# 奴 for plural



## Riccardo91

Dear Japanese forum,

I have a really generic question about the use of 奴 in Japanese.

I know 奴 is singular, but are there cases when a sentence like the one below can refer to two people or more?

そんなすごい奴だったのか

Thank you very much!


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## SoLaTiDoberman

奴 is singular.
奴ら is plural.

そんなすごい奴だったのか cannot refer to two people or more.

そんなすごい奴らだったのか refer to two people or more.


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## Riccardo91

Thanks for your confirmation.

I had a context that strongly suggested a plural meaning, and I wanted to be sure.


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## SoLaTiDoberman

Riccardo91 said:


> I had a context that strongly suggested a plural meaning, and I wanted to be sure.


Okay.
I think what I said is true, if we focus on the grammar.
However, I can't rule out the possibility that the 奴 was used for plural people in your context.
Japanese is the language in which we usually don't care much about the difference between singular and plural. Many nouns don't even have the distinction.
Regarding 奴, we can distinguish by using 奴ら for plural people. But what if the author didn't care about the distinction at all?


You have to decide according to the context.


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## Riccardo91

I didn't talk about the context because I thought that a strictly grammar-related answer was what I needed in this case, but given your last answer I was probably wrong.

In my context, the sentence そんなすごい奴だったのか could be referred to one or two people. Both the interpretations work perfectly fine. However, right after the same person says:

みえない. 特にあの少年
It wouldn't seem (he's/they're so great). Especially that boy.

That 特にあの少年 strongly suggests that the first sentence is referred to both people, and that one of those two in particular looks far less great than he is.

However, that 奴 puzzled me, but it if you as a mothertongue feel that the plural interpretation is acceptable that's probably the correct one.

Thanks!


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## 810senior

I'm afraid the context you have given us is quite insufficient. We don't have any crucial clue to put it to a period if he referred to a single person or more.
When we use やつ, in most case it definitely refers to a single person. 

My guess is the first speaker spoke briefly of *some guys[plural]* he'd ever witnessed and *some little guy[singular]* considered even more amazing caught the eye of the second speaker by chance, and the quote from the second one そんなすごい奴だったのか(never thought he was such a killer) might result from such a context.


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## Riccardo91

Alas, there's not so much contest to quote.

Two characters are talking about a person they know (the 少年 of the sentence). Speaker A says he looks like a slacker, Speaker B replies that he is very powerful. A asks how does B know that, and B replies that the 少年 is the disciple of the brother of B's master, so he knows him very well.

Than A replies with those sentences: そんなすごい奴だったのか みえない. 特にあの少年

The problem is that そんなすごい奴 could refer to:
1) the 少年 alone
2) the 少年 and the brother of B's master.

Grammatically I'd go for option 1, since as you say やつ is usually singular, but that 特に suggests option 2.


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## SoLaTiDoberman

Logically, 2.


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## Flaminius

If the brother of B's master is already known to be powerful, then it is unnatural to realize (_datta_) the two are powerful. It is only about the boy that A needs to change his impression.  Still 奴 is singular.

I would say that there is something important said after 見えない。特にあの少年.  A comment like, "He has such skinny arms." makes the scene more natural.


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## Riccardo91

Flaminius said:


> If the brother of B's master is already known to be powerful, then it is unnatural to realize (_datta_) the two are powerful. It is only about the boy that A needs to change his impression.  Still 奴 is singular.
> 
> I would say that there is something important said after 見えない。特にあの少年.  A comment like, "He has such skinny arms." makes the scene more natural.



No comment at all: the scene ends there.
The brother of B's master is quite a mysterious character, and the speakers don't know yet how powerful/important he is, so the だった may work for him aswell.

In the end, if a mothertongue like SoLaTiDoberman feels that the plural interpretation works, I guess that's the correct one.

Thanks to everyone for their answers!


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## 810senior

I'm afraid to say that I haven't yet to _see a thing_ where 奴 is treated as either collective noun or plural as long as I'm aware of it. The 奴 works as a singular pronoun and it for sure refers to *one *of those amazing guys, the said boy and his master's brother.


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## SoLaTiDoberman

「世の中には変な奴が多いからなあ。気をつけろよ！」
In this context, 奴 should be plural if it is translated into English, right?
However, Japanese is a language in which native speakers may not care about the singular/plural difference of nouns. (@810: Is this what you call a "collective noun"?)

「世の中には変な奴*ら*が多いからなあ。気をつけろよ！」
This is also natural.
The both sentences are the same in the "natural-ness", but I'd rather prefer the former one just because it is one-letter shorter.
haha


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## 810senior

Woe is me, I should have taken it into consideration that the Japanese language doesn't seem to care much about whether either of them functions as singular or plural, so do collective nouns.

奴（ないしそれに準する名詞）が文脈においては英語でいうところの複数名詞として機能しうるとのことですが、不特定多数を指すものとOPさんの例文のように特定の誰かを指すものは別のことだと思います。（ただ自分の研究不足でそういう事例もあるのかもしれません・・・）


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## SoLaTiDoberman

810seniorさんの論点はよくわかります。私も賛成です。OPの説明による文脈では「奴ら」にしたほうがはるかに自然だからです。だからOPもここで質問をしたわけですよね。

このフォーラムでのこの手の議論で意見が分かれる原因の１つにcontext and backgroundの不足・誤解にあることが今までも多々あったかと思います。

#7のcontext and background がOPがOPの言葉でサマライズした英語の説明ではなく、オリジナルの日本語の、そのままの文脈（マンガであればそのマンガの画像情報も含めて）が示されれば、あっけなく解決することかもしれません。改行されて２行になっていて、誰がしゃべっているのかを勘違いしていて文脈が全く違う、といった。
『OPさんのケースは本当に特定の誰かを指している文脈なのでしょうか？』というのが私の現在の疑問です。
フォーラムルール（著作権？）で引用が制限されているため、これ以上はなんとも言えないと思いますが、可能であればオリジナルのContextを見てみたいものです。
本当にオリジナルの日本語に誤りがあるのかもしれないし、それ以前の文脈においてOPに何らかの誤解があっているから理屈に合わなくなってこのフォーラムで質問されているのかも知れません。
OPの提示する文脈が間違ってないのであれば、オリジナルの日本人の作者の文法が間違っているか、「日本語」自体がイケてない言語であるのか、あるいは単数と複数を区別しない文化の違いなのか、のいずれかになりそうですけど、それらの可能性を検討するところまでがこのフォーラムの終着点かと思います。正解はわからずじまいで。


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