why can’t ~ません or ~でしょう be used with the literary ~という?

4 comments

1. Plain forms usually go in quotes unless you’re quoting someone’s exact words in writing or speech.

   In writing, this is easily seen. Just crack open a novel.

   The teacher said: 明日はテストががありません。

   You’re incredulous friend who wasn’t in class pesters you if that’s true.

   You say: 本当だよ。先生は明日はテストがありませんって。信じられないなら、先生にメールを送るとか。

   Your example is likely “a quotation from a source.” In expository writing, when a fact like “they say…,” the quote wouldn’t be in ます-form as it’s no one’s direct words, only speculation/discourse about something.

2. Sentence-ending という can only follow plain form and literary form (である), not polite です・ます, so a and b can’t be correct. In addition, contrary to what you might expect, mainly plain form and literary form are used in literary writing; polite です・ます is not generally used in literature.

3. Since the sentence ends in という (rather than といいます) you shouldn’t be looking for polite answers anyway, even putting aside the issue with what goes before the と.

4. It’s less a question of “can/can’t” and more an issue of “what do people actually write and say?”

   If you finish a sentence like

   > あまり高くなっていないでしょうという。

   it’s 100% understandable but also sounds rather weird. This usage of という sounds like someone is looking at a report and summarizing it. But since they’re summarizing they should use a だ・だろう form before the と。

   〜でしょうと is used for direct quotes, but that would be something more like 〜でしょうと言った。 or と書いてある。

   A mistake you’re making is assuming that ます is more “literary” because it’s more “formal” but those are actually different things. Book narrators, serious non-fiction, and so on, those have their own style.

   – だよ and だね are out
   – だ is more common, である may be used
   – だろう instead of でしょう
   – increased (だ)が less (だ)けど
   – blunt imperative instead of て imperative, especially in indirect speech
   – some adverbs/interjections are substituted like やはり instead of やっぱり

   and so on.