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How do I make sense of the 終助詞 もん as in

おいしいもん
そうなんだもん

Although I have only heard it in 時代劇 speak, I guess it comes from もの, which I think should be も + の.

But what も can follow the 終止形 and what の can follow that も. Is も the same も that roughly means "also"? Is の the nominalizer の here?

P.S. I am not asking what it means, when it is used, etc. I want to know how to make sense of it grammatically. At the moment, it has also been suggested that もん・もの derived from 物, but it seems to follow different rules than what one would expect of a particle derived from a noun.

Earthliŋ
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    名詞の「もの」から来てるんだも～ん^^（物??） http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/219750/m0u/ –  Apr 12 '13 at 14:42
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    @summea But そんなもん makes grammatical sense since そんな is allowed to modify a noun. Why can we have ~だもん? For example, とき is a particle that derives from 時, but is still modified like a normal noun. – Earthliŋ Apr 12 '13 at 22:41
  • @summea So in case (2), もん is もの. In case (1), everyone seems to agree that もん is もの (物). But it follows no special rule that would confirm that it should be a noun. Btw, not really part of the question, but I don't think it's decidedly feminine. Maybe childlike is a better characterization. – Earthliŋ Apr 12 '13 at 23:32
  • @user1205935 Actually, for the particle case (case 1) I don't think it particularly relates to 物... that's for case 2 :) Sorry if I didn't write that clearly. Children (or someone trying to be like a child) could use もん, I suppose, but I hear it most often from female speakers. It's just not something I would normally hear from a male speaker... unless it was used as a joke... or maybe used in a direct quote from someone else... etc. (although this could change in the future...) – summea Apr 12 '13 at 23:45
  • @user1205935 If it helps any, here's another dictionary entry for もん that might further help to explain the usage difference: http://gokanji.com/cgi-bin/j-e/euc/dosearch?sDict=on&H=PS&L=J&T=%A4%E2%A4%F3&WC=none When it comes down to it, there may not (in this case, perhaps,) be a clear explanation (historical, linguistic-based, or otherwise) as to how もん ended up being used as a particle at the end of a sentence; languages can be funny like that, sometimes... – summea Apr 13 '13 at 00:12
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    http://dspace.wul.waseda.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2065/32267/1/BungakuKenkyukaKiyo_54_03_Matsuda.pdf –  Apr 13 '13 at 02:44
  • @snailplane Interesting examples given in that link; especially those in Part 6 (in particular, the substitution possibilities given for もん at the end of a sentence... as well as the sometimes-implied dissatisfaction expressed with that sort of もん.) – summea Apr 13 '13 at 04:01
  • @Chocolate 知らないんだもん、そんなの。あの貼ってくれたリンクで、「もの」という終助が「物」から由来したことは書いてないと思うんですけど。語源はなんでしょうかね。 – Earthliŋ Apr 13 '13 at 04:39
  • _Makino, Tsutsui: Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar_ gives two kinds of もの: one takes ～なもの and the other (sentence-final) ～たもの(だ). – firtree May 11 '13 at 18:04
  • @firtree ～たもの? How is this related to ～だもの? – Earthliŋ May 11 '13 at 20:16
  • Sorry, just typo. ～だもの. Of course, it can follow the past tense verbs as well. – firtree May 12 '13 at 03:10
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    それは「昔はよく～～したものだ」っていう時の「～たもの(だ)」では？(だって、「おいしいんだものだ」って、言いません *もん* 。^^) –  May 12 '13 at 15:34
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    I agree. This is just 物 as "auxiliary noun", which can be constructed to もん, but is different from ～だもん... – Earthliŋ May 12 '13 at 15:43
  • Out of curiosity, what does もん mean and when is it used? – gbag May 13 '13 at 17:39
  • @gbag The post by user3368 gives an answer to your question. – Earthliŋ May 13 '13 at 19:03
  • possible duplicate of [Ending sentence with ～だもの or ～ですもの](http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2240/ending-sentence-with-%ef%bd%9e%e3%81%a0%e3%82%82%e3%81%ae-or-%ef%bd%9e%e3%81%a7%e3%81%99%e3%82%82%e3%81%ae) – dainichi Feb 05 '14 at 22:00
  • I agree that the questions are quite similar, but the accepted answer on the original question simply states "because it's not a noun, but a particle". I wanted to understand the etymology of the particle, which is not answered by the original question. If I had seen the question before, I would probably have written sth. like "I saw this answer, but it doesn't answer my question about the etymology of もん・もの". In any case, snailplane answered my question. – Earthliŋ Feb 06 '14 at 10:47

2 Answers2

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If I ignore semantics and discuss syntax only, I think that it went like this:

  1. もの was originally 物, a lexical noun (実質名詞), which could be modified by a relative clause ending in 用言の連体形.
  2. It was then grammaticalized into a formal noun (形式名詞), losing its literal meaning but still appearing in the same syntactic position, after a relative clause ending in 用言の連体形.
  3. After the morphophonological merger of 連体形 and 終止形, it was possible to reanalyze 連体形＋もの as 終止形＋もの because the two looked and sounded the same. This in turn made it possible to reanalyze もの as a 終助詞.
  4. Once it was possible for もの to be treated as a 終助詞, it became possible for it to appear after だ.

So now もの (or its contracted form もん) can appear as a 形式名詞 or a 終助詞. And of course the original word 物 is still around.

3

According to the book I have here "All about particles" (Chino, 1991), もの is one of the sentence final particles and its primary meaning is "because" or "reason is." Chino says もの "indicates an excuse, a dissatisfaction, or a desire to be indulged or pampared." I believe もん has the same meaning but used by mainly children and women in casual conversations.

Plain(short) form + もん Often used with んだ.

宿題したくなーい。むずかしいんだもん。

ジェットコースターは乗りたくない・・・。こわいんだもん。

えー買ってくれないの？！じゃあ、いいもん。自分で買うもん。だってどうしてもほしいんだもん！

お母さん：そんなお菓子食べて・・・。おいしいの？

子ども：おいしいもん！（怒）お母さんにはわかんないよ！

Ａ：今日夕飯いらない。

女：えー、一緒に食べようと思って、待って（い）たのにー！もーいいよ！一人で食べるもん！（怒）

user3368
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    Thanks. I know what it means and when it is used. I would like to know why you can say ~だもん which seems to contradict the usual rule of a noun phrase modifying a noun (if that is what it is) with な (or の). – Earthliŋ Apr 12 '13 at 22:38
  • Weird, is there anything that can syntactically follow だ at all? – Pacerier Feb 05 '14 at 05:09
  • @Pacerier I think that some [終助詞](http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E7%B5%82%E5%8A%A9%E8%A9%9E), [接続助詞](http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E6%8E%A5%E7%B6%9A%E5%8A%A9%E8%A9%9E), and [間投助詞](http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E9%96%93%E6%8A%95%E5%8A%A9%E8%A9%9E) can follow だ. –  Feb 05 '14 at 05:46