[larethian]

Originally Posted by LeoXiao

okay, I said in the initial response to Kudryavka's question that adjectives with the base form "-ii" do not take "-na".

Now in Japanese there are a variety of kana that represent some consonant or consonant cluster with the final "-i" sound, i.e "ki", "shi", "chi", "ni" etc.

When I say that the consonant does not matter, I mean that what is essential is the doubled "ii" sound, not the "k-", "sh-" or whatever.
So in "yasashii", even though it is written in kana "ya-sa-shi-i" (can't type kana on this computer, sorry), there still exists the "-ii" final sounds.

In "kirei", written "ki-re-i", there is no doubled "i" sound because there is only ONE "i". If it was "ki-ri-i" then you would be correct.

I agree with what you said in bold, that '-ii' sounds don't take 'na' during conjugation with nouns, but it doesn't mean that it has to be '-ii' to not take 'na' during conjugation with nouns, which was what I understood from your earlier post and other points.

To phrase it another way, it sounds to me that you were saying that if it doesn't contain '-ii' sound, it will take 'na' during conjugation with nouns, which I know to be false. That's why I quoted 'osoi' as an example. I might have misunderstood your post and your meaning though, and apologize if that's the case.

Nevertheless, my 2 cents is that, determining conjugation rules from how words sound is not the proper way. And I'm curious as to what textbook uses this manner of teaching, as none of my textbooks, reference books, nor the language school I had attended taught me in this manner. The proper way is to learn what class of words does a word fall into, whether it's a noun, i-adjective, na-adjective, godan verb, ichidan verb etc. etc., and learn the conjugation rules for that class and their exceptions.

Originally Posted by JINNSK

i of kirei(綺麗 in kanji) is from 麗(rei).It isn't an adj though the end is i.

Originally Posted by LeoXiao

JINNSK gave the kanji 綺麗 for "kirei" and said that it is not an adjective. Actually it is in noun form ("beauty", I guess), but it can be made into an adjective simply by adding "-na" to it. As another example there is the word "zankoku" (cruel), written 残酷, which is also in "noun form" (cruelty), so it takes "-na" as well.

This is just another school of thought which classifies na-adjectives as adjectival nouns because they have similarities to 'behavior' of nouns. Another school of thought classifies them as nominal adjectives...... plain confusing if you ask me......
It's fine to see them as nouns if you want to (though I'm personally against that line of thought), but one must be careful to remember that they are not nouns in the truest sense, i.e. they cannot stand alone by themselves as a subject by taking the 'が' and 'は' particles.