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Potential Verb Forms and Grammatical Inconsistancies

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobinMask (Post 882850)

I'm having some trouble with two verbs and how to express them in their potential forms, and wondered if someone can explain things to me?

My textbook says that Regular I verbs change the final う sound into a える to create the potential. Whereas Regular II verbs change the final る into a られる.

I understand this rule pretty well and it's exceptions with irregular verbs, and in the excercise (changing verbs into their potential forms to create questions) I had very nearly full marks. Where I struggled was with two verbs: つくる and のる.

My textbook gave me as answers for these the potential forms of つくれます and のれます . . . my question is, why have they dropped the ら sound from these two verbs?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Because they're not Regular II verbs, and they're not irregular. Who told you such hogwash?

Adopting your terminology (I've never heard of "regular I" and "regular II" but I can deduce what they mean), 100% of regular II verbs end in an eru or iru (but not all that end in eru/iru are regular II).

Basically think of it this way: if you drop the る and add ります for polite form, it's a Regular I. If you drop the る and add ます it's a Regular II. Surely you know this. If you don't, you should not be learning potential form, as this is basically the most basic, fundamental thing you should be learning in Japanese.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobinMask (Post 882850)

My textbook says that Regular I verbs change the final う sound into a える to create the potential. Whereas Regular II verbs change the final る into a られる.

I understand this rule pretty well and it's exceptions with irregular verbs, and in the excercise (changing verbs into their potential forms to create questions) I had very nearly full marks. Where I struggled was with two verbs: つくる and のる.

My textbook gave me as answers for these the potential forms of つくれます and のれます . . . my question is, why have they dropped the ら sound from these two verbs?

Never heard the terms "Regular I verbs" and "Regular II verbs" to be honest, but I am going to asume those are, respectively, "五段活用 verbs" and "一段活用 verbs" from what you are talking about.

If so, it is either your book teaches it wrong or you copied it wrong. Both つくる and のる are 五段活用 verbs and their potential forms are つくれます and のれます. There is absolutely no irregularity about these, either.　「ら」was not dropped. It never was in the potential forms of these verbs to begin with.

For 一段活用 verbs, however, there will be 「ら」 in the potential form unless we are discussing the modern-day らぬきことば, which is discussed in the thread:
http://www.japanforum.com/forum/japa...new-trend.html

To sum it up:

五段活用 verbs:
Dictionary form >> Potential form
作（つく）る　＞＞　作れる
乗（の）る　＞＞　乗れる
書（か）く　＞＞　書ける　
行（い）く　＞＞　行ける
遊（あそ）ぶ　＞＞　遊べる
読（よ）む　＞＞　読める

一段活用 verbs：
Dictionary form >> Potential form
食（た）べる　＞＞　食べられる
見（み）る　＞＞　見られる
寝（ね）る　＞＞　寝られる
着（き）る　＞＞　着られる
閉（と）じる　＞＞　閉じられる　

Quote:

Originally Posted by masaegu (Post 882861)

The confusion is that OP doesn't realize he has miscategorized the verbs. You hit that nail on the head (as would be expected of a skilled English-speaking Japanese, since 出るくいは打たれる). :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobinMask (Post 882866)

Thank you, Masaegu and Kyle :)

I think I can see where I've gone wrong now. I've miscatergorised the two verbs as belonging to the wrong groups? I think I just became confused due to how '作れ', for example, was introduced in its dictionary form as 'つくる', so - by the rules the book presented - I was changing it according to as if it belonged to another verb group . . .

I'll try to bear in mind the rules for catergorising the verbs as Kyle mentioned earlier, it seems to help when bearing in mind which group of verbs is which (and thus how to make the potential).

Thank you for the examples, too, Masaegu. It helped to further understand things.

The Japanese refer to verbs as godan (e.g., 行く、飲む) and ichidan (e.g., 食べる). Terms like "regular 1/2" or "class 1/2" or "step 1/2" they've never used.

Keep in mind these rules:
1. There are very, very few irregular verbs (する、来る、下さる、いらっしゃる, 行く, maybe a couple others), but each irregular verb is almost always regular with only a couple forms actually being irregular. For example, 行く follows all regular rules for "godan" verbs except for the past tense and て form, which are いって／いった rather than いいて／いいた

2. Anything else that does not end in eru/iru is a godan.

3. Of the eru/iru-ending verbs, 95% are ichidan. The rest are godan. You have to memorize which these are. There are very few.