丸腰を見る and no-adjectives


There is some controversy about whether _no_ -adjectives exist.

I have chosen a random _no_ -adjective (not having another meaning as noun):
[丸腰]{まるごし}

Sentence with this word with case particle:

> 丸腰を見る

Is this sentence grammatically correct?

If this sentence is grammatically incorrect, then _no_ -adjectives must exist
as syntactically distinct group from ordinary nouns.

If this sentence is grammatically correct, then what is meaning of this
sentence? Would it be understood as something with implicit の + 人 / 者 / 物 etc.
(e.g. 丸腰の人を見る)?




丸腰を見る usually makes little sense; you can see someone's unarmed status, but
you cannot see "unarmed" itself. Canonically, you should say (誰かが)丸腰のところを見る
instead. Still, in casual conversations, people might occasionally say 丸腰を見る
instead of 丸腰のところを見る. The same applies to 普通(であること)を確かめる, 最高(の瞬間)を思い出す, and so
on; the part in the parentheses may be dropped sometimes in sloppy speech or
aesthetic writing.

Still, even if 丸腰を見る is ungrammatical, whether to call 丸腰 a "no-adjective" or
a "descriptive noun" is a different issue.

* * *

Whether or not one acknowledges the existence of "no-adjectives" depends on
the grammatical framework they rely on. I don't have a strong opinion either
way. When someone who is no longer a beginner asks me "How many types of
adjective are there in Japanese?", I usually respond with " **0** , 1, 2, or
3, depending on your definition". (Yes, some say [i-adjectives are actually
verbs](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/1016/5010), and there's a reason
for that!)

Note that "no-adjective" is not the only thing that doesn't exist in so-called
国語文法 learned in Japanese school. For example, in 国語文法, they don't recognize
"te-form", "progressive form" and "past form", either.

Still, I understand that these terms are useful for learners, and they are
used in most Japanese-as-a-second-language learning resources. From a
practical point of view (esp. of western speakers), there is little difference
between so-called na-adjectives and so-called no-adjectives aside from the
particle used. That's why I use these terms at least for beginners and
intermediate learners. If you needed to memorize an [entire table of auxiliary
verbs](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8A%A9%E5%8B%95%E8%A9%9E_\(%E5%9B%BD%E6%96%87%E6%B3%95\))
just to say something simple like 食べていました, learning Japanese as a second
language would become quite inconvenient.

