In the sentence 「なんて優しいんでしょう！」what is the purpose of adding んでしょう？
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2To improve the question, tell us what you already know about んでしょう and why that doesn't seem to work in this example. I have to admit that it confuses me too.– user3856370May 3 '19 at 7:04
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what i’ve learned is that でしょう is like a question tag and んです/んだ is for stating your reasoning? but i don’t understand the link between them here haha– jacoballensMay 3 '19 at 12:48
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We might need more context to answer this fully, but, なんて marks the negative tone, and the use of ん with でしょう makes me think that this person is responding to, say, too rough a touch, where this could be "I said gentle(r)!". That said, could you please provide more info about the source? Maybe some additional context sentences around this?– psosunaMay 3 '19 at 22:57
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it was an example sentence on wordreference.com actually, hahaha. so really no context to provide :(– jacoballensMay 4 '19 at 2:07
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Before addressing んでしょう, it bears noting that
なんてX｛の／なの｝でしょう！
is itself a common phrase pattern used to express surprise or admiration of something, where X can be an i-adjective (e.g. かわいい), a na-adjective (e.g. きれい), or a noun phrase (e.g. 素敵なお方). Examples of how this might translate to English are exclamatory phrases like "How exciting!" or "What a beautiful view!"
Some additional examples:
なんて素晴らしいのでしょう！
How wonderful!なんて失礼なのでしょう！
How rude!なんて気が利く人なのでしょう！
What a thoughtful person!
Given the above, 「なんて優しいんでしょう！」 would translate to "How kind!"
With that established, let's break down 「なんて優しいんでしょう！」, and for convenience of explanation let's normalize the ん to の:
なんて優しいのでしょう！
なんて is an adverb that expresses feelings of surprise/shock or admiration. 優しい is an i-adjective, the extent of which is being admired in this utterance.
Now we come to のでしょう. This is the [declarative/explanatory の] + [でしょう functioning as an expresser of emotion (since it accompanies なんて, a 感動を表す語; see the following excerpt from 明鏡国語辞典)]:
でしょ‐・う
連語〔「だろう」の丁寧語〕
➎《疑問や感動を表す語を伴って》反語や感動を表す。
「だれが信じてくれる━か」
「何と魅惑的な人━」
Quick English translation of the above:
でしょ‐・う
collocation (of でしょ (mizenkei of です) + う) [polite form of だろう]
5. (when accompanying language that expresses questioning/doubt or emotion) serves as an indicator of a rhetorical question or expresses emotion「だれが信じてくれるでしょうか」
"Who would believe me?" / "Who would believe that?"「何と魅惑的な人でしょう」
"What an enchanting person!"
So the の emphasizes the declaration, followed by でしょう which serves to augment the emotion expressed by this exclamatory phrase.
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1+1 I never new that definition of でしょう. It would be good if you could add a translation of the dictionary entry you quote. May 5 '19 at 15:39
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@user3856370 Good idea -- added a quick translation of the entry just now.– SetrisMay 5 '19 at 22:27