A question about the に particle


I have a question about the に particle.

I was never told that it was possible to do something like this:

> 私は妹に新しいおもちゃを買いました。

I thought you HAD to say 私は妹のために新しいおもちゃを買いました。

> よい子【こ】になるには早寝【はやね】早起【はやおき】するコトです。

How come に is used with a verb here like なるに?

Is that possible too?

How often am I allowed to do that?




It seems there are really 2 questions here:

> 私は妹に新しいおもちゃを買いました。

is completely standard. に binds to a noun and marks is as indirect object,
i.e. you bought the toy _to_ or _for_ the/your little sister.

In the other sentence, something else is going on:

> よい子になるには早寝早起するコトです。 In order to become a good child, you have to get up
> early and go to sleep early.

The easiest way is to read this as a fixed construction ~には~ used for
expressing "In order to _something_ , you have to _something_ / _something_
has to happen". Note that you can't use には to mean "in order to" generally,
the "have to" part needs to be there, e.g.

> *よい子になるに(は)早寝早起した  
>  He got up early and went to sleep early in order to become a good child

is ungrammatical. It would have to be e.g. よい子になるために早寝早起した

A bit of background is that Japanese used to have zero-nominalization, i.e.
you were able to attach case particles to verbs as is they were nouns. In
modern Japanese, this is not generally felicitous, but survives in many fixed
constructions.

