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I have a question about カンペキに in the following sentence. As far as I can guess it modifies the whole 「思ったとおりの仕上がり」, but grammatically I cannot understand why. Well, 仕上がり is a noun, so wouldn't カンペキな be correct here?

お母さまを真似して作ってみたんだけど、カンペキに思ったとおりの仕上がりなの

"It came out perfectly just like I thought it should!"

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  • Isn't 「カンペキ」 or 「完璧」 in its adverbial form in this sentence? (Just clarifying if you realize this so answering would be easier.) – Helix Quar Mar 19 '14 at 10:08
  • Yeah of course, I realize it. – renchan Mar 19 '14 at 10:12
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「[思]{おも}ったとおりの[仕上]{しあ}がり」 is a noun phrase. Why? Because the last word 「仕上がり」is a noun.

「カンペキに」 is the [連用形]{れんようけい} and therefore, it cannot modify a noun or noun phrase. It can only modify a verb or adjective. To modify a noun, you will need to form a [連体形]{れんたいけい}, which will be 「カンペキな」.

「思ったとおりの」 is an adjectival phrase because of the last word 「の」 and it is what「カンペキに」 modifies here.　「思ったとおりの」 naturally modifies 「仕上がり」.

In the sentence, 「カンペキに思ったとおりの仕上がりなの。」, you could actually replace the 「に」 with 「な」 without changing the meaning much.

If you used 「カンペキな」, both 「カンペキな」 and 「思ったとおりの」 would modify 「仕上がり」.

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  • Wow, that's really interesting. Thanks everyone for help! – renchan Mar 19 '14 at 10:58
  • So in short, it's being used as an adverb to modify the verb that's been converted to an adjective to modify the noun. – Kaji Mar 19 '14 at 12:27
  • @Kaji I don't think it's modifying the verb. Nothing was "thought perfectly". Rather, it's modifying the whole adjectival phrase, which just happens to contain a verb. Compare 完璧に素敵な一日だった。 "It was a wonderful day in all respects". – Earthliŋ♦ Mar 19 '14 at 13:02
  • To clarify, by modifying the verb I meant that they thought it was perfect, not that they were thinking perfectly. Which actually begs the question why not use と instead of either に or な in this case... – Kaji Mar 19 '14 at 13:31
  • @Kaji, it's being used as an adverb to modify the verb, な (copula rentaikei). – dainichi Mar 20 '14 at 2:54
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完璧 doesn't "modify" 仕上がり here, it is used adverbially. The difference is a little hard to translate, because 仕上がり is usually not translated literally (at least not for cakes). If we tried, we'd have something like

思ったとおりの完璧な仕上がりなの
lit. It's a perfect "finish", just as I thought.
It came out perfectly, just as I thought.

完璧な思ったとおりの仕上がりなの
lit. It's a perfect "finish-I-imagined".
It came out perfect in the way I imagined.

完璧に思ったとおりの仕上がりなの
lit. It's exactly the "finish" I imagined.
It came out exactly the way I imagined.

From the translation you have, it looks like it should be 完璧な. I think the best way to think of it is that 完璧に is used to mean "exactly".

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  • Oops, too late. – Earthliŋ♦ Mar 19 '14 at 11:03
  • Anyway, thank you very much for your reply. – renchan Mar 19 '14 at 11:09
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    This is the best answer. It's 完璧に (an adverb), not 完璧な (an adjective) because it's not a "perfect result" but "a result which matches expectations perfectly" – dainichi Mar 20 '14 at 2:45
  • I think the important "easy to miss" nuance here that 思う is taking the more creative meaning of "imagine" rather than just "think". – Tim Jun 24 '14 at 1:06

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