Context: a group of men are walking down a secluded road, they get the feeling
they're being followed and sure enough their hunch is proved right when
they're suddenly attacked, a projectile is launched at them but they manage to
dodge it (at this point their attacker is still hidden).

One of the men tries to provoke this hidden assailant to draw them out by
calling their attack weak and sluggish, he also says this:

> まさかと思うが、今のが必殺技ってこたぁねえよな？

What I'm not sure about is "こたぁねえ" is this a contraction of "ことはない" in which
case the speaker would be saying:

> Whether or not you believe it, it's not like that was a lethal technique
> just now was it?

Or if this is totally the wrong assumption, what is the correct way to parse
that sentence?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-20T18:48:04.953
56074
2018-01-20T23:06:21.537
27359
question
parsing contractions
Is こたぁねえ= ことはない?
First, I would mention the meaning behind the expression 「まさかと思う」would be best
represented as follows:

> 「まさかと思うが、」 ‘It seems impossible, but’ or ‘By any chance, was that...’
>
> ‘Believe it or not,’ would be closer to 「まさかと思うだろうが、」

Full translation:

> That couldn’t possibly have been a lethal technique.

As has been commented, you can find more information about 「こたぁねぇ」on previous
posts. This speech tendency is mostly used by ‘tough’ types (typically men),
or used by regular people to sound rough (either seriously or as a joke) or to
demonstrate frustration and indignation, ex. 知らねぇよ！ It might just be easier to
think of it as regional slang.

Many of these formed from regional dialects. This example of morphing the
language seems to be referred to as 促音便化 or 音便. I believe that your example is
more representative of 下町言葉 (江戸弁）, specific to the central Tokyo area. In
Kansai, for example, こっちゃ is used quite a bit, as in 「えらいこっちゃでえ」, meaning
‘It’s serious’ or ‘Oh crap!’ (大変なこと）. This is referred to as 音変化
[here](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%93%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A1%E3%82%83-502580) .
You can also find some examples of 下町言葉
[here](http://www.muse.dti.ne.jp/~squat/tokyoben.htm).
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-20T23:06:21.537
56078
2018-01-20T23:06:21.537
27280
56074
answer