# 天のみぞ知る



## Pavel Bond

勝てるか否かは天のみ*ぞ*知るだよ。やってみなくちゃわからないさ。
I would translate it:
Only Heavens know if (I) can win or not. (I) don't understand if I must try and see.
But what does *ぞ *mean here*?*


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## wind-sky-wind

This ぞ is used just for emphasis.

In Classical Japanese, this is called 係り結びの法則.


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## Pavel Bond

Thank you. I wrongly thought that it can be used only in the end of the phrase, not in the middle.


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## Schokolade

Pavel Bond said:


> やってみなくちゃわからないさ。
> (I) don't understand if I must try and see.



やってみなくちゃ here means "If not try doing", not "I must try and see."
なくちゃ can mean "must" but here it means "unless".
やってみる is "try doing". (Here, みる is a subsidiary verb/補助動詞, rather than a verb 見る/see).

「やってみなくちゃわからないさ。」
Literally: (You) won't know if (you) don't try doing.
→ You never know (whether you can win or not) till you try.


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## Pavel Bond

Thank you!


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## frequency

> 天のみ*ぞ*知るだよ。





wind-sky-wind said:


> this is called 係り結びの法則


本当に Just out of curiosity, これはどうなっているの？


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## Schokolade

The ぞ here is a binding particle/係助詞, not a sentence ending particle/終助詞.
In Classical Japanese, a binding particle such as ぞ、こそ emphasises the word/phrase that it's attached to, and causes the following verb to take a different form than the predicative form/終止形. ぞ causes the verb to take the attributive form/連体形 (here, 知る).
This phenomenon is called 係り結び, and it occurs with a few binding particles (ぞ、なむ、や、か、こそ).
e.g. 「今こそ別れめ。」-- the binding particle こそ emphasises the word 今, and causes the volitional auxiliary む to take the realis form/已然形 め.


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## frequency

なるほど！天のみ知る、ではなくて　天のみぞ知る(emphatic)
今はばたけ、ではなくて　今こそはばたけ(emphatic)、なんだね。


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## Pavel Bond

知る here (天のみ*ぞ*知るだよ) is a 連体形? Not a 終止形? But isn't 連体形 can be used only before nouns? 
Could you explain what influence ぞ has occurred on 知る? 

Do I get it right that the example with 今こそ別れめ is from classical Japanese and is not used in the modern one?

今はばたく＝　to flap wings now
今こそはばたけ = (You must) Flap wings right now!
Or I misunderstand it?


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## Schokolade

「天のみぞ知る」「知る人ぞ知る」 are idiomatic set phrases from Classical Japanese, so they use Classical Japanese grammar. 
This is an idiomatic phrase, so it's followed by だよ here; parse it as 「勝てるか否かは『天のみ*ぞ*知る』だよ。」. Otherwise 知る+だよ would be grammatically incorrect.

Yes, 「今こそ別れめ」 is from Classical Japanese, too. 
It appears in the song 『蛍の光』. We don't use the 「～こそ～已然形」 pattern in modern Japanese.


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## Flaminius

Pavel Bond said:


> 今はばたく＝　to flap wings now
> 今こそはばたけ = (You must) Flap wings right now!


This is a pure imperative and.  _Habataku_ is not just flapping the wings but metonymically means to start flying.


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## Pavel Bond

Thank you!


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