More precisely, when a verb has multiple inflection suffixes, is it allowed to add a space between them? If yes, where should we put it?
The first example that comes to me is Aimyon’s song 生きていたんだよな. While it’s technically one word, it feels quite heavy to spell it “Ikiteitandayona” and can be difficult to read for non-Japanese speakers.
Instinctively, I would transcript it “Ikite itanda yo na”, keeping the verb stem with the -Te whole, then separate the past suffix and others particles. It’s a compromise that makes it smoother to read and keeps the main verb intact, but I wonder if there is an official rule for that.
How would you do it?
(I mostly use the Hepburn system)
2 comments
>The first example that comes to me is Aimyon’s song 生きていたんだよな. While it’s technically one word
Actually, it *technically* isn’t one word, even though it’s treated like a single word. Most Japanese verb-inflections are comprised of multiple “helper verbs” which are technically their own words (with separate dictionary entries), but are words that grammatically can only be used as suffixes of other words.
ます is one particularly weird example – grammatically, it can only be put at the end of a verb stem, not used by itself. But it is still technically its own word.
To answer your question, I have seen it transcribed both ways depending on what feels more natural. Personally, I would never write the ます as a separate word, but in the example you gave, I would probably write that as ikite itanda yona, but there’s definitely other valid ways of spacing it out.
To answer your actual question: No, there is no rule (other than not splitting words like 生き becoming <i ki> obviously). There are guidelines but like putting spaces before *case* particles (e.g. 私は <watasi wa>), but not before the *conjunctive* particle て (e.g. 生きて <ikite>).
To add on to PokemonTom09’s point, 生きているんだよな is technically not one word. It can be split into (the things in parentheses are the proper grammatical explanations):
>生き (カ行上一段活用動詞「生きる」の連用形)
>て (接続助詞)
>い (ア行上一段活用動詞「いる」の連用形)
>た (完了の助動詞「た」の連体形)
>ん (準体助詞)
>だ (断定の助動詞「だ」の終止形)
>よ (終助詞)
>な (終助詞)