40731
Hey i was listening to this song And it felt weird for me when one of these
lines seemed to lack a particle, I am wondering if it is lacking one and it is
ok to do so since it is a song, or if there was no need to a particle in
there...

[君の前前前世から僕は君を探し始めたよ]

Why can I say 探し始めた without a particle, would it be ok to say 探しを始めた？

Is it perhaps like the difference between "I began to look for" vs "I began
looking for" ?

When it's ok to drop a particle in casual speech? I know that if my sentence
contains only one "が" particle it'd not be ok to drop it, but what about
sentences with more particles?

Thanks in advance
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-11-07T12:03:55.750
40729
2016-11-07T12:43:11.087
16104
question
particle-が particle-を
Dropping particles in casual speech/songs
No particle has been omitted in your example sentence. You can not say `masu-
stem + を始める` in the first place (unless the "verb" is actually a lexicalized
noun derived from some verb (eg 支払い = payment, 戦い = battle)).

Regardless of whether it's in speech or not, `masu-stem + 始める` is the right
way of saying "start to [verb]", and there must _not_ be any particle in
between.

  * 歩き始める start to walk
  * 見始める start to watch
  * 食べ始める start to eat

Don't ask me why. Japanese language has [tons of 複合動詞 (compound
verbs)](http://vvlexicon.ninjal.ac.jp/en/) which just look like this; 走り出す,
飛び立つ, 動き回る, 出払う, and so on.

Not to be confused with [subsidiary
verbs](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/18952/5010), which are small in
number, and always follow the te-form of another verb.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-11-07T12:35:54.583
40731
2016-11-07T12:43:11.087
2017-04-13T12:43:44.397
-1
5010
40729
answer