# 青い星に光がなくせぬように



## Ilmen

Hello everybody. ♪

There is the sentence:
「君にしかできないコトがある　青い星に　光が*なくせぬ*ように」

It is from a song (Brave Heart), and I never fully understood the meaning of the word(s) 「なくせぬ」 (the final ぬ syllable leads me to think to a verb conjugated to the old non-past negative form).
The translation of this sentence was:
"There's something only you can do // So that this blue planet doesn't lose it's light"

Seemingly, that means something like "to do not lose". ♪

Thanks.


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## xiaolijie

Yes, you're on the right track. The modern version of 光が*なくせぬ*ように is: hikari ga nakusenai yō ni.. and so the meaning of the sentence is something like: _(do something) so that the light on the blue star is not extinguished/ (do something) to keep the light on the blue star shining._


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## Flaminius

xiaolijie said:


> Yes, you're on the right track. The modern version of 光が*なくせぬ*ように is: hikari ga nakusenai yō ni..


Yes.  


> and so the meaning of the sentence is something like: _(do something) so that the light on the blue star is not extinguished/ (do something) to keep the light on the blue star shining._


No.  
Your sentence in English would be なく*さ*ぬように (Mod. Ja. なく*さ*ないように).  The verb has a consonant-stem; nakus-u.  We are dealing with the potential verb which is derived by affixing -e to the stem; nakuse-ru.

I am not at all satisfied with the parallelism but that's the best I can translate:
As the blue star ever keeps shining, so you have one thing that only you can do.


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## xiaolijie

Flaminius said:


> No.
> Your sentence in English would be なく*さ*ぬように (Mod. Ja. なく*さ*ないように). The verb has a consonant-stem; nakus-u. We are dealing with the potential verb which is derived by affixing -e to the stem; nakuse-ru.


You've touched on the right spot, Flaminius . I was indeed not sure about what I wrote at all and kept thinking about it: I'm aware of the potential form, but I also _remember vaguely _that in some old verb endings , _*せ*ない is the alternative of _*さ*ない, and decided to take   _*せ*ない here as to mean _*さ*ない. Are there such alternatives in Bungo (in relation to verbs such as "suru") ?


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## Ilmen

So the base verb was 無くす (なくす).  Thanks to both of you!
As for なくせる, can't it be a passive intransitive twin of なくす, just like 始まる is for 始める?

And, yes, the two next sentences of the song correspond to a "do something". Here they are:
「つかめ！　描いた夢を
　まもれ！　大事な友を」

By the way, I don't know if the fact of putting the verb at the head of the sentence to emphasize it is common in Japanese songs or is it an exception? Does this has a name? 


*EDIT:* I have also created another topic about another part of the same sentence (the first part).
Here it is: 君にしかできないコトがある.


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## Flaminius

@xiaolijie (#4 _supra_)

The classical conjugation paradigm of _suru_ and compound verbs (derived mostly from Sino-Japanese nouns suffixed with _-suru_) is as follows:



irrealisadverbialfinisadnominalrealisimperativeseshisusurusurese (-yo)




As you can see in the irrealis (_mizenkē_) rubric, negation of a _suru_-verb indeed had _se_. I regret that I cannot say that it had _*せ*ない because verb negation in classic grammar was done by _-zu_, not by _-nai_.  E.g., 肯んぜず (_gaenzezu_ < _gaen-zu_; do not agree) is now 肯んじない.  Hmm, if it is still unclear, here are the typical conjugations of the verb:
肯んぜ-ず, 肯んじ-たり, 肯んず, 肯んずる-とき, 肯んずれ-ども, 肯んぜ-よ

The _suru_-pattern has undergone a lot of changes from the earlier times.  愛す (> Mod. Ja. 愛する) should be 愛せず in negation but it seems to have been 愛さず for the last few centuries.  Other verbs such as 信じる (< 信ず) now have _shi_ for negation, 信じない.  In fact, this is now the standard form for negation.  [I shan't write out all the rubrics for the modern conjugation because the traditional six-way paradigm does little good for understanding modern grammar.]

You may as well say that  _*さ*ない is the alternative of _*せ*ない for a group of verbs such as 愛する.  In fact, the modern 愛せない is the negation of the potential verb but never that of the regular verb.   I am not even sure if 愛せず was ever a normal negation; the development of potential forms dates quit far back into the history.

The history of _suru_ conjugations  has been irregular like the paradigm itself.  [I remember writing a few posts about it but cannot find any of them now.]  Still, if you are interested just in by-the-book forms (turning blind eyes to a lot of exceptions and uncertainties), the answer is simple.
Classical Japanese: se-zu
Modern Japanese: shi-nai


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## xiaolijie

Thank you, Flam, for such an informative post. So, it is _the irrealis _*せ+ neg *that got me mixed up (or rather, it is my vague memory that did ).


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## Ilmen

To enable the use of tables in BB-Code is clearly a very helpful feature, and surely a great improvement.

Well, I have not understood all this interesting explanation about classical conjugation paradigm, but I think it is whole another topic that is maybe too advanced for my level. 
I have already seen verbs ending in a ず syllable, maybe is it related to this grammar.

Anyway I want to tell you thank you both for your help. ありがとうございます。♪


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## mikun

Hi,
I have an another feeling in this sentence, though 2 Mods have already explained this sentence completely.
'青い星に　光が*なくせぬ*ように' is ' a blue star cannot extinguish its own light' , and the sentence meaning will be,
(You have the duty to do for society) that you only can do, just as a blue star gives light to the world.


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## Ilmen

Thank you for your additional interpretation. 

As for the fact of putting an imperative verb at the head of the sentence to emphasize it like in the two next sentence of the song, does it have a name?

Here they are:
「つかめ！　描いた夢を
　まもれ！　大事な友を」


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## lammn

Ilmen said:


> As for the fact of putting an imperative verb at the head of the sentence to emphasize it like in the two next sentence of the song, does it have a name?
> 
> Here they are:
> 「つかめ！　描いた夢を
> まもれ！　大事な友を」



This is called "inversion"(倒置).

The normal sequence of the sentences (without inversion) should be:
描いた夢をつかめ！
大事な友をまもれ！


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## Ilmen

I wonder if this kind of inversions are common in song lyrics. Anyway, thank you for the information.


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