Thehiragana syllableな(na). Its equivalent inkatakana isナ(na). It is the twenty-first syllable in thegojūon order; its position isな行あ段(na-gyō a-dan,“rowna, sectiona”).
Probably derived from mild emphatic interjection and sentence-final particleね, itself fromOld Japanese, indicating a general sense ofadmiration orconsideration, orhope that the preceding statement comes to pass.
copula particle used after形容動詞(keiyōdōshi,often referred to in English teaching texts as-na adjective, literally“adjective verb”) to make them function as adjectives:thatis; thatare
変な人 ―henna hito ―a strange person (a personthat is strange)
FromOld Japanese. Probably the rootna of the negative adjectiveない(nai).[2][3] An alternative theory is that this is the imperfective conjugation of negative auxiliary verbず(zu).[2]
Considered veryinformal and potentiallybrusque depending on tone of voice. This would never be used in polite conversation, where the construction〜ないで下さい(~naide kudasai) would be used instead, appended to the imperfective stem of the verb in question. Examples:
Addressing close friends, children, or possibly subordinates:
In spoken Japanese, the prohibitivena and the imperativena are also differentiated by pitch accent patterns. For prohibitivena, the pitch on the suffix follows the pitch on the verb stem; and for imperativena, the pitch is higher than on the verb stem.
Listed in various sources as thena portion in the term刀(katana), with thena described as meaning刃(“blade,edge”).[1][2][3] However, there is no historical attestation for anyna reading for this character.
turugi₁-tatina no₂ wosike₁ku mo ware pa nasi ki₁mi₁ ni apazute to₂si no₂ pe₂nureba
I do not even miss preciousyou, given the years that have passed without meeting with you.
[Note:turugi₁-tati (literally “double-edgedlongsword”) is apillow word establishing a poetic association with the followingna, literally meaningblade oredge and alluding to sharpness and importance. Thisna could also elliptically mean名(na,“name”) or even汝(na,“you”) depending on context, based on the homophonic readings.]
Possibly an apophonic form ofの(no₂), from assimilation with adjacency to vowels such asa oru. Usage is mostly restricted to fixed expressions like掌(tanagokoro,“palm of thehand”,parsed asta “hand” +na [possessive] +kokoro “heart,center”, changing togokoro due torendaku), due to such assimilation.
Vovin (2020, pp. 119-123) suggests that this may instead be a plural marker, which is supported by some terms changing due to rendaku, typically a contraction of-no₂- or-ni-.
Originally,そ(so₂) was only added to emphasize the sincerity of the request to the listener, however the structure ofな(na) + continuative stem of verb +そ(so₂) quickly became lexicalized and the form only prepended byな(na) fell out of use.
This particle must be appended to the beginning of the continuative stem of a verb and then immediately followed byそ(so₂). It is considered more indirect thanなかれ(nakare₁).
