質問: I have two sentences that im using to try to understand how na adjectives are conjugated in Japanese. 1. 私の友達は綺麗な人 - My friend **is** a beautiful person 2. 私の友達は綺麗だった人 - My friend **was** a beautiful person In Tae Kims guide to Japanese he gives the following patterns for conjugating Na adjectives: ``` | | Positive | Negative | |:--------------: |:--------------: |:------------------: | | Present/Future | Na Adj + da | Na Adj + janai | | Past | Na Adj + datta | Na Adj + janakatta | ``` My question is this, if im using the past tense of 綺麗 to modify the noun 人 do I still need the な in between? Most other guides I have read tell me to use the past tense of です after the modified noun in order to show past tense, something like this: 私の友達は綺麗な人でした。 Isn't this the polite form? Im really confused about this. Can anyone provide some guidance on where im going wrong?
回答: Part of the confusion appears to arise from the fact that your two "sentences" are actually incomplete. 1. 私の友達は綺麗な人 2. 私の友達は綺麗だった人 These are fragments: they are only phrases, not full sentences. They could end in the copula (だ for plain-form familiar speech, です for polite speech), or they could end in something completely different: 1. 私の友達は綺麗な人 [をかみ殺して食べる。] - My friend [bites to death and then eats] beautiful people. 2. 私の友達は綺麗だった人 [をかみ殺して食べる。] - My friend [bites to death and then eats] people who were beautiful. Even with the copula, the meaning is slightly different for the second one: 1. 私の友達は綺麗な人 [だ・です] - My friend [is] a beautiful person. 2. 私の友達は綺麗だった人 [だ・です] - My friend [is] a person who was beautiful. If a な adjective is in the past tense, the な is replaced with だった, and the meaning parses out to "was [ADJ], used to be [ADJ]". If you just mean that the past tense should apply to the whole statement, you would use the past tense for the final copula, but leave the adjective in the regular attributive form (using the な): * 私の友達は綺麗な人 [だった・でした] - My friend [was] a beautiful person.