Monday, September 25, 2017

grammar - What exactly is this でね construction?


Screen shot from a video game


The following dialogue is from the video game Final Fantasy VI:



宿屋{やどや}の[親父]{おやじ}は、[余所者]{よそもの}が[嫌]{きら}いでね



I think I understand this sentence. It means something like "the old man at the inn doesn't like outsiders". But I'm not sure why it ends with でね (as opposed to, say, だよ). I can tell that it's the -te form of the copula plus the particle , but I'm not sure exactly when this combination is used.


I couldn't find discussion of ending sentences with in dictionaries, or any explanation of the combination でね. So I decided to look for examples online. I found these on ALC and in the Tanaka corpus:




「それは私が知っているある海賊の名前でね。」
"It's the name of a buccaneer of my acquaintance"


「ああ、ただの黙想でね
"O, it's just a retreat, you know"


「いやぁ、昨日は入れ食いでねえ。」
"They were biting like crazy yesterday."



Based on these four examples, it seems like でね is used to present new information. I feel like I'm missing some nuance or implication, though. (I tried looking for similar combinations with other particles instead of , but I couldn't find any.)


What exactly does でね mean in sentences like these?



EDIT: After posting this, I found てね in 大辞林, but I don't think the meaning fits what I'm seeing here... It says 「相手に対するやや甘えた依頼や希望を表す。てよ。」, but these sentences don't look like they express 依頼 or 希望.



Answer



でね is the continuative form of だ plus the "interjectory particle" (間投助詞) ね. (Works just as well with the continuative of any other verb.)


で is usually used to connect to phrases, but when the speaker is too excited about the first part already, s/he wants to affirm it with ね. In fact, でね can be used at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence.


At the beginning, it could be interpreted as 「それで、…」.


In the middle, it really just is ascertaining the versatility of ね, which is used as interjection (and is expected to be confirmed with うん).


At the end the use is the same again, just the rest of the sentence is being omitted.


Only in the last case, the listener has to read into the speaker's mind of what the conclusion of the 「…で」 part should have been. E.g.



俺のこと嫌いって言ってね、本当にムカつくんだよ。

She told me she hated me, that old windbag.



becomes



俺のこと嫌いて言ってね。まぁ、とにかく、結婚するか今のとこは分からない。
She told me she hated me, but... In any case, I'm not sure we will actually get married.



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