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Off the top of my head I remember hearing these sentences, which I assume are just shortenings:

すみません, 分からん

絶対許さん!

Along with these two I've seen in sentence examples:

もう我慢できん

彼にはその文の意味が理解できんかった - this one is a little funky, since there is no complete ない->ん conversion, but instead なかった->んかった

Is this kind of shortening common? Can one always shorten a verb-ending ない to ん?

Daniel Safari
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2 Answers2

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The ん negative ending is a contraction of sorts of classical negative ending ぬ, precursor to modern ない. It's still pretty common. As illustration of this, the Microsoft IME gives 食べん as a valid conversion option after typing in taben, or 飲まん for noman.

Note that する with the negative ん is not しん, but instead せん, as again the negative ん is from classical ぬ, and the classical negative form of する is せぬ.

(蛇足: I think this せん was another layer of pun in the shortened name of the title character in Spirited Away.)

In addition, the ん in the polite negative ending ません is this same ぬ > ん contraction. ます for the most part conjugates in a similar way as する, with the classical negative ませぬ.

Occasionally, modern ない itself will contract to just ん without coming from the classical ぬ, as in the common informal contraction じゃん from ではない, or as in the なかった > んかった shift mentioned in the question. As a verb ending, though, negative ending ん is usually from classical negative ぬ.

Edit:

じゃん is sometimes explained as a contraction of ではない, where では becomes じゃ and ない becomes ん. Phonologically, the first half is well-established and accepted where で + は shifts to じゃ, but the ない > ん shift remains unexplained. A more likely sound shift would be based on the older phrases ではあらぬ or ではあらむ. あらぬ aranu is the older verb-based version of modern negative ない nai, meaning "[there | it] isn't", while あらむ aramu with an m sound is the older version of modern presumptive あろう arō, meaning "isn't [there | it]", confirming with the listener.

Semantically, modern じゃん is used either in a negative sense, or in a confirmation sense, matching these two older verb forms.

Phonetically, both あらぬ and あらむ were known to contract to あらん aran. So ではあらぬ / ではあらむ > じゃあらん. The corruption of -あらん to -あん can be observed in the slang of some modern speakers, such as 分からん > 分かん. So じゃあらん > じゃん.

So ultimately, I don't think there is any diachronic (i.e. historical) foundation for ない itself turning into ん directly. Instead, we see the precursor to ない, classical ぬ, turning into ん via clearly observable contraction processes.

