Monday, May 27, 2019

Dropping particles in casual speech/songs


Hey i was listening to this song And it felt weird for me when one of these lines seemed to lack a particle, I am wondering if it is lacking one and it is ok to do so since it is a song, or if there was no need to a particle in there...


[君の前前前世から僕は君を探し始めたよ]


Why can I say 探し始めた without a particle, would it be ok to say 探しを始めた?


Is it perhaps like the difference between "I began to look for" vs "I began looking for" ?


When it's ok to drop a particle in casual speech? I know that if my sentence contains only one "が" particle it'd not be ok to drop it, but what about sentences with more particles?


Thanks in advance



Answer



No particle has been omitted in your example sentence. You can not say masu-stem + を始める in the first place (unless the "verb" is actually a lexicalized noun derived from some verb (eg 支払い = payment, 戦い = battle)).


Regardless of whether it's in speech or not, masu-stem + 始める is the right way of saying "start to [verb]", and there must not be any particle in between.




  • 歩き始める start to walk

  • 見始める start to watch

  • 食べ始める start to eat


Don't ask me why. Japanese language has tons of 複合動詞 (compound verbs) which just look like this; 走り出す, 飛び立つ, 動き回る, 出払う, and so on.


Not to be confused with subsidiary verbs, which are small in number, and always follow the te-form of another verb.


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