Japanese negatives

[runawayballista]

Calling all Japanese-speaking folk -- I've been contemplating the nuances of Japanese negatives in the more complex verb constructions, particularly ones in which a negative could be formed at one of two points, and whether or not there is a nuanced difference in meaning between the two

Comments

[k0dama]

I'm fluent in Korean, so it may be influencing my opinion (in Korean, the placement of the negating syllable is a little more flexible in lower levels of formality -- one is very similar to the Chinese way, while one is similar to the Japanese way:
배 안 고프다. (Stomach not hungry - 我不饿。)
배 고프지 않다. (stomach hungry not - 腹減っていない。)

見ないべきだ: It ought not be looked at. (It should not be looked at.)
見るべきではない: It isn't something that should be looked at.

...so it isn't not a redundant negation.

[k0dama]

actually, I don't know where I spotted the double negation o_o ..

[flamingspinach]

AFAIK, the most structurally natural counterpart to 見るべき would be 見るべからず, which means essentially the same as 見ないべき. Incidentally, there is also the form 見るべし(＝見るべき).

But yeah, your analysis seems correct to me.

[runawayballista]

That's interesting -- I've never once heard or seen the construction べきからず. Is it just something that's not taught/rarely used?

[kaji_sensei]

Based on the ず ending, I'm inclined to think that it's largely literary/archaic in use, though I can't say for certain.

On a tangent, another bit of fun with negatives is doubling them one right after the other! I had one Japanese teacher (from Osaka, if I recall correctly) who pointed out that while つかれる does in fact mean "tired", most Japanese would be too ashamed to state so directly. Hence つかれていなくない of "I'm not not tired"

[runawayballista]

I have to say, I never heard the polite-double-negative while I was living in Japan. I know it's technically possible, but I only ever heard people say つかれました　or つかれた.

[gbcahawk]

I'm confused as to where you're seeing shades of grey here ... the first one is quite clearly something like "you must not look", while the second one is quite clearly "you don't have to look". To me they'd seem just as obviously distinct as they are in English. They can be translated pretty directly, unless there's something fundamental about べき that I've forgotten or am not aware of.

[gbcahawk]

To put it in a more parallel way:

"You have to not look."
"You don't have to look."

[shizuku_san]

A google search indicates that neg-べき is indeed in use, but according to A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar, when using べき, negation is expressed by conjugating べき, *not* the verb. Example sentences given are:

そのことを人に言うべきじゃありません。
You shouldn't say that kind of thing to people.

山田には話すべきじゃなかった。
I shouldn't have told that to Yamada.

今、家を買うべきじゃないよ
You shouldn't buy a house now.

彼は結婚なんかするべきじゃなかったんだ。
He shouldn't have married.

In other words, べきじゃない means there is an obligation not to X, not that there is no obligation to X.

[akibare]

I agree with this on pure intuition, and looking things up confirms.

Both of them mean "you shouldn't XXX." If I had to make a distinction I think べきでない is the usual way, 見ないべき is considered by lots of people to be a modern mistaken formation though it does certainly come up, often in a pair 「するべき？しないべき？」「見るべきか、見ないべきか」like that.

The original word is べし and here's the definition:
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べし【▽可し】〘助動　形型〙文語〓べから‐べく・べかり‐べし‐べき・べかる‐べけれ‐○〓

(1)当然の成り行きと見なされる、確信を持って推量できる意を表す。…はずだ。「ついに来るべき時が来た」「女房はお初といいて二十八か九にもなる─〈一葉〉」「推して知る─」

(2)そうするのが当然だと義務づける意を表す。…なければならない。「絶対に守るべき規律」「後生畏おそる─〈論語〉」→べきだ 打ち消しの形では禁止や警告の意を表す。→べきではない・べからず(3)《終止形「べし」を文末に使って》命令を表す。「潔く辞職す─」「直ちに出頭す