Eiríkr Útlendi
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    @Erikr Utlendi: This is a very informative answer but do you have any comment on how it is most commonly used among speakers of 標準語? Off the top of my head I would have said it was for concluding sentences in abrupt decisive manner. – Tim May 31 '14 at 00:16
  • Ah, yes, in terms of social register, this is a step below the plain ない ending: more informal, more casual. My sense is that this is not necessarily decisive, but definitely informal. Consider two friends talking: 「公園に行く？」「分からん。宿題もあるし。」 Here, 分からん could be construed as similar to English *dunno*: informal speech, but not necessarily rude if used in the correct social context. – Eiríkr Útlendi May 31 '14 at 00:25
  • Also, Kansai still keeps the older ぬ, while already quite long ago Kantō started using ない. In fact Kantō never ever used ぬ as the negative: the classical one was なふ (conjugated as 四段, some believe ない came from the 連用形 of that). So it seems very likely ん is a (contraction of a) Kansai loan, and gets all the connotations Kansai loans get. – ithisa May 31 '14 at 01:43
  • Some of Kansai keeps it, not all - the stereotypical Kansai negative is -へん, a soundchanged form of the above-mentioned せぬ. – Sjiveru May 31 '14 at 01:53
  • (also, the theory I'm aware of is that -ない is from 無い - this explains better why -ない works like an adjective.) – Sjiveru May 31 '14 at 05:19
  • @Sjiveru Of course that's the most obvious theory, but it's interesting that throughout Japan's history the location of the ぬ・へん vs なふ・ない division was so consistent. My point still stands that Kantō never used ぬ. – ithisa May 31 '14 at 08:22
  • @user54609 I'd be interested to see a map of the distribution of なふ. I know for a fact that ぬ and へん aren't coterminous, though. – Sjiveru May 31 '14 at 22:36
  • @user54609, Sjiveru, Shogakukan notes: [打消を表す「ない」の]起源は、上代東国語の助動詞「なふ」であるとする考え方がある。ただし、「ない」は文献上室町末から関東方言としてあらわれるが、上代との間を結びつける証例は得られない。→なう。 *The origin [of* nai *expressing negation] is thought by some to be the ancient eastern Japanese dialect auxiliary verb* nafu *. However,* nai *citations appear as Kantō dialect from the late Muromachi period [1336–1573], and no evidence can be found to tie this to ancient Japanese. →* nau. – Eiríkr Útlendi Jun 02 '14 at 19:21
  • @Sjiveru, user54609, then under *nau*, Shogakukan notes: （活用は「なは・○・なふ・なへ・なへ・○」。動詞の未然形に付く。打消の助動詞「ず」の未然形「な」に継続の助動詞「ふ」が付いてできたものと考えられ、助動詞「ない」の祖形かといわれる）上代東国方言。打消の意を表す。…ない。＊万葉‐三四二六「会津嶺の国をさ遠みあは奈波（ナハ）ば」 *Conjugates as* naha, -, nafu, nahe, nahe, - *. Attaches to the imperfective form of verbs. Thought to be derived as the imperfective form* na *of negation auxiliary* zu *to which attached the continuative auxiliary* fu *; said to be the predecessor of auxiliary* nai. – Eiríkr Útlendi Jun 02 '14 at 19:28
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    Given the differences in conjugation, and the sizable historical lacuna, I'm much more inclined to think that auxiliary *nai* from older *nashi* was basically as use of the adjective, rather than as any direct derivative of *nafu*. I'm certainly open to the possibility that *nashi* arose as some kind of adjectivization of *nu*. I am also quite curious now as to what was used to mark negatives in the Kantō between the last citation of *nafu* and the first citation of *nashi*. – Eiríkr Útlendi Jun 02 '14 at 19:34
  • I was wondering if -napu wasn't -n- + -ap-, thank you ^_^ – Sjiveru Jun 02 '14 at 19:56
  • @EiríkrÚtlendi "A History of the Japanese Language" speculates something like 書きはない > 書きゃない > 書かない with the match with 未然形 being a coincidence. This of course happened far after なし became ない. I personally find this far-fetched... – ithisa Jun 03 '14 at 02:23
  • I still don't think that なき/なし would be used before both merged to ない though. There are exactly zero citations of 未然形+なし or 未然形+なき. – ithisa Jun 04 '14 at 01:25
  • @user54609: Interesting addendum in Shogakukan: 近世後期の江戸語では、打消は「ない」より「ぬ」が一般的であるが、国定教科書では尋常小学読本（明治四〇年）以来、「ない」が優位を占めるようになり、今日普通の口語文では、特別の場合のほか、ほとんど「ない」である。 *In late modern Edo speech, the negative* nu *was more common than* nai *, but since [the adoption of] the ordinary elementary reader as national textbook (in Meiji 40 [1907]),* nai *became dominant, and in today's regular verbal speech, outside of special cases,* nai *is almost always used.* So yes, as an auxiliary, it looks like older classical forms *naki, nashi* were probably not used. FWIW, I also find Frellesvig's theory far-fetched. – Eiríkr Útlendi Jun 04 '14 at 15:23
  • @EiríkrÚtlendi It would still be incredibly interesting to see what Kantō used after なふ and before ない. Edo speech is really a mix of Kantō and Kansai, so using ぬ is not indicative of Kantō speech. At least in the Muromachi period, we have clear citations that west uses ぬ while east uses ない, in addition to many things still reflected (さ・へ, ーた・った, せ・し for 未然形 of する, 〜う・〜く, etc) – ithisa Jun 05 '14 at 02:10
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    Unfortunately people seemed to stop writing down Kantō Japanese after the Old Japanese period, with standard Classical Japanese being purely based on Kansai Early Middle Japanese. – ithisa Jun 05 '14 at 02:10
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It is 〜ない being shortened to 〜ん, but only under certain circumstances. Specifically, it's in cases where Type I verbs ending in 〜る use the 〜ない form. For example:

  • 分からない -> 分からん
  • 知らない -> 知らん
  • 蘇らない【よみがえらない】 -> 蘇らん

Also related to this is 〜aんない, which is more of a simple slurring wherein ら gets dropped. For example:

  • 分からない -> 分かんない
  • 知らない -> 知んない
  • 蘇らない -> 蘇んない
Kaji
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  • For the curious, my IME *did* produce the forms for 蘇る without any difficulty. Wanted a third example verb and it was the first one that came to mind offhand. Slightly surprising one, really, since most -eru verbs are Type II... – Kaji May 31 '14 at 00:31
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    蘇る is a compound, derived from 黄泉{よみ} "land of the dead" + 帰{かえ}る "to return from somewhere". Since source verb 帰る is 五段, so too is 蘇る. – Eiríkr Útlendi May 31 '14 at 00:37
  • Ah, that makes sense. I'd never known the etymology for it previously. – Kaji May 31 '14 at 00:43
  • The ん in じゃん may be from ない, but the verb-ending ん doesn't appear to be. Shogakukan's etymology for verb-ending negative ん notes: 「打消の助動詞「ず」の終止形と連体形とが共に「ぬ」となり、その変化したもの」. The pattern of ぬ changing to ん also agrees with established phonetic shifts in Japanese, whereas there is less of a clear mechanism for ない to become ん. For that matter, あらぬ was used classically as the negative for ある, so じゃん could conceivably derive from ではあらぬ instead of ではない, which would make more sense phonetically. – Eiríkr Útlendi May 31 '14 at 00:45
  • @EiríkrÚtlendi: FYI, `よみ` can also be written as `陰府`. – istrasci Jul 17 '14 at 18:16