Emphasis and Contrast
Structure:
［い］Adjective［く］+ は
［い］Adjective［く］+ は + ない
［い］Adjective［く］+ は + ある
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@The111 to answer your question, i think something like the first line can appear in casual speech, where the nai/aru can be elided as an implication
for example;
天気大変だね、暑くは
but it wouldnt be natural in writing, and isnt grammatical in and of itself, so I think you’re right that it shouldn’t be included as part of the grammar point. It’s not a grammar pattern so much as trailing off.
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For those who are lost, cafelatte is responding to a comment I put in a different thread which is now closed. The Q was:
Re: your answer
I asked the LLM, as I’m prone to do, and she told me that it can be used in a normal adverbial sense, e.g.
早くは来られない
translated as: “I can’t come particularly early” (the extra emphasis coming from the は)
This kind of makes sense and isn’t too surprising. But it’s also not clear from the lesson, and neither of us guessed it on our own. Which I think is further evidence that the pattern presented is not adequately explained in the lesson and examples that follow.
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As we have this placed at N4 it is simplified a little, aiming to just get the main idea across and focus on the most intuitive/common use of the pattern.
We do keep an eye on feedback like this though, so will keep it in mind when we come round to doing quality checks and edits. For the moment we will leave it as is so that it has a little more time to breathe and receive feedback. I think the point you’ve raised is worth considering though.
The causes for this are mixed. Sometimes it may be an oversight (any feedback or reports of such cases are very welcome 
). Sometimes it is because the main use of the grammar point is limited to certain phrases or types of words but it is still technically possible with others (like with くは here).
We do plan on tidying up the structure sections and making their information/presentation more consistent, although this is on the back burner at the moment. As such, we’re also grateful for opinions and feedback on this as well.
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Thanks for the detailed response, James! From a learner’s perspective:
It makes sense to limit the use of a pattern when it is first introduced. I think this was done effectively with other patterns in the past, i.e. where a later lesson introduced a more broad way to use the pattern (I can’t think of any specific examples, except for maybe ように since it seems like there are a dozen lessons for that one which really all boil down to the same core semantics, but I actually appreciate that they are separated).
The issue here is that the broader pattern was “teased” (literally it’s the very first line of the lesson), but then never revisited. It probably makes more sense to save that pattern for the lesson where it is explored further (assuming there is one). Thanks again!
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Does this mean that 学生じゃない literally translates to “I’m not exactly a student”? Is it another Japanese politeness quirk?
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I dont think so… I think while ha does put emphasis there, its a little diferent from kuhanai, because you can conjugate i adjs as kunai, so inserting ha and creating kuhanai puts even more emphasis/contrast, but you cant conjugate a negative noun as denai, so dehanai is the default negative. I could be wrong tho
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It’s from the Fun Fact section of the grammar point:
Although the focus of this grammar point is ～くは, this contrastive use of は can be seen in many different contexts.
これは桜の木ではない。
This is *not* a cherry tree.
This is how I parse it, roughly:
(学生で)ある。 — “Being a student, [I] exist.” or “[My] being a student exists.”
(学生で)はない。— “As for being a student, (that) is not.” or “It is not (the case that I am) a student”. (But I may be something else, feels contrastive enough to me)
I wonder if 学生でない is grammatically correct though
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You’re right that it’s mentioned as a contrastive element in the fun fact but I dont take it to mean は functions there in the exact same way as くはない
In ではない, では functions as a normal contrastive copula (ie. Its the default to negate a noun) but in くはない structures it functions as more contrastive than normal as it is not the default negative form, so while both indicate contrast, it wouldn’t be true to say 学生ではない, the weaker form, means “I am not exactly a student”
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cafelatte is right that in ではない the は does not have such a strong contrastive feeling as in くはない. The は in ではない does historically come from the contrastive use of は (which is very commonly used with negatives, since it is isolating the topic as the thing negated), however as ではない has become the regular way to negate nouns and noun-like things it has lost the original level of contrastive emphasis. くはない still maintains a strong contrastive feeling as it never became the regular way to negate adjecives (くない is).
Still, じゃない or じゃありません will tend to have less emphasis than ではない (formal, or can be used emphatically in some contexts) and ではありません (polite and formal, could be a little emphatic depending on context and tone). じゃ just cuts the oomph out of the phrase.
It is grammatically correct but only used in some specific contexts.
The use that comes to mind immediately is relative clauses. For example:
学生でない人 → The person who is not a student (formal/written)
学生ではない人 → The person who is not a student (can sound emphasised)
Here, は can maintain its heavier contrastive feeling. は will not normally be used in a relative clause, so adding back in here makes it stand out. Having said that, I think some speakers do still use ではない here without specifically emphasising just out of habit.
Of course, じゃない is going to be the most normal choice in speech, as でない is quite formal (from である). In those cases I would say that going out of one’s way to change じゃない to ではない is going to mostly be done for emphasis or because they are speaking very carefully. The effect could be compared to actually fully saying ‘are not’ instead of ‘aren’t’ (or ‘ain’t’) in English.
学生じゃない人 → The person who isn’t a student (spoken/informal writing)
学生ではない人 → The person who is not a student (can sound emphasised)
It is worth saying that in speech this emphasis will almost always be obvious from the actual tone used as well, since the speaker will stress the では part.
I can’t promise anything currently but at the moment it is our ambition to add a bit more holistic flavour to grammar, to better cover concepts like the contrastive use of は, so that it is easier to see how all these things are connected. Ideally we can cover these sorts of things in a more deliberate way than my random ramblings on the forum.
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