What is the grammatical interpretation of じゃ　ありません?


I have learned in school that じゃ ありましん is the "non-past negative" conjugation
of です.

Example:

> 私は日本人じゃありません。
>
> "I am not Japanese."

I have noticed that じゃ ありません contains the pronunciation of the negative form
of あります.

From a strictly grammatical point of view, does じゃ ありません say that something
doesn't exist? If so, what is the grammatical purpose of attaching じゃ to the
proceeding word?




Firstly, じゃ is a contraction of では, where は is the topic particle. The
construct ではありません is then seen to be the negative form of であります with a は
inserted, and であります is a formal version of です.

So perhaps the real question is, what is the purpose of で? It carries most of
the semantic load: there a few other constructions meaning "to be" of the
pattern で + (verb of existence), e.g. である, でございます, でござる. So you could say that
で means "to be", with the caveat that it is not itself a verb. Of course, by
"to be" here I only mean the sense of the linking verb and _not_ the
existential verb.

My own preference is to say that で means something like "as". Then 〜である etc.
translate as "to exist as ...", or in short, "to be ...".




Firstly, じゃ is a contraction of では, where は is the topic particle. The
construct ではありません is then seen to be the negative form of であります with a は
inserted, and であります is a formal version of です.

So perhaps the real question is, what is the purpose of で? It carries most of
the semantic load: there a few other constructions meaning "to be" of the
pattern で + (verb of existence), e.g. である, でございます, でござる. So you could say that
で means "to be", with the caveat that it is not itself a verb. Of course, by
"to be" here I only mean the sense of the linking verb and _not_ the
existential verb.

My own preference is to say that で means something like "as". Then 〜である etc.
translate as "to exist as ...", or in short, "to be ...".

