What's the difference between ～得ない【えない】, as in, say, 届き【とどき】得ない【えない】, and ～eない, as in 届けない【とどけない】? As far as I can tell they both mean "it can't be done," "it's impossible", but is there a difference in connotation or a subtle difference?
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2Don't forget that for ichidan verbs, your -eない would be ～(ら)れない– AngelosCommented Aug 22, 2016 at 21:16
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1Does japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/1865/… or japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2682/… help to answer your question? (Basically, using 得る is more academic in style)– virmaiorCommented Aug 23, 2016 at 0:02
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@virmaior Yes, particularly the second, but to be honest I'm too new to Japanese to make too much sense of the answers - while I think the information is present there I'm going to need it separated and summarized to properly understand it.– linkhyrule5Commented Aug 23, 2016 at 7:31
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1I don't know why, but we say 届く/届かない, rather than 届ける/届けない, to mean "can/can't reach"... We usually use 届ける/届けない to mean "deliver/don't deliver", as a transitive verb, not potential.– chocolate ♦Commented Aug 24, 2016 at 6:52
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1 Answer
届けない doesn't mean "something can't reach" but "to not deliver something" as chocolate says.
Since 届くis an intransitive verb that doesn't stand for one's volitional action, 届く doesn't have the potential form.
As for difference between ～得ない and potential forms, the former stands for possibility under a certain condition while the latter does one's ability or capability. So you can't use potential forms when the subject of a sentence is linguistically inanimate like plants or something that doesn't move by itself, in other words, you can say この木は大きくなり得ない or …大きくならない for "this tree can grow big" but not この木は大きくなれない (in average people's sense).
