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Is な particle allowed to be used after common nouns (i.e non na-adjectives) for whatever reasons, e.g. cuteness, trendy, humor etc?

Dictionary@goo website seems to use (normal noun)+な in a couple of the column names:

Is this kind of ungrammatical usage of な particle allowed in publication?

Lukman
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  • This is an excellent question on the line between nouns and those adjectives which "are really just nouns"! – hippietrail Jun 27 '11 at 03:45
  • I'm not quite sure how a native speaker gets what they did on Dictionary@goo, but the line between な-adjectives and noun is definitely blurry, so it wouldn't be too surprising. – Boaz Yaniv Jun 27 '11 at 07:11
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    `な particle` -- The な in 「Japanなニュース」「ニュースな英語」 is the attributive form of the auxiliary (or copula) だ, not the particle な, right? – Chocolate Dec 12 '18 at 17:12

1 Answers1

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This may not be the "standard" way to use な, but I don't see anything particularly wrong with it, especially considering how it can shorten titles and save space. JAPANなニュース and ニュースな英語 sound better than JAPANに関するニュース and ニュースに出てくる英語, don't they?

For a more extreme example of this non-standard な, you can look at the way Yui Horie signs off of her weekly radio show, 天使のたまご. This is from the June 26th, 2011 show:

この時間のお相手は「そんなにたくさん恋愛の石をつけててダメだったらどうしよう？」な堀江由衣でした。

Everything in the 「」 (which she changes every week) is wrapped up by the な and used to modify 堀江由衣. Of course, just because she uses な this way doesn't mean you can start throwing なs around like shurikens in a ninja fight, but it goes to show that there are more ways to use な than are in the dictionary.

Derek Schaab
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    Any reason why they did not simply use の? Does using な over the standard particle の provide additional nuance/emphasis? – Lukman Jun 27 '11 at 15:26
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    @Lukman: I can only speculate on that, but to me な feels less "specific" than の. To use the ニュースな英語 example, I would interpret ニュースの英語 as simply "English in the news", but ニュースな英語 sounds more like "English with a news-y feel". (Because after all, by turning something into an adjective you're assigning a certain quality, attribute, or feeling to something else.) – Derek Schaab Jun 27 '11 at 15:52
  • @Derek btw any reason why they did not simply use no particles, as such: JAPANニュース instead of JAPANなニュース ? – Pacerier Jun 28 '11 at 15:57
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    @Pacerier: That sounds purely stylistic to me, and I think to get an answer you'd have to crawl into the editor's mind. :) – Derek Schaab Jun 28 '11 at 16:11