What is the difference between "verb-stem + verb" and "verb-て form + verb"?

Question

例: 吸い取る 対 吸って取る

例: 噛み殺す 対 噛んで殺す

たしかに、意味は同じではないけど似ています。区別は何でしょうか。

What is the difference in meaning between the above verb pairs, and which construction would be used when?

Answer 1

Some verbs carry special meanings only when they are used in the form of te-form + verb (ie, as a subsidiary verb):

• 読んでみる ([*]読み見る means nothing)
• 言ってもらう ([*]言いもらう means nothing)

Regardless of this, you can use almost any (non-subsidiary) verb after the te-form, as you know, and it mainly means "V₂ by V₁" or "V₁ and V₂":

• 走って逃げる
• 検討して回答する
• 食べて飲んで寝る

Some verbs carry special meanings only when they follow the stem of another verb. These are partly analogous to simple adverbs such as out as in sell out, around as in go around and on as in live on:

• 言い切る ([*] 言って切る usually means nothing)
• 呼び込む ([*] 呼んで込む usually means nothing)
• 動き出す ([*] 動いて出す usually means nothing)

Some verbs after the te-form have the meanings which are not really special, but tends to follow the verb-stem anyway:

• 噛み殺す (roughly the same as 噛んで殺す)
• 吸い取る (roughly the same as 吸って取る)
• 取り出す (roughly the same as 取って出す)
• 溺れ死ぬ (roughly the same as 溺れて死ぬ)

So... it depends. In your examples, 噛み殺す and 吸い取る are more common than 嚙んで殺す and 吸って取る. You will need the longer (te-form) version only when you want to explicitly say "V₁ and then V₂", "V₂ by means of V₁", etc.