larryhammer: floral print origami penguin, facing left (Japanese)
Larry Hammer ([personal profile] larryhammer) wrote in [personal profile] sovay 2012-06-26 03:33 am (UTC)

Watashi wa harinezumi no iru koto ga arimasen.

Watashi wa = neutral polite first-person pronoun, marked as sentence topic ("as for me")
harinezumi no = "hedgehog," marked as subject of a relative clause
iru koto ga = "to exist" for animate subjects, nominalized, marked as subject of main clause ("existing")
arimasen = "to exist" for inanimate subjects, negative polite form ("is not")

Watashi wa harinezumi no fuzai ga arimasu (note correction)

Watashi wa = same start ("as for me")
harinezumi no = hedgehog, marked as genitive case ("the hedgehog's")
fuzai = "absence," marked as subject
arimasu = "exists" for inanimate subjects, positive polite form ("is")

The more natural way of saying "I don't have a hedgehog" would be "Watashi wa harinezumi wa imasen" (As for me, hedgehogs don't exist, the topic indicating that it's talking about a localized existence).

---L.

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