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I'm not confident that the English grammatical words I'm using are okay; feel
free to correct me.

Let's start with the phrase 読{よ}む本{ほん} meaning, among other acceptable
translations _"the book I do read"_. The auxiliary _do_ I used to translate is
nothing but a convenient way to mark the tense (present) and the aspect (not
progressive).

That's what I call "a noun determined by a verb" structure since 本{ほん} is
determined by 読{よ}む.

My question deals with the other forms of 読{よ}む which may be used to determine
本{ほん}:

  * 読{よ}む本{ほん} : the book I do read
  * 読{よ}まない本{ほん} : the book I don't read
  * 読{よ}んで本{ほん} : the book I'm reading
  * 読{よ}まないで本{ほん} : the book I'm not reading
  * 読{よ}んだ本{ほん} : the book I did read
  * 読{よ}まなかった本{ほん} : the book I didn't read
  * ... ?

**My questions :**

  1. Are the above forms grammatically correct?
  2. Leaving aside passive and causative, did I forget some forms? I'm particularly curious to know if imperative/volitional forms may have some sense here.

Any help would be appreciated!
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2015-05-01T12:41:28.370
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2015-05-01T17:11:00.033
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question
grammar conjugations syntax
Verbal forms allowed to determine a noun
First, it sounds strange to me to put "I" as default subject of the
determining sentence. I'd rather explicitly mark a subject, unless it's very
clear from its context.  
Anyway,

  * わたしが読む本 : the book I do read (O)
  * わたしが読まない本 : the book I don't read (O)
  * わたしが読んで本 : the book I'm reading (X)
  * わたしが読まないで本 : the book I'm not reading (X)
  * わたしが読んだ本 : the book I did read (O)
  * わたしが読まなかった本 : the book I didn't read (O)

To express progressive aspect, we need an auxiliary verb いる.  
And, when combining two verbs (読む + いる), we use て,  
thus it will be 読む + て + いる = 読んでいる.  
So 'the book I'm reading' is わたしが読んでいる本.  
Note that 読んでいる is in a perfectly legit ru-verb form(一段動詞). You can then
transform it into whatever you want.

```

    negative    読んでいる + ない = 読んでいない  (book that) I'm not reading.
    past        読んでいる + た = 読んでいた  I was reading.
    neg + past  読んでいる + ない + た = 読んでいなかった  I was not reading.
    ... 
    
```

One more thing one should keep in mind when using progressive is that, in
modern Japanese, it's very common to drop い from aux (い)る. So it's fine to say
わたしが(読んでる/読んでない/読んでた/読んでなかった)本.

Imperative/volitional forms in general do not modify following nouns.
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2015-05-01T14:21:07.227
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2015-05-01T14:42:10.457
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answer