Analysis of -tatte/-datte attached to nouns, adjectives and verbs, equivalent to -demo


There is a suffix -tatte/-datte that attaches to nouns, adjectives and verbs:

sensei datte = sensei de mo

hazukashikutatte = hazukashikute mo

yondatte = yonde mo

kitatte = kite mo

And the meaning is uniform across these categories, 'even'.

One explanation of what this -tatte/-datte is derived from, is that 'atte' is
the -te form of 'aru', and this is being attached to the -te form of the
copula, adjectives and verbs respectively, as above.

Japanese grammarians derive 'datte', as it attaches to nouns, as the copula
plus 'tote':

sensei datte <- sensei [da + tote]

the vowel of the syllable 'to' being dropped.

This is not an unreasonable analysis, but how does the traditional approach
handle the cases of adjective and verb forms with this '-tatte/-datte' ending?




In a case of 求めよ、さらば与えられん, given the dearth of answers, we find this:

> たって の解説
>
>
> 《過去の助動詞「た」の終止形に接続助詞「とて」の付いた「たとて」の音変化》動詞・形容詞、一部の助動詞の連用形に付く。ガ・ナ・バ・マ行の五段活用動詞に付く場合は「だって」となる。
> （[デジタル大辞泉](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6/#jn-137398)）

So -tatte/-datte attaches to the 連用形 of verbs, adjectives and certain 助動詞.

This certainly explains examples like 笑われたってかまわない and いくら捜したっているはずがない. And if
you accept that 騒ぐ has two forms of the 連用形, 'sawagi' and 'sawai', then the
analysis is again, valid, for example, いくら騒いだってどうにもならない (and similarly for
ガ・ナ・バ・マ行の五段活用動詞).

The result is that in the meaning of 'even', we have -tatte, and two varieties
of -datte, one which is the copula だ + とて -> だって, and another which arises
from attaching たとて -> たって to (one form of) the 連用形 of ガ・ナ・バ・マ行の五段活用動詞, with
the corresponding voicing た -> だ.

Addendum.

There seems to be a major flaw in the above explanation. which is apparent
when you try to derive the adjective forms, e.g., hoshikutatte 欲しくたって etc.

From 欲しい, the 連用形 is 欲しく, so we attach the past tense morpheme (過去の助動詞「た」),

欲しく ＋ た ➞ (?)欲しくた

(?)欲しくた ＋ とて ➞ (?)欲しくたとて

(?)欲しくたとて ➞ 欲しくたって

This is quite at odds with the derivation of verb forms:

来る ➞ 来（き）

来 ＋ た ➞ 来た

来た ＋ とて ➞ 来たとて

来たとて ➞ 来たって

In no point of the derivation do we have illegal/impossible Japanese, and the
analysis in 大辞泉 does imply that all intermediate forms are valid Japanese.

I consulted Martin's reference grammar and discovered he had noticed the same
problem. In a note on page 940 where he has been discussing the approach of
the Japanese grammarians, '... No-one seems to have considered the problem
presented by the adjective form -kutatte.'

