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A line (highlighted) from an anime named 「あの日見た花の名前を僕達はまだ知らない。」:

めんま「めんまもじんたん好きー」

じんたん「好きだって、友だちの好きとか、それだけじゃねえからな」

めんま「わかってるよ、お嫁さんにしたいの好きでしょ?

I guess「お嫁さんにしたいの好き」is said to contrast with「友だちの好き」above. However, the structure of 用言+の+好き sounds kind of uncommon to me. In most cases I would expect a 「ほど」or「くらい」instead of a「の」here.

So the question is:

How productive is the usage of the 「の」here? How weird are「手を握ったの親しい」「消えてもらいたいの嫌い」etc.

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    Formal grammar does not work in informal speech. Here. they are talking about the "we-are-just-friends kinda liking" vs. the "I-wanna-marry-you kinda liking". Do those phrases sound awefully wrong in informal speech? I doubt it even though I am not an English-speaker. Important thing is not to over-analyze it. The more you see/hear these structures, the more correct they will seem. For us, they are completely natural and "correct". In magazine article titles, you will often see phrases like 「おいしいがたったの2分で!」 and 「かわいいがアッという間!」 when the first word is not formally a noun in either case.
    – user4032
    Commented May 19, 2014 at 2:04

1 Answer 1

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I interpret it as that being the "kind" of fondness this person has. It might make more sense if you put quotes around it or add という.

「お嫁さんにしたい」の好き
お嫁さんにしたいという好き

お嫁さんにしたい is being used as a phrase to describe what kind of 好き it is but not in a way that follows the normal rules of grammar, or to put it more precisely, not in a way that follows how you might expect the phrase "お嫁さんにしたい" to be used. That is to say, it's not "I like you as a friend" but rather "I like you like 'I want you to be my wife.'" Similarly, 好き is not being used in its normal sense of ~が好き but rather as a representation of the word itself. So for example, in English you can say "cats are cute," but you can also say "'cats' is a cute word" and still be correct even though you're saying "cats is."

Basically these words and phrases are being nominalized and used as you would expect a noun be used.

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  • Would it not follow the normal rules of grammar if we take the の as a nominaliser as in 「お嫁さんにしたい」の[こと」[が]好き? (The こと may be redundant as の can act as a nominaliser in its own right.)
    – Tim
    Commented May 19, 2014 at 0:56
  • I think not. Wouldn't that then mean that the person likes the general act of making girls into brides?
    – ssb
    Commented May 19, 2014 at 1:14
  • Quite possibly - I now prefer your (revised) answer.
    – Tim
    Commented May 19, 2014 at 1:41

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