Is there a rule for how 何するの becomes 何すんの? I’ve heard 分かんない before, is that similar? How does this work for other verbs? Thanks
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There are also things like 分からん for 分からない, 知らん, 知らんねー, and probably other variations. Rule I do not know, probably laziness, but at least it’s easy enough to understand which is why I myself did not bother with “learning” this.
For example consider “going to” and “gonna”, “want to” and “wanna”. Looks like the same thing to me, at least in principle.
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Yes, but in those examples you listed those are already verbs in the negative form, so I can understand why the ない simply becomes ん
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I believe it is simply a normal sound change - googling it in japanese (with access to yahoo chiebukuro) brings up this response:
方言でも何でもない。単なる「撥音便」
＜撥音便の例＞
・盛りに→盛んに
The definition of 撥音便 is :
「び」「に」「り」等が撥音(はつおん)に変わる音便。
I.e., it is just a normal sound change and not a grammatical one. Presumably because she is shocked so speaking quickly. There is a similar change with negations in 関西弁 but that is a little different. I believe that is where the confusion is coming from.
(Disclaimer－this is an educated guess and I don’t actually know this 100%, although I have seen this ん sound change come up before - it could easily be some dialect thing as well but…interesting conversation)
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すんの is weird. But for stuff like 行くん, where there’s a whole verb and an ん, it’s super easy. It’s just shortened 行くの.
And my point was, do you need a grammar explanation for gonna/wanna? Not sure if you’re native, but I am not and I personally never asked what is gonna/wanna because I understood it. Same thing here. You know すんの is するの. It’s not a complex grammar point. My best bet it’s probably just sloppy language.
There seems to be a lot of questions for exactly this on Japanese yahoo, but sadly I don’t have access to it. Those could be very helpful if you could manage to view them. Or someone more knowledgable could answer this question. I tried googling it quickly but found nothing useful.
(I asked a 国語 teacher and they confirmed this is just 撥音便.)
Agree with anything mentioned previously.
It also happens with other verbs ending in る e.g. 走る、喋る、来る.
From personal experience, I’ve often heard it used together with the negative demand な.（終止形 + な）
例：
廊下で走んなよ！
Do not run in the hallway!
こっちに二度と来んな！
Don’t ever come here again!
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In those cases, “らん” is typically Kansai-ben
いらない => いらん
しらない => しらん
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