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I came across the following sentence

ところで、リー君はどうして忙しいの？

translated as

By the way, Lee-kun, why are you busy?

If the の is left out, what's the difference in 'feel' or implication? That is, why is the sentence above different from

ところで、リー君はどうして忙しい？

From what I've read, の seeks more explanation and context, but for a 'why' question, is an explanation not already expected? What purpose does the の play in the first sentence?

user154989
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  • Some insight [here](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/11914/is-ending-question-sentences-with-%E3%81%AE-really-feminine) – BJCUAI May 17 '18 at 00:33

2 Answers2

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You can use 「の」 to ask a question in japanese as simply.

For example:

ご飯を食べているの？

is meaning same as

ご飯を食べていますか。

you also can ask reason with 「なぜ...の」. which is meaning same as 「どうして...んですか」

なぜ学校へ行かないの

give a order, very similar to 「しなさい」

みんな話さないで、よく聞くの！

-1

の is a nominalizer in this case. Which means that it makes of the followed proposition a noun.

If you know what 「のだ」 is, then you will not have any problem understanding this one, because they are the same の.

どうして忙しい？ : Why are you busy?

どうして忙しいの？ : Why is it that you're busy?

That is why in some situations and with the right intonation, a question with の may sound a bit girly, because it sounds more pushy than a question without it.

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Breton Loïc
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  • I downvoted this but after some further research, I'd like to retract my downvote... but I'm still not sure if this is correct. (see https://okwave.jp/qa/q3897237.html making the case for and http://www.geocities.jp/niwasaburoo/19shuujosi.html　seeming to make the case against as far as I can read it) – virmaior Jul 18 '18 at 14:53
  • Why would you even downvote without knowing whether it's correct or not in the first place? There isn't 50 type of ending-particle の, the only thing that makes people think there are multiple different の is the different appellation we give to the same thing. Now I can understand the downvote because it's a pretty short answer, but IMO it got the point better than the accepted answer that basically says that いるの？ is the same as いますか。 which is only the case semantically. @virmaior – Breton Loïc Jul 18 '18 at 18:26
  • I think you're misunderstanding me on multiple fronts here. My initial sense was that this is not correct, but then I doubted my initial sense and checked several resources since it seems like an intriguing interpretation. Some resources agreed, I wanted to retract the downvote. For many sources, nominalization is not the only interpretation and nominalization by itself doesn't make very much sense as to why something is a question. – virmaior Jul 18 '18 at 22:05
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    What the other answer has that yours lacks is that the interpretation of how の works in questions is a shortening of のかい rather than just magically functioning like a question itself... – virmaior Jul 18 '18 at 22:07
  • The nominalization in itself has nothing to do with the fact that it's a question. The question was about what the particle adds to a question with this kind of pattern "どうして忙しいの？". I think I answered that pretty well with the example translations I added. @virmaior – Breton Loïc Jul 18 '18 at 22:15
  • Also の isnt a shortening of のかい, の is just の without だ, just like you can say きれい！ instead of きれいだ！. What makes it a question is the intonation, and the context. – Breton Loïc Jul 18 '18 at 22:16
  • I'm not quite following why you are **confident** that の can function as a question ending without being the shortening of のかい. Are you sure your knowledge of Japanese linguistics is higher than the second link on my comment? It states 「疑問の場合は「～のか（い）」の省略した形と考えられます。」 ... Isn't how it's realized as a question a legitimate linguistics question? (it would seem so to me). Nominalization by itself makes no sense as a complete explanation of how it becomes a question (otherwise こと would also magically produce questions, no?) and how its meaning differs from its absence. – virmaior Jul 18 '18 at 22:37
  • 疑問の場合は「～のか（い）」の省略した形と考えられます basically means that "it can be seen as being a shortening of ～のか（い）" but it doesn't say that it is necessarily a shortening of ～のか（い）. And I admit reading again my answer that its not very clear, and I answered the question assuming that the person knew the nuance that の adds in the のだ pattern to make it easier to understand. My main point wasn't that the nominalizer was what made it be a question, but rather that の？ in a question was no different from the の in のだ. Because the op seemed to know what のだ means – Breton Loïc Jul 18 '18 at 23:38
  • You're confusing 敬語の受け身 with academic writing in your translation there. – virmaior Jul 19 '18 at 00:07
  • I wasn't translating it literally though, just translating the whole point – Breton Loïc Jul 19 '18 at 16:13
  • In fact, this answer explains the core of の and is very much correct. The OP asks about why the inclusion of の and why the explanatory tone it brings but this answer is exactly why. The nuance in the meaning that の creates is exactly why it can be used to soften a question tone or to explain something. I don't get the downvotes. – dvx2718 Aug 01 '21 at 16:15