# Cute and small



## Mermaid8008

I would like to know how to say 'Cute and Small' as in, 'Those toys are cute and Small'

A friend told me it would be 'Kawaii chiisai' but I wanted to know if that was grammatically correct.

Thank you!


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## divisortheory

When you combine adjectives you need to conjugate everything but the last adjective slightly.  So the above is correct in the sense that the first word means "cute" and the second word means "small".  But grammatically they don't go together like that  (BTW is your friend Japanese?  If so, perhaps I just learned something  ).  You would need to say "kawakute chiisai".  

The entire sentence would be "sono omocha wa kawakute chiisai desu"


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## Mermaid8008

Thanks! Nope, she's not Japanese, she just spent some time over there. So, I just need the phrase "Cute and Small" but used the above sentence for the connotation. Would I still need to use the 'kawakute'?

Thank you very much for such a quick reply!! ;-)


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## divisortheory

Either way you still need the kawakute, yes.  You can use the phrase "kawakute chiisai" by itself.


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## sakura3

The explanation by divisortheory is perfect.

But one correction: it should be "kawaikute" (かわいくて）, not "kawakute" （かわくて）.


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## Ilmen

Huh?

And yet, according to Tae Kim you can chain multiple i-adjectives without any modification of the okurigana:
• http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/adjectives

Examples given by Tae Kim:
静かな高いビル。- A quiet, tall building.
高くない静かなビル。- A not tall, quiet building.

Are these sentences wrong?

But it is maybe just like chaining adjectives with colon in English, and not express the conjunction "and" as the 〜くて do. Don't you think?...

Besides, Tae Kim call adjective chaining "sequence of states":
• http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/compound


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## divisortheory

Ilmen said:


> 静かな高いビル。- A quiet, tall building.
> 高くない静かなビル。- A not tall, quiet building.


There is a difference between the case where your adjectives are modifying a noun directly [adj-sequence] [noun] (e.g. a big, red ball) versus the case where the adjective sequence is the predicate of the sentence.  [subject] is [adj-sequence] (the ball is big and red)

In both of your examples you have [adj-sequence] [noun].  Imagine a similar sentence to the first, but instead it is:  

_This building is not tall, and quiet._ 

In this case, I think you must write it as 

このビルは高くなくて静かです。 

(technically, I think mixing negative adjectives and positive adjectives is confusing.  In reality you might use けど such as このビルは高くないけど静かです)

On the other hand, if you wrote "a not tall, cheap building" then I don't think you could follow the same pattern of not conjugating and write 高くない安いビル.  I think the い adjective still has to conjugate in this case to give 高くなくて安いビル.

This makes me wonder what happens when you have [i-adj][na-adj][i-adj].  For example, _a small quiet white bird_.  It feels like this is almost venturing into the realm of language trivia though because I never hear so many adjectives chained together like this in any language.  



Ilmen said:


> Besides, Tae Kim call adjective chaining "sequence of states":[/color]
> • http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/compound


I think "sequence of states" is a poor choice of terminology for the case of adjectives, because I don't think there is any sequence of time involved.


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## Ilmen

Why did I not replied in this thread?

Well, I undersdand why the i-adjective conjunctive form is used when they are placed after their target (when they are the predicate in a state-of-being sentence, for instance).

However, I did not understand why you've said that in the case of "a not tall, cheap building" (高くなくて安いビル) the cunjunctive was mandatory. Could you explain it a bit further, please?

And, regarding the choice of "sequence of states", I don't see where is the problem. To you, the word "sequence" always implies that time is involved? And yet, in genetic, you say "nucleotide sequence", although there is no time involved, isn't it?


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## phyzzy

Ilmen said:


> 静かな高いビル。- A quiet, tall building.
> 高くない静かなビル。- A not tall, quiet building.


These are possible but unnatural. When we use multiple adjectives without modification of okuriganas, they aren't meant to be enumerated, but nested. Therefore 静かな高いビル is 静かな(高いビル) and 高くない静かなビル is 高くない(静かなビル). However it's really rare that nested adjectives are necessary, this form sounds odd in most cases.



divisortheory said:


> There is a difference between the case where your adjectives are modifying a noun directly [adj-sequence] [noun] (e.g. a big, red ball) versus the case where the adjective sequence is the predicate of the sentence. [subject] is [adj-sequence] (the ball is big and red)


As above, contiguous adjectives with unmodified okuriganas aren't a sequence so they can't be used in the latter case.
このビルは静かで高い。
このビルは静かな高い。



divisortheory said:


> (technically, I think mixing negative adjectives and positive adjectives is confusing. In reality you might use けど such as このビルは高くないけど静かです)


けど has nothing to do with a negative or positive state of an adjective. It implies that the adjective modified by けど and the following adjective are opposite to each other like [demerit]けど[merit] or [merit]けど[demerit]. Thus 高いけどおいしいお菓子 is natural but 高くないけどおいしいお菓子 is unnatural because both 高くない and おいしい are good thing. Note that in this combination, the latter adjective is emphasized.



divisortheory said:


> This makes me wonder what happens when you have [i-adj][na-adj][i-adj]. For example, a small quiet white bird. It feels like this is almost venturing into the realm of language trivia though because I never hear so many adjectives chained together like this in any language.


