に気がつく grammar

Japanese
#1

The に気がつく grammar has this sentence
何がないか_きがついた_のだろうか。
The translation is
“Have you noticed what is missing?”

Questions:

  1. isn’t the translation rather “I wonder if he/she noticed anything.”?
  2. what does the か in 何がないか mean?
  3. the grammar structure is:
    Verb + こと・に・気・が・つく
    Noun + に・気・が・つく

Why is the particle に omitted in the answer?

Thanks a lot

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#2

Great catch!

Since it is “I wonder” sentence, he/she makes the most sense.
You can use it with “you”, but it will sound like a song lyrics.
“あなたは何がないかに気がついたのでしょうか”
The normal “you” version should be “何がないかにきがついたの?”

Well, time to answer the questions:

  1. The actual translation is: “I wonder if he has noticed what is missing.”
    The “I wonder if he/she noticed anything.”? would be “彼は何か(に)気がついたのだろうか？” where 何か(なにか) means something/anything.
  2. か is our favorite question particle(and the question particle is actually a specific case of AかBか grammar point, meaning A or B) :+1: and as you know, it shows speakers uncertainty. You can use it to embed a question within a larger sentence. In this case, it is shortened かどうか meaning whether or not(if).
    Theoretically, you can shorten it to か when you embed a question within a sentence and there is a question word like 何etc in your clause(our case, [何がないか]きがついた_のだろうか。part in [] is embedded question, and as you can see there is 何, the question word), but most people do not care and do not use かどうか at all even if there is no question word like 何 etc.
  3. It is a shortened form, something like “It is” vs “it’s” in English. You can write 何がないかにきがついたのだろうか。if you want.
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#3

Great explanation, thanks a lot!

One more thing, I almost always use the present tense for my answer and thus I get a wrong answer. But in your explanation:

…you also use present tense for 気づく. So are both forms correct to say “noticed”? If so, then please make it an alternative answer.

#4

No, it should be 彼は何か(に)気がついたのだろうか。My mistake,sorry.

Though, there are grammar points where the tense depends on main clause and regardless whether you use present/past tense in the subordinate clause it, if the main one is in past whole sentence will be considered past tense.

For example, this grammar point:
https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/218

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#5

So why isn’t the sentence accepted with に? I just got this one wrong because I included に in the answer. If the に is not allowed (as opposed to not required) I think the Structure needs to be updated to explain this usage.

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#6

The に should be accepted in this question, and also has a comment :+1:. Did you use a past tense in your answer?

I will add a notification for a non past answers so it won’t cause confusion.

Edit:
Notification for non-past answer has been added.

#7

I thought I did everything else right but maybe I made a small mistake I didn’t notice.

1 Like
#8

There should be a notification for present tense answer in a first place, so thank you very much for noticing it!