The nuance of する


I know what する means in terms of basic usage and obvious usage... I've been
studying for a while so like, this isn't going to be a "What's 1 + 1" question
hopefully.

The question is to do with how する works with adverbial forms. What is the
image you get in your head when someone says like 口にする or 気にする or ようにする or
下にする or 深くする. See I have trouble understanding how する should be envisioned. Is
it the sense of doing towards that state represented by the adverb... or is it
the sense of doing する in the way of that adverb?

For example, 口にする seems to be like "DO WITH MOUTH" since it means both talk
and eat but why not 口でする then if that's the case? And 下にする is like..
different.. it doesn't feel like で but rather toward.... Are these two
different に's or two different する's?

I mean... think about Aにする... People often say like it means to "do towards A"
but recently I realised it is short for B を A にする...

So what is this する thing then? Is it an action? Is it a stand in for the flow
of your life and how it progresses?




I would suggest that you think of する and なる as a pair.

する expresses an active human effort in performing an action. It focuses on the
process of the action.

なる focuses on the result. Unilke する, a human effort may or may not be an
essential element in the process leading to that result.

To take the phrases you listed ( 気にする or ようにする or 下にする or 深くする) for example,
all of them still make sense if the する part is replaced with なる even though
the meanings will change.

As others mentioned above, you should not include a set phrase like 口にする in
the list. 口 _で_ する, by the way, means something I am not allowed to explain in
public. You decipher that one using what I said about "human effort".

