Does Genki not have a better example of the volitional form for ぬ than しぬ？

8 comments

1. Plain form -ぬ verbs just don’t really exist in modern standard Japanese, it’s a holdover from classical Japanese that has largely changed over time

   So…yeah, no, they don’t really have another good example they could’ve used, not one that you’d actually encounter in modern Japanese at least

   You can read about it more here: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2409/plain-verbs-that-end-with-%E3%81%AC-other-than-%E6%AD%BB%E3%81%AC

2. 死ぬ is basically the only verb in modern Japanese that ends with ぬ.

3. 死ぬ is the only modern verb that ends in ぬ so there’s not much choice

   it’ll get used again in victim-passive form with Xに死なれた = “got died-on by X” / “X went and died on me”

4. facepalm moment

5. The only other one I can think of is 往ぬ (いぬ), a mostly obsolete word for “go.” So no, they really don’t have a better example.

6. there’s only one verb that ends in that 🙂

7. This gave answers to a question I didn’t even know I had! My classmate and I were looking through the grammar, noticed 死のう and just started chanting “死のう!” to eachother. My boyfriend (who’s Japanese) arrived a few seconds later to hear us chant “死のう”. Long story short, he was confused and horrified at the same moment and did not appreciate us chanting 死のう😆

8. In standard Japanese, there is only one group 1 verb with a stem ending in -n, i.e. 死ぬ. Which makes it necessary to mention it when discussing the formation of the te-form.

   So for the formation of the volitional form it would not really be necessary, as the rule is the same, add “oo” to the stem. But I guess they wanted to be show all possible consonants, in which case you are stuck with it again…