Comments 6
I still find られる endings confusing when they are used for intransitive verbs, especially if they are 五段 ones.
れる ending is easy enough to understand, with 寝れなかった for "was not able to sleep". But when it's 寝られなかった I get confused about whether what is being meant might be in some way different or more specific.
Kind of like the reason you didn't sleep was because some external factor was preventing you from doing so. Where れる ending seems more straight forward--couldn't sleep because of your own inability to do so.
I doubt there actually any difference between the two though, but that's just what goes through my head when I see られる used in that situation. Probably just some weird things I've picked up incorrectly in the past on some grammar book or website. Or maybe there really is that kind of difference? Just thinking out loud. ^^- Hmm... Just woken up and seen what I wrote late last night... No idea what I was thinking when I wrote that post, since 寝る is an obvious 一段 verb, not 五段... xD
It's interesting you would say this because I had this conversation with a Japanese friend not too long. Before coming to Japan, I only learned られる for 可能形. Naturally, when I started to hear stuff like 食べれる, I figured it was an evolution of the language. It turns out many Japanese people say it's wrong and blame it on the young. They both mean the same exact thing, though. Essentially, when you're in a formal situation, don't use れる; use られる.- Interesting to read. But do you mean that for both 一段 and 五段? You used another 一段 verb as your example so I am unsure. What you wrote sounded to me like you might be speaking about both verb types.
Most grammar resources I've read say:
一段 verb 可能形 = remove "ru" and add "rareru"
五段 verb 可能形 = remove "_u" and add "_eru"
So yes, 食べれる should be wrong by this rule. It should be 食べられる for the 可能形. For some reason it seems like 食べれる is actually used regardless of this rule, so I could understand if this is something the younger generation brought into the language and are now blamed for its existence. This kind of slang even has a term listed in the dictionary dedicated to it: "ら抜き言葉".
With a 五段 verb however, things would be different for the 可能形. Using some 五段 verbs for examples:
走る = 走れる (not 走られる)
書く = 書ける (not 書かれる)
読む = 読める (not 読まれる)
For 五段 verbs, as far as I understand it, the "_areru" ending is passive/honorific form, while "_eru" is the potential only. I could very likely just be reading your post wrong, but I wanted to make it clear to other people who read it the same way as me that it's only for 一段 verbs that れる is slang. Although maybe you were saying it for both verb types and what I posted is actually wrong? :P - "れる ending is easy enough to understand, with 寝れなかった for "was not able to sleep". But when it's 寝られなかった I get confused about whether what is being meant might be in some way different or more specific."
My response was mostly to this. I just wanted to point out they mean the exact same thing with no nuance. I should've been clearer and mentioned that only applied to 一段 verbs. - I thought it was very unlikely that you meant it for both, but I also thought there was a slim chance what I understood was wrong and could have lead to something interesting.
The 可能形 for 五段 verbs is pretty odd. Several times in the past I've tried to find out the origin of this construction and exactly which conjugation base and auxiliary is being used.
I think last time I ended up thinking it had something to do with the Classical Japanese auxiliary 下二段 verb, ゆ. I was thinking if it went on to become a 下一段 later on, then it would be える. And ゆ attached to the 未然形 same as られる does now. So maybe if there was some contraction of this "える" with the 未然形 of the verb it attached to, then you'd end up with 読める as "yoma" + "eru" = "yomeru".
I think the more common theory is something like the 連用形 of the verb + 得る, which would be much simpler. I wanted to look into whether there's a link and into why they don't say it's the 未然形 for this, but it's something that I waste far too much time looking into where I don't end up with definite answers. Kinda pointless to spend time doing, lol, but just something I used to find fun... :P
(I might have made some big mistakes in what I wrote in this post, since I'm just typing out loud about the bits I remember.) ^^;
