Lesson 11: Getting detailed with relative clauses and な-adjectives

In grammar, a "clause" is a phrase that contains a single statement. "It's already over" is a clause. The "I'm late" in "I'm sorry I'm late" is a clause. Compound sentences, like "I'm late because the traffic was bad", contain multiple clauses.

Relative clauses are statements that are somehow embedded inside another statement. We're going to cover relative clauses that modify nouns. Relative clauses that modify nouns act like "the house I used to live in".

To make a verb modify a noun directly, you just attach the verb to the front of the noun. This means that japanese verbs basically act like adjectives. Adjectives can also be used in relative clauses, even with a subject.

食べる人

Person that eats

私にくれる人

People that give to me

The simple tense of だ can't make a relative clause, but its past tense can.

必要だ物です

(ungrammatical frothing)

好きだった食べ物

Food that I liked

In rare circumstances, that rule can be broken, but it's a real rule, not a fake one. Don't make relative clauses with just だ.

In relative clauses, の is allowed to mark the subject instead of が, even if you leave out the noun that the relative clause is modifying.

君の来た場所 The place you came

全く光のない Totally without light ("where light totally is not")

Now let's look at な-adjectives, named after the な that comes after them.

バカな子供

Stupid kid

大好きな人

Dearly beloved person

な-adjectives act like nouns if you don't attach the な.

君が好きだ

I like you.

(You are liked.)

な acts like a suffix for な-adjectives that makes a relative clause. な can even be used this way on a lot of normal nouns, not just な-adjectives. But な-adjectives are special, and dictionaries have different categories for nouns and な-adjectives. Some な-adjectives aren't "normal" nouns. It's weird if you use them as a noun in the wrong place.

の-adjectives are nouns that are special because they turn into full-blown adjectives when の is attached, instead of turning into a general attribute or a possessive. This is different than な-adjectives which are always special.

英語の本

English-language books. (NOT "books of english")

To students of grammar: this use of の is a full blown genitive case. The normal use of の with nouns for attribution and possession is similar to the genitive, but distinct, especially because japanese has の-adjectives.