So-called の-adjectives - how does の *really* work?


Ok, so there seems to be some controversy over whether we can really say that
there are 'の-adjectives', or whether we simply use a noun in an "attributive"
way (a term which I don't actually really understand). But it's clear that
there's something interesting going on here, a deviation from the "default"
understanding of の (as marking the genitive case), and I'd like some
clarification.

Let's look at what seems to be for whatever the classical example:

○ 「永遠の愛」 "eternal love"

It's clear that we can't just apply the pattern "X の Y ⇔ Y of X" here*. But
what is really going on? How do we know that the usual pattern doesn't apply
here - is it contextual? A matter of set-phrasing? Is it because 永遠, being
abstract, would need to be reified to be used in the normal way?

* It's worth noting that the pattern doesn't even hold in English here, which **does** seem to be a special case.

"love of eternity" - a strange thing to talk about, but in English,
reification is implicit so this works just as well as "love of gold".

But what is more strange is that with "love" in particular, this doesn't have
the normal genitive-case meaning - an English speaker parses "love of gold"
not as the love which is expressed by gold, but love such that gold is the
thing that is loved. Similarly for "eternity", following the same role.

And it doesn't even work the same way with similar words... * _"desire/lust of
gold"_ \- should be "desire/lust **for** gold". But regardless, a love which
is eternal is not the same thing as a love which is expressed by (belongs to,
really; but in what other sense can love be possessed than by expressing it?)
eternity-seen-as-an-entity, which would be the default interpretation of the
pattern.

What happens in Japanese with that example? 「金の愛」 - grammatical? How would it
be interpreted? How about with explicit reification (「金のことの愛」・「金のものの愛」）？

And how literal is it to translate 「永遠の」 as "eternal"? Can we describe what's
going on here more pedantically? What determines our ability to use a noun
this way with の?

And am I getting too philosophical? :)




As I understand it, the term “no-adjective” simply means “nouns which are
typically translated to adjectives in English and other languages.” If we
treat Japanese as a language in its own right, distinguishing them from nouns
as different parts-of-speech is completely artificial.

The particle の makes a modifier of a noun. The exact relationship between the
modifier and the modified noun can be almost anything;
[Daijisen](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/171157/m0u/%E3%81%AE/) lists
fourteen relationships such as ownership, belonging, location of existence,
location of action, time, and so on, and one of them is “attribute and
condition.”

> [瀕死]{ひんし}の[重傷]{じゅうしょう} a life-threatening injury  
>  [縦]{たて}じまのシャツ a shirt with vertical stripes

(The examples are from Daijisen, the English translation of the first example
is by [FumbleFingers](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/38783/is-it-
correct-to-say-he-got-a-fatal-injury-in-the-accident-when-there-is-a-
pos/38785#38785) on english.stackexchange.com, and the translation of the
second example is by me.)

The の in 永遠の愛 is the same thing. The noun [永遠]{えいえん} (eternity) is turned to a
modifier 永遠の, and it describes an attribute of the love.




As I understand it, the term “no-adjective” simply means “nouns which are
typically translated to adjectives in English and other languages.” If we
treat Japanese as a language in its own right, distinguishing them from nouns
as different parts-of-speech is completely artificial.

The particle の makes a modifier of a noun. The exact relationship between the
modifier and the modified noun can be almost anything;
[Daijisen](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/171157/m0u/%E3%81%AE/) lists
fourteen relationships such as ownership, belonging, location of existence,
location of action, time, and so on, and one of them is “attribute and
condition.”

> [瀕死]{ひんし}の[重傷]{じゅうしょう} a life-threatening injury  
>  [縦]{たて}じまのシャツ a shirt with vertical stripes

(The examples are from Daijisen, the English translation of the first example
is by [FumbleFingers](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/38783/is-it-
correct-to-say-he-got-a-fatal-injury-in-the-accident-when-there-is-a-
pos/38785#38785) on english.stackexchange.com, and the translation of the
second example is by me.)

The の in 永遠の愛 is the same thing. The noun [永遠]{えいえん} (eternity) is turned to a
modifier 永遠の, and it describes an attribute of the love.

