I’m just wondering about one of the example sentences in そうに/そうな. The problem sentence is
優しそうに犬を撫でた
I don’t get why this is 優しそうに and not 優しそうな. According to the structure chart, an i-adjective followed by a noun should be そうな, so why in this case is it a に? Clearly 犬 is a noun.
Maybe I’m just missing something because I’m very tired
If you look at the English translation it says:
She pet the dog in a way that seemed affectionate.
Meaning 優しそう is describing the act of petting rather than the dog. Thus its 優しそうに…撫でた.
優しそうな犬 would mean She petted the seemingly gentle dog.
This sentence is a bit ambiguous if you don’t see the English. I think the hint should be changed to include “in a way that seemed” so that you can see it’s modifying the verb, NOT the noun. It’s a tricky sentence but I think it’s a good one, it breaks you out of thinking that it’s always what comes directly after that matters.
(Also I think it should be petted not pet but I keep saying both sentences over and over and for some reason pet sounds okay? Why? )
Ah thanks for that. I did look at the English but I must have blocked that out as I remember the sentence talking about a seemingly gentle dog. Maybe because I’m always petting seemingly gentle dogs that are left locked up outside the supermarket.
(It’s past tense so it definitely should be petted but both sound fine in my mind too)