I know that 無い can mean non existent as an I-adjective or ない can be the present negative tense for ある.
For じゃ無い / じゃないit seems like it’s using じゃ ＋ 無い. I read じゃありません is a more polite version. At first, I thought ありません in this case is the polite negative of the verb ある.
However, is ありません actually the polite form of the i-adjective 無い in じゃありません?
EDIT:
I found on wikitionary that for public and written language, the irregular expressions ありません and ありませんでした are recommended instead of 無いです and なかったです. So I think the answer is that the pattern is supposed to be ja + nai (i-adjective) but “ja arimasen” is used instead of “ja nai desu” for the polite form probably because nai is also the plain negative of aru.
5 comments
ない is the negative form of ある, and yes ありません is the polite negative of ある
Yes basically aru-nai arimasu-arimasen so they are functionally saying the same exact thing, just more polite
Fyi: in the vast majority of interpersonal exchanges you’ll encounter where 丁寧語 is expected, you’re going to be using ないです and なかったです rather than the longer form ありません and ありませんでした.
That’s not to say that the latter are incorrect, but there’s the offchance you may come across as oddly stiff if you use those.
Part of the confusion comes from Japanese being a living language that changes over time.
Over the past half century or so ないです has grown in popularity and ありません has diminished. This is especially true for 〜じゃないです while 〜がありません has stuck around better.
With verbs 食べません is much more common and accepted than 食べないです。
Older textbooks trying to be proper tend to avoid 〜じゃないです but it’s now the preferred form in most polite situations.
じゃ ない – casual casual
じゃ ありません – casual polite (still quite casual)
では ない – polite casual (still quite casual)
では ありません – polite polite