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みなさんこんにちは! :D

I've recently been learning about Japanese relativistic-clauses(it all makes sense now!!!).

Just curious about something, if と can be used like 'and' or 'with', does the same apply to this brand of clauses?

When translating 'The man who bought milk and didn't buy gas went to bed.', could you use と to bind the two clauses together before adding something like 人 and the final clause?

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No. Unlike English "and/or", case particle と is not a conjunction, which can connect clauses as well as nouns. It works only when it's combined with a noun.

In Japanese grammar, you need the verb in the modifying clause to be an attributive form, in short, する, した, やさしい and きれいだ are to be する, した, やさしい and きれい respectively.

So, you can express your example as 牛乳を買った、ガソリンを買わなかった男は寝た. This is one form of solution. (Commas are optional.)

However in practice, you will more often see the former verb is changed into 買い (conjunctive form) or 買って (te form), which technically function as an adverb that modifies the latter 買わなかった and eventually can modify the 男 through 買わなかった. i.e. 牛乳を買い、ガソリンを買わなかった男, which is the second solution.

The third solution is to use conjunctive particles like …が or …けれども. These particles need to be used with a terminal form of verbs (する、した、やさしい、きれいだ). i.e. 牛乳は買ったがガソリンを買わなかった男

(note: you can't use conjunctive particle …し in a modifying clause, in short, you can say あの人はきれいだし、やさしい for "S/he is beautiful and kind" while you can't say きれいだし やさしい人 for "a beautiful and kind person".)

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  • While you go into topics i still remain a-noob at, i will say this has proven more then insightful, so thx lad! :D
    – Tirous
    Sep 25, 2016 at 4:25
  • ありがとう! (learning to use fancy words as you can see ;D)
    – Tirous
    Sep 25, 2016 at 4:31
  • That sentence might be better as "牛乳を買ってガソリンを買わなかった男は寝た"
    – Bathrobe
    Jan 4, 2020 at 5:59

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