# 空高くで



## thetazuo

「……こやつには爆破術式というのが付いているらしく、破壊するとそれ発動してしまうらしい。だから、もっとも*空高くで*壊さねばならないという話だ」

Hi. I have found that 空高く is an adverb meaning “aloft/sky-high” so why can we add で to it? What is this grammar phenomenon?

Thank you.


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## Flaminius

Some _i_-adjectives that denote spatial and temporal relations can be actually used to mean the place or time in their adverbial forms.  E.g., 近くにある公衆電話, 遠くから来た朋友, 遅くまで働く人たち.


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## thetazuo

Thank you. So those _i_-adjectives in their adverbial forms become nouns?


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## Flaminius

I think so.  They can be the subject or the object of a verb too.  遠くを見る; 近くがいい.  But as usual, I am not sure how many adjectives can behave like this.


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## thetazuo

Thank you again.


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## jonnymind

As Flaminius pointed out The -i -> ku form makes a verbal adjective into its adverb. So, (using another adjective that has a distinct adverb in English)  早い ([it’s] fast) becomes 早く (quickly). The problem with English is that many adjectives don‘t change when used as adverbs, so the sentence suggested by Flaminius “近くがいい“ means “it’s better if it’s near”, with ”near“ here used as adverb (cfr “near town”, where “near” is an adjective). Now, like in any other language, adjectives, not adverbs, can become nouns, so in “The good, the bad and the ugly” you have three adjectives used as nouns; however, in Japanese, the -i adjectives are actually micro-verbal sentences, they are a verb and an adjective in one word, and to be used as a noun, you need to do the same transformation (i->ku).

However, they are almost never used as nouns; it happens only in idiomatic set expression as 遠くを見る (to see “the far”, here a classical/poetic for “horizon”). Even in the similar idiomatic 遠くが見えない (can’t see *far*) the “far” is meant as an adverb, despite being marked withe subject particle GA.

Now, the で. That’s the mode particle (by doing, by the means of), so, in your expression,空高くで, you can unpack it in “funny english” with something like “by sky-highly”. I would render the sentence you have there as “So (だから), it’s a matter of(の話だ) nuking it from orbit” if you want to render an expression that is as familiar to the English audience as it is to the Japanese, and has the same “rod from God” ring, or maybe with “So, let’s say you have to devastate it as if the sky were to fall on it” if you want to be more near the original letter, and if nuking is not an option (i.e. you’re translating something taking place in the past).


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## Flaminius

I don't have any works by linguists to share at the moment, but the way I conceive of nouns is the degree of how many concrete situations they can be used in to create sentences.  The more concrete uses one can think of, the stronger the noun-hood of a word in question.  Put simply, the former condition is equal to how many postpositions it can use.  Apparently, the more postpositions, the stronger the noun-hood.



jonnymind said:


> in Japanese, the -i adjectives are actually micro-verbal sentences, they are a verb and an adjective in one word, and to be used as a noun, you need to do the same transformation (i->ku).



This is a good point.  I tend to use "adjectives" to mean conjugated items, and to pay less attention to unconjugated ones like この (but this is another story for this thread).  Anyway, the _i_-adjectives can be turned into nouns in a few ways, but not all of them are used to derive nouns from any given adjective.



jonnymind said:


> However, they are almost never used as nouns; it happens only in idiomatic set expression as 遠くを見る (to see “the far”, here a classical/poetic for “horizon”). Even in the similar idiomatic 遠くが見えない (can’t see *far*) the “far” is meant as an adverb, despite being marked withe subject particle GA.


It is difficult to follow you here. You have said that i->ku derives a noun.  Yes, it is one of its functions.  When not followed by a postposition, this casts the adjective into the adverbial form (E.g., はやく来なさい; Come quickly).  When, however, it is used with a postposition, it is used as a noun.  Like I said, not all adjective can use this derivation; *安くをかう (in sense of "buying cheap stuff").  But when it happens, it happens.

The i->ku with a postposition being a noun is my definition, and you may want to call into question how effective my definition is.  It's at least so loosely defined that you don't need to come up with a concrete object to declare a noun derivation.  Case in point; 遠く in your first 遠くを見る is not the horizon.  It vaguely refers to somewhere at a distance.  The same goes with your second 遠くが見えない.  Let me add a few more examples like 遠くからくる, 遠くまでいく, and 遠くで鳴る.  Clearly, 遠く is a noun meaning a distant place.



jonnymind said:


> Now, the で. That’s the mode particle (by doing, by the means of), so, in your expression,空高くで, you can unpack it in “funny english” with something like “by sky-highly”. I would render the sentence you have there as “So (だから), it’s a matter of(の話だ) nuking it from orbit” if you want to render an expression that is as familiar to the English audience as it is to the Japanese, and has the same “rod from God” ring, or maybe with “So, let’s say you have to devastate it as if the sky were to fall on it” if you want to be more near the original letter, and if nuking is not an option (i.e. you’re translating something taking place in the past).


