"なし" used for both animate and inanimate things?


I was so surprised to read:

> 孝行をしたい時分に親は **なし** 。

( **paraphrase** ) _When one finally wants to truly fulfill the obligation to
his/her parents, they often have already passed away._

( _note_ ): I would have said " **親たち** ", but that is not the real question I
have. anyway...

I had expected:

> 孝行をしたい時分に親は **いなし** 。

How about this example sentence:

> 日本人なしで、お店に入った。

This example is not a "set phrase" and uses "なし" for an animate thing

  * That such a massive paraphrase was requited means that sentence is more of a "set phrase"?
  * "無し{なし}" is used for both inanimate things and animate things?




There's two reasons.

Historically, 無し (modern ない) wasn't the negative form of ある but an adjective
in its own right (meaning 'absent', and valid for any subject). The negative
form of ある was あらず. Naturally, these words meant mostly the same thing, and
over time あらず was fully replaced (in Kantou Japanese at least) with ない, which
later went on (in Kantou Japanese only) to be incorporated into other verbs as
the negative marker -ない.

Also historically, あり (modern ある) was used for both animate and inanimate
subjects. Modern いる (historical ゐる) was a verb meaning 'sit, stay' that became
first an honorific and then an animate version of あり.

The necessity of using いない with animates is a result of a combination of two
things: いる restricting ある to inanimates; and ない being reanalysed as the
negative form of ある, invalidating its use with animate subjects. なし here is a
leftover of historical uses of what became ない, and so it doesn't matter
whether the subject is animate or not.

(also, いなし is not a word; the historical negative 終止形 is first -ず and later -ぬ
(the old 連体形), and thus the historical negative form of ゐる would be ゐず.)




There's two reasons.

Historically, 無し (modern ない) wasn't the negative form of ある but an adjective
in its own right (meaning 'absent', and valid for any subject). The negative
form of ある was あらず. Naturally, these words meant mostly the same thing, and
over time あらず was fully replaced (in Kantou Japanese at least) with ない, which
later went on (in Kantou Japanese only) to be incorporated into other verbs as
the negative marker -ない.

Also historically, あり (modern ある) was used for both animate and inanimate
subjects. Modern いる (historical ゐる) was a verb meaning 'sit, stay' that became
first an honorific and then an animate version of あり.

The necessity of using いない with animates is a result of a combination of two
things: いる restricting ある to inanimates; and ない being reanalysed as the
negative form of ある, invalidating its use with animate subjects. なし here is a
leftover of historical uses of what became ない, and so it doesn't matter
whether the subject is animate or not.

(also, いなし is not a word; the historical negative 終止形 is first -ず and later -ぬ
(the old 連体形), and thus the historical negative form of ゐる would be ゐず.)

