Tuesday, August 08, 2006

得る・得ない expressing possibility

得る・得ない: The classical equivalent of ことができる/ことができない

Aside from using あり得ない fairly frequently, this is a word that I don't see very often.
Anyone care to share some experience using the the two?

Some words that can be used in much the same way are:
ことができる
可能性がある
可能だ
and the potential form.

例文:
先生が間違えるということがあり得る
先生は間違えることができる。
先生は間違える可能性がある。
先生は間違える可能だ。
先生は間違えられる。

How, if so, are these sentences different in meaning, nuance and usage?

5 comments:

jljzen88 said...

この点はもうマスターになっちゃったのは、あり得ないよ!
ところで、どのように「得をする」という言葉を使いますか?

Anonymous said...

Lol nobody answered. Well to be honest I don't know the difference in nuance between them but I'm gonna try to find out...

Maybe we can discuss it on Sat!

Anonymous said...

こんにちは。

×先生は間違えることができる。
  意味はわかるが、使わない日本語

×先生は間違える可能だ。
  文法的にダメ

×先生は間違えられる。
  可能ではなく、受身の意味ならOK

 あの先生は、若く見えるので、よく事務の人に、学生に間違えられる。(学生だと思われる)

Anonymous said...

from what my teacher has told me, classically, できる expresses the possibility due to ability, for example:
日本語ができる
However, 得る expresses possibility due to a condition. I'm not good with this form yet, but I'll hazard a guess:
空に雲がないので雨が振り得ない
... something like that.
He also said that now the ability/condition rule has become less strong, and the two can be used somewhat interchangeably (if you do use 得る), but I'd probably advise sticking to it cause then it's harder to go wrong.

Unknown said...

oops, that was mean to be 降り得ない!