あり grammar information

[7daytrial]

I asked a similar question on the Japanesepod101.com forum, but their forums haven't been too active so I wanted to try asking it here.

I have seen ある conjugated as あり. Why is あって not used instead of あり?

Also, is there a conjugation form name for this? (ex. potential, passive, causative, passive-causative)


*If anyone has links or books that cover this please let me know.

[furrykef]

It's always best to provide context with questions like this. The あり you're thinking of could be different from the あり that someone else is thinking of. In fact, I will illustrate this point by explaining two different kinds of あり.

The first, and most likely, is that formal/newspaper writing prefers using the masu stem form (such as あり) instead of the te form to join clauses. This is explained on this page of Tae Kim's grammar site. Note that, in this construction, ている (as in 話している) becomes ており rather than てい (so, 話しており, not 話してい).

The other あり is simply the Classical Japanese form of ある. Since it's classical, you're not likely to encounter it in modern Japanese except proverbs, but I think I have seen such a proverb once...

- Kef

[7daytrial]

Thanks for the explanation and the link!

So this conjugation is primarily used in formal writings?

I think I understand now.

Thanks!

[keatonatron]

Another version of あり is simply the noun form of ある.

The stem form of many verbs can be used as nouns in certain situations. For あり as a noun form, it means something's existence or (more commonly) plausibility.