Lesson 40: Being more negative: なくて, ないで, and ず and ずに
We briefly covered なくて and ないで before in the context of ください. Let's cover them properly.
なくて is the て "particle". When it acts as a conjunction (and not a topic), なくて usually implies that a negative statement is the reason for another statement. It doesn't always imply a reason, though.
早く起きなくて 仕事に遅れた
ないで can be a conjunction too. Unlike なくて, it doesn't carry the "reason" nuance. Sometimes it has the nuance that Y happens without X happening, but this is something you shouldn't worry about it till you're adept at japanese.
話せないで殺す He kills without talking.
Covered earlier, ないで is also used for conjugations like ないでください.
This calls back to the made-up distinction I made between the て "particle" and "form" early on in this guide. The て particle is "just" a conjunction, and connects two events. The て form, however, is a conjunction or a linking form. For verbs, they are identical, but for adjectives like ない, the two possible forms have a strict distinction, and they are not equivalent.
One way of seeing the difference between なくて and ないで is that なくて implies that, at some point in time, something specifically doesn't happen. In grammar terms, なくて is never truly an infinitive. This is the reason that なくて cannot link verbs like in ないでいる or ないでください.
Remember, て "form" vs "particle" is an abstraction. It's only meant to help you remember how なくて and ないで are different. Native japanese speakers don't literally think about なくて and ないで in this way. They have a deep and unspeakable intuition that can't be explained, no matter how hard anyone tries. When you consume enough japanese input, you'll gain the same intuition.
ず is an archaic negative suffix. It goes in place of ない, except for する where the form is せずに. It can be conjugated, but you won't see it conjugated anywhere in modern japanese, because it's fossilized and acts like a conjunction instead of something you can conjugate.
ず is essentially only used as a conjunction meaning "without _ing". This overlaps with ないで, but there are differences in nuance.
ずに is how ず is normally used in modern japanese, but it can go either way.
一言も話さずに終わった Ended it without saying a single thing.