meaning of て-form + られない


![sinderarenai](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3MR8r.png)

I assume that 死んでられない is 死んでる in the negative potential form, which means it
would mean something like "I can't be dying" or "I can't be dead". Can anyone
help me understand this better?




I'm going to venture another answer and claim that the perfective-progressive
discussion is a bit of a red herring.

Usually, since 死ぬ is a change-of-state verb, 死んでいる means "is dead" (perfective
aspect) and not "is dying" (progressive aspect).

But in this case, I claim that ～ていられない is really a fixed construction and the
difference between

> 死ねない and  
>  死んでいられない

is one of emphasis, not one of perfective aspect. The first one could have
been used here to mean a relatively neutral "I cannot die here". The second
one adds emphasis and means something like:

> Damned if I'll die here  
>  I'm too busy to die yet  
>  I'd feel like a fool dying here

or some such.




You're on the right track. 〜ている indicates an ongoing process, although in the
case of something like dying it's also used to indicate a state of being. For
example, in the rare cases that you hear [死]{し}ぬ used instead of [死亡]{しぼう} or
[亡]{な}くなる to refer to dead people you'll often hear:

> [彼]{かれ}は[死]{し}んでいる。 "He is dead."

as opposed to

> [彼]{かれ}は[死]{し}んだ。 "He has died."

So going along those lines, the most natural translation I can think of would
be "I can't die in a place like this!"