This, too, is difficult to follow.  The で in 空高くで is not "the mode particle (by doing, by the means of)."  It is the marker of the place wherein an action takes place, variously translated in English into "at," or "in."  A natural translation of this specific phrase is, "to destroy it [some kind of weapon?] at a high altitude."  While 空高く is not a very productive adjective (It's even difficult to use the citation form, 空高い), we have 空高くから.


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## jonnymind

All good points, thanks for the depth of the reply. Not sure I agree on every detail, for example while 遠くで鳴る is clearly “crying from afar”, with 遠くclearly having a noun function, 遠くま行く works better as “going far”, with far having an adverbial function both in English and in Japanese.

I see that if we render 空高く as a noun, now で is clearly the place particle, so the sentence is rendered with “destroying it high in the sky (mid air)”; but, while the context is limited, it was my impression that the talking character was describing how to attack, rather than where, and considering the media (probably a manga), which may get a bit creative with the usage of colourful expressions like this adjective, I felt it more adverbial (how) rather than nominal (where).


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## Flaminius

jonnymind said:


> while 遠くで鳴る is clearly “crying from afar”, with 遠くclearly having a noun function, 遠くま*で*行く works better as “going far”, with far having an adverbial function both in English and in Japanese.


[bold part supplied by Flam] This is a problem of how to use the English word _afar_.  It does not furnish any arguments for understanding 遠く in my examples anything other than a noun.



jonnymind said:


> I felt [空高く] more adverbial (how) rather than nominal (where).


I honestly don't know how you want to understand the sentence.  First, you said that "I would render the sentence you have there as “So (だから), it’s a matter of(の話だ) nuking it from orbit”".  I don't know where you got the "from" bit (i.e., why not simply say 空高くから攻撃する?), but, okay, it has a clear meaning.  Then you translated it into, “So, let’s say you have to devastate it as if the sky were to fall on it.”  Now you are equating the protagonists with the skies that crash down.  I have never seen 空高く used in this sense.  Usually, it is used like this:
白鳥の群れが空高く飛んでいる。
It is used adverbially, by the way.

You have implied that the nature of the text allows for "the usage of colourful expressions."  Like I said, I don't think a usage like this exists.  It also needs to be pointed out that a prose sentence usually means one thing, while your two translations mean two different things.



jonnymind said:


> while the context is limited


While the context is limited, this much is clear.  The enemy weapon is equipped with 爆破術式, which causes the weapon to self-activate when it detects any attempt at making the weapon unserviceable.  The protagonists are now discussing how to prevent the weapon from doing its job.


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## jonnymind

Thanks for the deep explanation, I think this is much now clearer to me.

I would like to point out that my translations are equivalent (and why): I initially intended 空高くで as figurative, not literal; which, to my best knowledge, is often the case for this expression. I intended it that way as this expression seemed somewhat out of tone, very often used in a poetic setting, where the rest seemed army-talk: manly and containing technical terms.

For this reason, I was trying a translation that would fit that context: “Nuking from orbit“ wasn’t meant to be a literal translation, because it has become now a set expression that doesn’t mean “Dropping an atomic bomb from outside earth atmosphere”, it just means “completely destroy (also figuratively) a target, without leaving room for it to put up any defense”. I.e. “the prosecutor nuked from orbit that witness.” The alternative sentence I proposed was just an example of how to give a similar rendering in case ”nuking from orbit” was’t something the characters may have ever said (I.e. because they are in a fictiomal/magical world).

I now see that 空高くでin this sentence may well be literal, and just mean “in mid air”. Yet, the change of tone is evident, and I really think the author wanted to convey a typical tension-relief pattern with the first sentence being dry-declarative, the second being emotional-comedic. Cfr an American general saying ”our units are prevented from accessing logistic backup. In other words, we’re foobar.”

So, even if the 空高く is not figurative as I initially thought, and it just means “attack mid-air”, I still think the second sentence should be rendered with some similar tone-breaker. Nuking from orbit may really do the job, conveying the figurative sense of winning over the target yet evoking the concrete sense of air strike, provided the characters have access to this expression.


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## Flaminius

jonnymind said:


> I initially intended 空高くで as figurative, not literal; which, to my best knowledge, is often the case for this expression.


Really?  I am curious to see an example with a proper citation.


jonnymind said:


> Nuking from orbit may really do the job


Probably not.  If the enemy weapon is already at a high altitude, "the concrete sense of air strike" contributes more to the confusion than to the immersion of the reader.


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