# 食わなそうだ



## cheshire

Is 「食わなそうだ」 correct Japanese? Should it be 「食わな*さ*そうだ」?
I think ない　is an auxiliary verb, not an adjective, so you needn't insert さ between them.


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## Flaminius

Judging from other conjugations that sound more correct to me —such as 知らなそうだ, 食べられなそうだ, 当たらなそうだ—, 食わなそうだ is the correct form.  But I seem to hear 食わなさそうだ a lot oftener.  Could you tell me why さ would be inserted if the ない were an adjective?


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## kyn

Are you sure? As I was taught, "ii" becomes "yosasooda" and "nai" becomes "nasasooda".


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## cheshire

Thanks Flaminius for your input. I'm sorry for my mistake, I editted my question and crossed "so." I was being confused!

Only "nai" and "ii" seem to be the exceptions, as regards "adjectives." Others don't need "sa"

e.g. kirei ---> kirei souda (not "kirei sa souda")
      ookii ---> ooki souda (not "ooki sa souda")

Then, what about 食べた*さ*そうだ？


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## Flaminius

> Then, what about 食べた*さ*そうだ？


This is downright ungrammatical.  By the way, do you have any clue as to where this inserted -sa- comes from?


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## notnotchris

食べたさそう produced 1040 Google results (there is some native speaker usage, even if ungrammatical)
食べたそう produced 140,000, proving that it's much more common.

It seems to me that whether a word turns into a そう or a さそう is more convention than grammar. Or perhaps it represents a change in modern Japanese??

Interestingly enough, 食わなそう vs. 食わなさそう came out about equal in the Google war (1050 to 1060 results, respectively)


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## divisortheory

cheshire said:


> Thanks Flaminius for your input. I'm sorry for my mistake, I editted my question and crossed "so." I was being confused!
> 
> Only "nai" and "ii" seem to be the exceptions, as regards "adjectives." Others don't need "sa"
> 
> e.g. kirei ---> kirei souda (not "kirei sa souda")
> ookii ---> ooki souda (not "ooki sa souda")


 
Are these two grammatical? I thought ~sa was only appeneded to the yoi and nai, which would make kireisasouda and ookiisasouda dubious at best.



			
				notnotchris said:
			
		

> It seems to me that whether a word turns into a そう or a さそう is more convention than grammar. Or perhaps it represents a change in modern Japanese??


When I learned this pattern in my Japanese classes long ago, they were very clear about the rules. "sa" is only appeneded to "yoi" and "nai", and nothing else ever takes "sa".


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## 漢字のとき

cheshire said:


> Is 「食わなそうだ」 correct Japanese? Should it be 「食わな*さ*そうだ」?
> I think ない　is an auxiliary verb, not an adjective, so you needn't insert さ between them.


 
hi,

This is simple with this grammar point:
*Noun + "そうだ": looks like*
So here we can see "nai" word, this is an adjective ("~i keyoushi") not an auxiliary (if ~tai it is auxiliary). When we want to convert one adjective into noun we need remove "~i" and add "~sa".
Then - "食わな*さ*そうだ" is correct
        - "食べたさそうだ" 　is wrong because "~tai" is an auxiliary so you can apply the method above

Hoping that help.


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## Flaminius

漢字のとき said:


> This is simple with this grammar point:
> *Noun + "そうだ": looks like*


I disagree. そうだ cannot be used with a noun. If one wants to say that something looks like an elephant;
*象そうだ
OK 象みたいだ
one should use みたいだ instead of そうだ. Perhaps you are confusing it with the relative use of そうだ as in 象だそうだ (I have heard that it is an elephant)?



> So here we can see "nai" word, this is an adjective ("~i keyoushi") not an auxiliary (if ~tai it is auxiliary).


In *cheshire*'s example sentence _-nai_ is used as an auxiliary (negating the statement) to the verb 食う. Another _nai_ (or another function of the same??) is an adjective with the meaning, "something does not exist."

For example;
Hasami-wa doko? Koko-niwa nasasooda kedo.
Where are the scissors? Looks like they aren't here.

In any event, we are yet to find out where the _-sa-_ is come from. I am just wondering aloud but that _nai_ is an adjective (which no-one denies) is a tenuous argument to account for _-sa-_ being inserted after _na-_ because no other adjective (_yoi_ / _ii_ is the only exception) allows _-sa-_.


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