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I'm playing through Toradora right now, and there's a scene where Ryuuji apologizes to his mom because he can't remember anything. She responds with 「ううん、謝んなくったっていいんだよ。」

I understand she's saying don't apologize, but I've never seen an ending with なくった before. Is this some kind of colloquial contraction?

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  • possible duplicate of How to parse ~なくたって?
    – senshin
    Jul 10, 2015 at 20:05
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    That question looks useful, but it doesn't address the nasal assimilation of /ran/ → */rn/ → /ɴn/ (in other words らな→んな), and we might also notice that there's a small っ before たって here, unlike in the other question.
    – user1478
    Jul 10, 2015 at 21:22

1 Answer 1

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「謝{あやま}なくったっていいだよ。」

Needless to say, this is colloquial speech which uses what I call the "two distinct hallmarks" of colloquial speech -- 「ん」 and the small 「っ」.

Now, watch the hallmarks disappear instantly as I put the phrase into the "dictionary" form.

「謝らなくてもいいのですよ」

In Kanto (and even a larger area because of TV), 「ら」 often changes to 「ん」 in negative verb forms in colloquial speech.

ない to 謝ない、わかない to わかない、太{ふと}ない to 太ない, etc.

「たって/ったって」 is also a very common 'word' which should be in any free online dictionaries. Not sure about bilingual dictionaries as I do not use them (because I do not trust them much).

https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6-561378#E5.A4.A7.E8.BE.9E.E6.9E.97.20.E7.AC.AC.E4.B8.89.E7.89.88

「~~たって/ったって」 means 「~~ても」 or 「~~たとしても」= "even if". Thus, 「謝んなくったって」 is in the concessive conditional form. The speaker is offering a concession to the listener.

「ったって」 sounds slightly more emphatic than 「たって」. That is the power of the small 「っ」 to begin with. With double small 「っ」, 「ったって」 would naturally sound very colloquial -- even to the point of sounding slangy.

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