arimasen

    Keywords: Culture & History

exswoo: A Japanese phrase literally meaning "There is no more (I could do)". Normally said as a way of resigning.

Another phrase commonly said in resigning a game is makemashita.


Velobici: "There is no more" is literal? Please help me understand, its not the negative of the past tense of one of the "to be" verbs in Japanese?

John F. It's an abbreviation of shikata ga arimasen or other similar phrases (there is nothing to be done).

MarkD: Velobici: "dewa arimasen" is the negative form of "desu", used in the form "A wa B dewa arimasen."
Example: Anata no sensei wa Smith-san dewa arimasen. (Your teacher isn't Mr.Smith).
As John pointed out: In this case it's just an abbreviation.

Chris Hayashida: By the way, "arimasen" is present/future negative, not past. Past tense would be "arimasen deshita."

Bob Myers The "arimasen" here is the negative form of "aru (arimasu)", the verb of existence, quite distinct from "dewa (ja) arimasen", which is the negative form of the "desu", the verb of identity. Consider the difference between "pen desu" ("that is a pen"), and "pen ga/wa arimasu" ("I have a pen").

Bill: I always took it to mean, "Te wa arimasen," meaning, "I don't have a play," that is, an effective play.

Chris Hayashida: If someone said, "Te wa arimasen" I would check his arms to see if he was missing a hand. :)

Bob Myers I always took it to mean "I don't have enough territory, and/or I don't have any prospects to win."

Velobici: Off topic question: is "Te" (play, hand, move) of "Te wa arimasen" the same as "te" in sente, gote, and honte? Hmmm..why is it Kami no Itte rather than "Kami no te"?

John F. Hmmm,how is it that all roads lead to Hikaru nowadays? It's the same te as in those and also in tewari, teai, teatsui, aite, etc. It can also be read -de or ta- or -shu- (as in akushu = bad move), It can mean other things, such as -er (as in worker). It's neither singular nor plural as it stands and there is normally no straightforward way to make a Japanese noun plural. Reduplication is possible sometimes, as here: as in the children's song o-tete tsunaide... (let's hold hands) but not for the go sense of move. But there is a way of emphasising the singular - add the number one (itte). However, this is complicated in the case of kami no itte by the fact that the phrase exists in the normal language to mean the protecting hand of the gods, so the Hikaru usage is a pun (and unlike in the west, puns are considered elegant in Japan). Kami no te is a possible phrase but wouldn't pun so well and wouldn't sound elegant. Mind you, itte can have a plural meaning, too...

iopq: Kami no itte is just a "God-like move(s)." Nothing to do with Hikaru no Go, it just uses this term a lot.


This is a copy of the living page "arimasen" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2005 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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