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I came across 愛せない in an example sentence in 新英和大辞典第５版 (under the entry 失格).

> 自分の子供を **愛せない** なんて母親失格だと思う。 I don't think anyone who doesn't love her own
> child deserves the name of a mother.

What kind of conjugation is 愛せない?
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2022-11-28T13:40:34.430
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question
conjugations
What kind of conjugation is 愛せない?
愛する (love) + せる (can) + ない (not)
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2022-11-30T07:07:20.303
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It's the negative potential form of
[愛す](https://jisho.org/word/%E6%84%9B%E3%81%99), which is a **godan** verb
meaning "to love (someone)".

  * **愛す** (godan, transitive): "to love"
  * **愛せる** (potential form of 愛す): "can love"
  * **愛せない** (negative form of 愛せる): "cannot love"
  * (Compare) **愛さない** (negative form of 愛す): "does not love"

If you can read 泳げない, 笑えない, 待てない and so on, this is the same conjugation.

Note that 愛す(る) is a tricky verb that conjugates sometimes like a godan verb
and sometimes like a suru-verb. See [this
chart](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/46878/5010), [this
discussion](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/78047/5010) and [this
discussion](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/56257/5010). When a potential
meaning is involved, 愛できる doesn't make sense, and you need to say 愛せる (or
愛することができる).
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2022-11-30T07:35:36.197
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2022-11-30T07:47:44.110
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