Sat, 05/01/2010 - 20:25
こんばんは.
When we were discussing negative requests in class, we talked about how で kind of acted like the て form of a negative verb (ie: 今夜運転しないでください).
Would this work in the same context as connecting a negative clause to another clause? For example, would it be:
言わなくていいですよ or 言わないでいいですよ
Or are those two sentences a different kind of construction?
ありがとうございます.
Actually, you will hear both of those phrases pretty commonly. I've never really thought about any difference in nuance... If there is one I think that it's pretty subtle.
Both of those phrases can also use a も particle:
言わなくてもいい
言わないでもいい
You can get a general feel for how common each form is by counting "Googlits"—the number of Google hits that you get when you search for each form. If you try it, put each of the four forms in ASCII quotes (e.g., "言わなくていい") so that you get only exact matches.