16063
I was learning about adjectives + さ, which turns them into a noun; as I
understand it, a "measurable" quantity . I then thought of how X そうです could be
turned into an adjective, X そうな Y, so I was wondering whether if さ could also
be applied here. If so, is this something actively used in the language? If
not, what sort of limitations does さ have in general that prevents such an
usage?
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2014-05-17T22:39:43.633
16008
2014-05-22T01:34:51.430
5371
question
usage adjectives suffixes
Usage of -さ with そうな
I think one needs to distinguish two uses of ～そう. The one appears after a stem
form, and is a derivational suffix of the na-adjectival class (NA). The other
one appears after a fully inflected expression, and is thus particle (P). Here
are two examples:

```

     a. その店、おいしそうだ。(NA) 
        That shop looks tasty. (i.e. the food they sell there)
     b. その店、おいしいそうだ。(P)
        That shop's supposed to be tasty.
    
```

In (a) the assumption for tastiness is derived from personal knowledge, in
particular from looking at something. Technically, this is called
"evidentiality". In (b) the knowledge is derived from hearsay, i.e. we've
heard from someone that something is to be the case.  
Only the ～そう in (a) can appear with ～な:

```

     c.  おいしそうな店だ。(NA)
         a shop with tasty looking food
     d.* おいしいそうな店だ。(P)
         a shop I heard is tasty
    
```

Expression (d) is not possible, which is what the appearance of the asterisk *
tells us.  
Concerning the combination of these two expressions with ～さ, this happens only
in two cases. The adjective 良い（いい・よい） only has one mora in the stem. ～さ
appears between ～そう（な）and 良い. See here:

```

     e. それは良さそうだ。
        That seems good.
     f. 良さそうなもの    
        something that seems good
    
```

There is one other adjective, namely 無い（ない）, that also has only one stem mora.
And again we find that ～さ serves to lengthen the adjective in order to let
～そう（な）appear:

```

     g. そういう提案は無さそうだ。
        Such a proposal doesn't seem to exist.
     h. 経験のあまり無さそうな人
        a person who doesn't seem to have much experience
    
```

Then there is, of course, also the negation suffix ～な（い）, which also has only
one stem mora. Personally I do insert ～さ but that may be considered
substandard (see
[here](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1112989636)).
Still I'd say this:

```

     i. 彼は来なさそうだ。
        He doesn't seem to come.
     j. 彼は来なさそうなタイプだ。
        He's the type who doesn't seem to come.
    
```

And the people in my environment, who all happen to be Japanese, do so, too.
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2014-05-19T16:26:43.707
16045
2014-05-19T16:26:43.707
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answer
I don't think this is a very good question but rather than ignore it, I will
try to explain why in an answer.

First let's confirm what you are asking:

Grammatically "i-adjectives" and "na-adjectives" can combine with そう to form
new na-adjectives which decribe how a situation seems (as opposed to actually
is). Examples include:

おいしい ー＞ おいしそう（な）｜delicious -> looks delicious  
元気（な）ー＞ 元気そう（な）| healthy -> seems healthy

These adjectives can also combine with さ in a similar fashion:

おいしい ー＞ おいしさ｜delicious-ness (how delicious it is)  
元気（な）ー＞ 元気さ | healthiness

You have noticed that the -そう combinations are all "na-adjectives" and
grammatically could be combined with さ to form some kind of noun and want to
know if this happens.

Well, grammatically, we just demonstrated it is possible, and somebody has
even found a tweet with such a combination. But, it is the first time I have
seen such a construction used. It is certainly not something I have noticed
before or been taught, although, like you, I might have played around with the
combination in my own mind.

**But, more importantly, what "words" did you have in mind and how did you
foresee this construction being used? If you considered this and showed it in
your question then it would have been more valid.**

Conceptually it might be easier to look at the English equivalents: "looks
delicious" is fine. "How nice it is" is better than "delicious-ness" but the
latter is still understandable, and an equivalent might exist in another
language. But, can you really go to the next stage and come up with a similar
word in English ("looks-delicious-ness") that you would expect to find in
Japanese? We could say "how delicious it looks", but this is a phrase and by
itself sounds more like an assertion. You might conclude that the concept has
to be expressed differently (in both languages).

Japanese is very different from English so sometimes one does get a surprising
answer - somebody might read this and tell me that I am completely wrong and
although I have not noticed it, ~そうさ(な）is a valid construction often used..
but I am not expecting that to happen.

It also important to focus on developing a practical feel for how the language
works. If you have got to the level of studying these constructions then I
would have thought you have a sense of how they are used and how many
theoretical combinations and conjugations are possible. So, just like English,
once things get unwieldy, there is probably a better, simpler way of saying
it.

Let's take another example:

高い｜expensive.  
高そう｜looks expensive  
高そうさ｜"looks expensive-ness" (it does not really work in English either)

Now if we really want to ask someone how expensive does something look, what
would we say?:

高そうさはいくら／どのぐらいですか？

or

どのぐらい／どんなに高そうですか

The second sounds more natural to me, although I have never heard it said, and
there may well be a better way of saying it.
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2014-05-21T15:25:19.863
16063
2014-05-22T01:34:51.430
2014-05-22T01:34:51.430
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answer
Firstly, I searched Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (BCCWJ,
<http://www.kotonoha.gr.jp/shonagon>) and all results were either

  1. そうさ (as in そうだよ)
  2. ごち **そうさ** ま
  3. **そうさ** せる and its conjugations.

Here is why I think ～そう+さ as you suggested cannot exist. It would consist of
two parts, where

  * ～さ is describing a **quality** , an **_objective_ fact** about someone/something

  * ～そう is describing a **feeling** , a **_subjective_ assessment** of someone/something

By some general principle in Japanese of subjective feelings being orthogonal
to objective facts (see this question: [When to use 欲しがる instead of
欲しい](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2524/when-to-
use-%E6%AC%B2%E3%81%97%E3%81%8C%E3%82%8B-instead-
of-%E6%AC%B2%E3%81%97%E3%81%84)), you cannot combine そう and さ. Grammatically,
そう works just like other na-adjectives, so there's no syntactical reason to
assume you can't append さ to it. This is a semantic obstruction.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-21T16:05:33.000
16065
2014-05-21T16:05:33.000
2017-04-13T12:43:48.447
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answer