Why isn't Attributive/Predicative forms used for the structure section in grammar points?

Bunpro
#1

I just learnt about them today.

Attributive/Predicative forms

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Looking at the “Structure” section

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Why not just replace it with:

  • attributive form + 点(で)

Instead of remembering 4 rules, now I only have to remember one.

It might also helps with confusion about when to use だ, な, and の after a noun.

I was frequently mis-remembering what to use…

点(で) Grammar point - You use の after a noun because it needs the Attributive form.
けど Grammar point - You use だ after a noun because it needs the Predicative form.
のに Grammar point - You use な after a noun because it needs the Attributive form of a full sentence. Sentences don’t end with a noun. Instead, you do noun + だ. The Attributive form of だ is
な.

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#2

The main reason for this is the same reason that we don’t just put ‘Standard form’ (普通形) in many of the structure boxes, despite grammar points often using that particular form exclusively. It requires students to memorize grammatical terminology, and historically most users do not like being forced to do that.

I completely understand your point though and feel like this would also be a better/neater method. Another problem is when to introduce that particular terminology. Do we start using it right at the beginning of N5, or around N3 when people might be a bit more open to it? Tough call.

Edit - We do very often use terminology like 連体形 (attributive form), 連用形 (conjunctive form), etc in the actual writeups for grammar points though.

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#3

For what it’s worth, I like the use of these terms, but I’ve always found it confusing that that terminology is sprinkled throughout the site even though there isn’t a formal introduction to it or a dedicated section explaining what it all means (at least as far as I can tell).

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#4

We are actually working on a super secret new product at the moment which will introduce these fully in addition to many other things. Can’t really say much more than that :upside_down_face:

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#5

I’ll keep my eyes peeled :eyes:

1 Like
#6

While I do see the advantage, I must say I very much prefer the way it’s written right now. It’s as Asher says, seeing things explained with grammatical terminology is a bit of a barrier for me. It may have to do with the fact that English isn’t my first language. (Though I imagine there are native English speakers who aren’t too fond of technical grammatical theory either.) I find the overview with noun/verb/phrase/i-adj/na-adj is pretty accessible as it doesn’t require me to take an extra translation step to remember what an attributive form or predicative form is.

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