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I noticed that there are some adjectives that have ～がる suffix to make them
into verbs. Some examples from WWWJDIC:

> ほしがる  
>  こわがる  
>  いたがる  
>  くるしがる  
>  さびしがる  
>  うれしがる

Apparently ～たい form also can take the ～がる suffix to become ～たがる suffix:

> いきたがる

Rikaichan popup explains the ～がる as:

> to feel (on adj-stem to represent third party's apparent emotion); to behave
> as if one were

So I thought that I could append this suffix to any adjectives to add those
connotations. However, it seems that not all adjectives and ～たい have the
suffix. WWWJDIC does not return any exact matches for the following words:

> やさしがる (to behave as if one were nice?)  
>  きたがる (to feel that one wants to come? - Since いきたがる exists so logically
> きたがる should exist too?)  
>  ねむがる (to behave as if one were sleepy?)

My question is, as in the title, is ～がる suffix limited to specific adjectives
only? How do we know which adjectives can have the suffix and which adjectives
can't?
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2011-06-26T04:01:51.260
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2011-06-26T05:17:41.337
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question
adjectives suffixes
Is ～がる suffix limited to specific adjectives only?
As explained by the Rikaichan popup you reference in your question, ～がる is a
suffix for representing a third party's _apparent **emotion_**. As such, you
cannot use it with やさしい or ねむい as these are not adjectives which describe
emotions.

As it was explained to me, you cannot generally _know_ another person's
emotions or thoughts, and so when speaking of them, you use either ～がる (e.g.
うれしがる) or ～そう (e.g. うれしそう). To some extent, this is true even in English --
"John seems sad today" seems more generally applicable than "John is sad
today" (without John having said so himself).

**To answer your question:** you use this for adjectives (including ～たい) which
represent emotional or psychological states. It's very difficult to provide an
exhaustive list of such adjectives.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-06-26T04:20:17.670
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2011-06-26T05:17:41.337
2011-06-26T05:17:41.337
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answer