小さく静かで白い鳥


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## Ilmen

Very interesting!


phyzzy said:


> These are possible but unnatural. When we use multiple adjectives without modification of okuriganas, they aren't meant to be enumerated, but nested. Therefore 静かな高いビル is 静かな(高いビル) and 高くない静かなビル is 高くない(静かなビル). However it's really rare that nested adjectives are necessary, this form sounds odd in most cases.


What do you means by "nested" adjective? I never heard this expression. 


phyzzy said:


> 小さく静かで白い鳥


 Why it is not 小さく*て* but 小さく?


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## mikun

Hi,
普通は可愛い（かわいい）という用語の中に小さい（片手で持てる位の）という意味が入っているので可愛くて小さいという言い方はしないのではないでしょうか？
大きいもの（手に余る）は可愛いでなく’おしゃれ’とか別の用語を使うことが多いのではないかと思います。　'Cute and Small' 全体で可愛い感じではないでしょうか？


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## Flaminius

形容詞の語順の問題ではないでしょうか。「小さなかわいいねこ」は形容詞が逆順の場合よりしっくりきます。英語の形容詞の順序ほど厳密ではなくても日本語にもなんらかの形容詞の語順のでしょう。


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## almostfreebird

Flaminius said:


> 英語の形容詞の順序ほど厳密ではなくても日本語にもなんらかの形容詞の語順のでしょう。



英語の形容詞の順序ほど厳密ではなくても日本語にもなんらかの形容詞の語順のでしょう。

This sentence sounds really weird.


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## Flaminius

なんらかの形容詞の語順*がある*のでしょう

AFB, thanks for the heads-up.


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## Ilmen

As for the sentence of Phyzzy,「小さく静かで白い鳥」, why 小さい is in its adverbial form and not its conjunctive one? Is it modifying 静か?


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## kenmori

おはようございます。



Ilmen said:


> As for the sentence of Phyzzy,「小さく静かで白い鳥」, why 小さい is in its adverbial form and not its conjunctive one? Is it modifying 静か?



I think the description of くださり by fitter.happier also explains the 小さく. That is, it is not the adverbial form, but the continuative form(連用形) of 小さい, and this construction is often used in place of the て form (the conjunctive form) especially in writing and formal speech. 

Here are some examples:

涼しくてさわやかな一日
涼しく、さわやかな一日
地球は青くて美しい。
地球は青く、美しい。
この本は難しくなくて、誰でも読めます。
この本は難しくなく、誰でも読めます。
By the way, I have just found your another thread called 「崩壊し」. I believe this 崩壊し is also the same phenomenon as the 小さく, even though they are a verb and an adjective respectively. This thread called 「stem endings before commas」 deals with the same issue. (I know this is off topic of this thread.)


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## lammn

kenmori said:


> 涼しくてさわやかな一日
> 涼しく、さわやかな一日
> 地球は青くて美しい。
> 地球は青く、美しい。
> この本は難しくなくて、誰でも読めます。
> この本は難しくなく、誰でも読めます。



I once heard from someone (not a native-speaker) that with なくて, the writer is putting the emphasis on the latter part of the sentence (i.e.誰でも読めます). With なく, however, the emphasis is more on the first part of the sentence (i.e. この本は難しくなく).
Is that true?
Does this also apply to the other examples you just gave (涼しくて vs 涼しく; 青くて vs 青く)?


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## kenmori

That is a good question...I have not thought about that before. At least, I don't see any difference between the two sentences in each pair except that I would prefer the　latter in writing, but I would like to hear what other people have to say about this.


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## Ilmen

kenmori said:


> I think the description of くださり by fitter.happier also explains the 小さく. That is, it is not the adverbial form, but the continuative form(連用形) of 小さい, and this construction is often used in place of the て form (the conjunctive form) especially in writing and formal speech.
> 
> Here are some examples:
> _(...)_
> 
> By the way, I have just found your another thread called 「崩壊し」. I believe this 崩壊し is also the same phenomenon as the 小さく, even though they are a verb and an adjective respectively. This thread called 「stem endings before commas」 deals with the same issue. (I know this is off topic of this thread.)




So you think the usage of the adverbial form as conjuctive form could be a different grammatical class? I alway though continuative form and conjunctive form was synonymous. Is that wrong?

Moreover, how to differentiate the use of the adverbial form as conjunctive from the regular adverbial form (that can modify adjectives as well as verbs)? Is a comma 「、」 mandatory for this purpose?

What is the "continuative form" of na-adjectives? The same that the regular adverbial form?


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## kenmori

I am really sorry, I might have confused you. After googling a lot and reading many threads in this forum, now I understand:


連用形 can be called in English either the adverbial form or the continuative form,
青く in the sentence 「地球は青く、美しい。」 can be described as conjunctive use of the adverbial form.
So, I have to take back my words("it is not the adverbial form, but..."). 


