Resources or guides for all the negative forms?

Japanese
#1

I suppose it’s very Japanese to have a million ways to say that something is not possible or cannot be done. But I often find myself confused with the many negative forms, like do I use なくて、ないで、ないと、some differ only by a few particles, and in fact, they’re all so jumbled in my head that I can’t even produce any concrete examples for you!

Is there any “all in one place” guide that breaks down these forms? They’re spread across the Bunpro lessons but I didn’t see a collection for “here are all the ways to say something can’t be done, and here are their differences”.

#2

Realize that ない itself is a dependent inflectable part of speech. Dependent means that it attaches to a “base” of an inflectable part of speech (verb or adjective). Inflectable in the case of ない means that it conjugates like other “い” adjectives.

There are six bases, they are as followed:

  • 未然形 (Irrealis form)
  • 連用形 (Continuative form; godan verbs and adjectives have 2 variations of this)
  • 終止形 (Terminal form; this is what you see in dictionaries)
  • 連体形 (Attributive form)
  • 仮定形 (Hypothetical form)
  • 命令形 (Command form)

White: Word stem
Blue: Base/ inflectional ending
Red: Auxiliary or particle
Purple: Word being modified

Conjugation chart for the godan verb 買う

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Conjugation chart for い adjectives 美しい and 青い

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Conjugation chart for the auxiliary ない (notice how it conjugates the same way an い adjective does?)
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The conjugation chart for ぬ/ん (other auxiliary for expressing negatives)
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Sourced from 国語文法 site

As for なくて and ないで they are negative variations of the て form and generally can be summed up like this

なくて:

  • Listing a series (that being events, traits, etc)
    甘く無くて、全然美味しくない。

  • Marking contrast
    会社員じゃなくて、労働者です

  • Cause and effect
    バスが来なくて、困った

ないで:

  • Doing Y without doing X
    朝ごはんを食べないで学校に行く
    X = 朝ごはんを食べないで
    Y = 学校に行く

  • Doing Y instead of X
    コーヒーを飲まないでジュースを飲んだ
    X = コーヒーを飲まないで
    Y = ジュースを飲んだ

  • Used for commands
    行かないで
    行かないでください
    行かないでほしい

For a more detail looked and more examples of なくて and ないで please read this article.

As for ないと, my guess is in your question particle と here is being used for its conditional meaning Y is inevitable when X happens. Used for general truths and habits.

#3

ないと on its own can also mean ないといけない.

Bunpro has a separate grammar point on this.