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久方ブリダナ…百年前我ヲ封ジタ
タカマガハラノ 野良大神ヨ
我ヲ仕損ジテ石クレニ成リ果テルモ
マダ我ニ拘ッテイルトハ
"石ノ中ニモ百年"カ
…黴臭クモナロウモノダ! (source: 『大神』)

Said by the villain to the protagonist, who's been sleeping as a stone statue for the last hundred years. What I'd like to know is how to analyze くもなろうものだ and what exactly it means. I assume it's supposed to say something to the effect of "It's no wonder you grow moldy." but I'm really at a loss here as to how it functions grammatically.

I've tried googling the phrase in question and came up with other examples:

そりゃあいい加減に暴れ出しくもなろうものだ
来年、再びナツツバキの白さを目にすることはないのかもしれない。そう思えば感傷的にもなろうものだ。

Is it an alternative to 黴臭くもなるだろうものだ? だろう as an indirect statement and ものだ to state general facts? Does that even make sense?

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2 Answers 2

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This も and this ものだ have nuances.

黴臭クモナロウモノダ!
It's only natural that someone like you will become moldy!

The なろう here is roughly the same as なるだろう, but だろうものだ sounds strange to me. I think this is due to some grammatical restriction I'm not consciously aware of. You can remove ものだ and just say "黴臭くもなるだろう!" without largely changing the meaning of the sentence.

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  • Thank you once again for the detailed answer and the links on the usage for も! Now the sentence makes a lot more sense.
    – Boolicious
    Mar 15, 2021 at 10:10
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If we rewrite that line in standard Japanese orthography:

「石の中にも百年」か、かび臭くもなろうものだ!

Taking the last clause apart, we get:

かび臭く も なろう もの だ!

「かび臭く」:連用形 of the adjective 「かび臭い」(musty, moldy, from a perceptive perspective such as olfactory)

「も」:meaning something to the effect of "even, as much as", for emphasis

「なろう」:推量形 of the verb 「なる」(to become).

「もの」:nominalizer

「だ」:copula

The meaning of the clause is something like: "(You) must reek of mold now" or "(You) must've become moldy/musty by now".

The addition of 「ものだ!」 makes the line a lot more assertive. Without it, if it is just 「かび臭くもなろう」 the clause sounds speculative. With it, the line sounds masculine, assertive, and strong.

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  • Thank you a lot for the detailed breakdown! Does that mean that なろう would be the same as なるだろう (both being speculative)? Also, out of curiousity, how would the meaning change with the past tense, i.e. かび臭くなかったろう?
    – Boolicious
    Mar 14, 2021 at 18:07
  • @Boolicious Please see naruto's answer. Also please deselect my answer and accept theirs. The nuances that my answer fails to capture are explained there.
    – Eddie Kal
    Mar 15, 2021 at 3:57
  • Done! Thank you for your help nonetheless. :)
    – Boolicious
    Mar 15, 2021 at 10:07

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