Ilmen said:


> Moreover, how to differentiate the use of the adverbial form as conjunctive from the regular adverbial form (that can modify adjectives as well as verbs)? Is a comma 「、」 mandatory for this purpose?



I would not say it is mandatory, but it usually plays an important role in making clear what you want to say:

星は青く、輝いている。
星は青く輝いている。
When I mean "the star is blue and shining," I will write sentence 1, while sentence 2 if I mean "the star is shining blue."


Ilmen said:


> What is the "continuative form" of na-adjectives? The same that the regular adverbial form?



Now I see the continuative form as the same thing as the adverbial form.


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## Ilmen

Thank you for your clarification. ♪ It is much more clear now.

So, it is a single grammatical word class with, at least, two different uses (both continuative and adverbial uses). 

Hmmm, just a last question: why in Phyzzy's sentence, 「小さく静かで白い鳥」, the na-adjective 静か is not in its adverbial form as well? Is that relevant to some emphasis on the first adjective of the chain?


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## kenmori

Ilmen said:


> Thank you for your clarification. ♪ It is much more clear now.


I am glad to hear that.  ところで...


Ilmen said:


> why in Phyzzy's sentence, 「小さく静かで白い鳥」, the na-adjective 静か is not in its adverbial form as well?


"静かで" IS one of the adverbial forms of "静かな", and for that matter, so is "静かに". Are you thinking of the -te form? If so, I would say that, in the case of na-adjectives, the -te form and one of the adverbial forms are one and the same thing. What do you think?

「静かな部屋」「簡潔な文章」([na-adjective] + [noun])
「静かで快適な部屋」「簡潔でわかりやすい文章」([na-adjective] + [na- or i-adjective] + [noun])
「静かに座っている」「簡潔に書く」([na-adjective] + [verb])

As for 「静かな高いビル」 you cited above, I don't know why, but it is possible. In fact, you will see phrases like that often. Note that, however, this is true only when a na-adejctive comes before an i-adjective (not a na-adjective) in the adjective sequence modifying a noun directly. So, we can't say: 
「静かな快適な部屋」
「その部屋は静かな快適だ」 (「その部屋は静かで快適だ」)

「静かな暗い部屋」 and「簡潔なわかりやすい文章」 are possible, but I think it is better to use "静かで" and "簡潔で".


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## Ilmen

Therefore, if I rightly understood, for the purpose of adjective chaining, the adverbial form of na-adjectives (静かに・・・) cannot be used the way i-adjective can (小さく・・・), and the conjunctive (静かで・・・) is then mandatory?
For instance, a sentence 「小さく静か*に*白い鳥」 would be semantically incorrect (it would give the feeling that 静かに is modifying the adjective 白い and not the noun 鳥)?
There is a better example: if I want to replace the adjective 小さい in 「小さく静かで白い鳥」 with 小さな (na-adjective) and to keep the same meaning, I should write 「小さ*で*静かで白い鳥」 but not 「小さ*に*静かで白い鳥」?

As for the use of non-inflected adjectives modifying a noun like in 「静か*な*高いビル」, it is called "nested adjectives", and exist also in English ("A quiet tall building" [nested] VS "A quiet and tall building").
What you said about usages of nested adjectives is very interesting. I take note of all these informations. Thank you.


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## kenmori

I totally agree with the first and second paragraphs of your post.  





Ilmen said:


> if I want to replace the adjective 小さい in 「小さく静かで白い鳥」 with 小さな (na-adjective) ...


  The word "小さな" is actually not a na-adjective, or at least not a regular one, and we can't say "小さで" or "小さに". As for why, I am not sure. Wikipedia calls such words attributives (they use the word "大きな" as an example).   

Anyway, I think you already understood how to use na-adjectives. If you use a na-adjective like "小柄で" instead of the nonexistent "小さで", and write 小柄で静かで白い鳥, that is gramatically and semantically correct.  





Ilmen said:


> As for the use of non-inflected adjectives modifying a noun like in 「静かな高いビル」, it is called "nested adjectives", and exist also in English ("A quiet tall building" [nested] VS "A quiet and tall building").


  Oh, I see. The word "nested" makes sense. And it makes me think that it would be better to say 小柄で静かな白い鳥, that is, to nest 白い and 鳥. This phrase sounds more natural to me than the one above in which three separate adjectives modify a noun equally. 

Thank you for helping me to see my own language in a fresh light!


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## Ilmen

Sorry for my late reply. Thank you for your confirmations, this discussion was very instructive. ^^

Thinking about the 大きな and 小さな attributives, I came to unearth a old thread I previously created on this topic, in order to ask a further question, given that it would have been off-topic here. 

Anyway, thank you again for your help. ♪


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## MecchaMaccha

Cute & Small = Kawaikute chicchai.
That toy is so cute & small. Sono omocha chou kawaikute chicchai yone.


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