The mariner is ancient.

Similarly, in Japanese, we can posit this derivation:

老齢の水夫　←　水夫は老齢だ

but whereas in a normal relativization, the verb doesn't change form, e.g.,

鈴木さんはうそをつく　➞　うそをつく鈴木さん

だ obligatorily changes to の

水夫は老齢だ　➞　老齢だ水夫　➞　老齢の水夫

This is fine for an underlying sentence where the copula is just that, 'is'. But we know that だ can act as a substitute for a whole predicate (奥津敬一郎 (1978) 「ボクハウナギダ」の文法).

Okutsu's analysis of his well-known sentence, 僕はうなぎだ, is:

僕はうなぎ[を注文した]

where だ is substituted for the bracketed material. This substitution of だ for part of a predicate is called だによる述部代用化, translated as 'propredication' in English.

A canonical example of a 'no-adjective' is 瀕死. The frequently found expression,

瀕死の重傷, 'a fatal wound'

in fact has an underlying structure like

重傷は瀕死[を引き起こした] 'The serious wound has given rise to a near-death state.'

if we make a parallel with Okutsu's analysis, and after だ substitution and relativization:

重症は瀕死だ　➞　瀕死だ重症　➞　瀕死の重傷

What is behind this is well-explained by the linguist John Haig:

'Japanese has a very general process of redundant information deletion which
 deletes information predictable from the linguistic or non-linguistic context.'

(Yes, 瀕死 is a noun: from a medical reseach paper, その他の動物に死亡あるいは瀕死は認められなかった. And 瀕死 means '(the state of being) near death', not 'fatal' which is 致命.)

In the construction NのN, where we do not have with a genitive (東京の名所, "Tokyo's sights"), or の marking the subject of a relative clause (ga-no conversion), then we have a relative clause made from an underlying sentence, which has an adjective-like function.

N. Hunt
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    Analysing の as a form of だ just leaves me wondering why both の and な exist. As for the eel sentence, I think the natural interpretation is 僕は[注文したことが]うなぎだ. Since that leaves the predicate alone, and in particular doesn't require un-gluing from a copula and re-gluing to a particle. It's nice to see a concrete example of what you were calling "propredication" earlier; but I don't find the analysis convincing. – Karl Knechtel Dec 03 '23 at 10:57
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    In this way, you could even analyze all な-adjectives as nouns meaning "(the state of being) ...", e.g. 綺麗 = "(the state of being) beautiful"... (I agree that の (when it is not case particle or nominalizer) and な are forms of copulae, as are に, にて・で, と (when they are not case particles; one of と (now sometimes called "quotative particle") was also analyzed by Alexander Vovin as another defective verb).) – Arfrever Dec 03 '23 at 12:36
  • Well, yes, in that na-adjectives (and generally 形動なり and 形動たり) are followed by a copula, you could see these phrases as relative clauses. In fact, na-adjectives were called 'copula nouns' in the earliest studies in Japanese linguistics, for this reason I suppose. My English example ('an ancient mariner') was a contrived, and badly so (should have been 'a mariner who is ancient'), but it was meant to show how a relative clause with a copula can function as a simple adjective. – N. Hunt Dec 03 '23 at 23:38