I’ve been asking myself why に can both be used with nouns and only non-past (dictionary form) clauses. That sparked some research and this is the result:
Some of the information referenced has had it’s own post on the site so I refrain from providing sources for these. Consider checking the original posts of these concepts. Any other sources are linked at the end of the post.
The Triple Nature of に
Classical Japanese reveals that に wasn’t just a case particle – it served three distinct roles. As the first source explains:
「に」の上が連体形の場合は、②断定の助動詞「なり」の連用形か③格助詞「に」か④接続助詞「に」のどれかになります。
(When following the attributive form, に can be either the adverbial form of the assertive auxiliary なり, the case particle に, or the conjunctive particle に.)
The Copula Origin
A common misconception is that に is the adverbial form (連用形) of なり. In fact, it’s the other way around – なり is a contraction of に + あり. This explains why the classical Japanese copula shows gaps in its conjugation paradigm. The seemingly irregular behavior of the copula makes more sense when we understand that に was its original form.
The Spatial Foundation
Throughout Japanese history, に has consistently marked the dative case and location. This function has remained remarkably stable while its other roles have evolved or diminished. This fundamental spatial meaning underlies all its uses, whether marking physical location (東京に住む – live in Tokyo), abstract targets (先生に会う – meet with the teacher), or metaphorical endpoints (質問に答える – respond to a question). As noted in explanations about classical texts:
③格助詞の「に」は、現代語の「に」と同じ用法なので、「～に」と訳します。
(The case particle に has the same usage as in modern Japanese, translated as “to/at”.)
Modern Conjunctive Use With The “non-past”
In contemporary Japanese, conjunctive に(は) exhibits specific restrictions, particularly in its requirement to attach to the non-past of verbs.
The non-past seems to retain a quality that it likely got through development during the conclusive/adnominal merger (終止・連体の合一). 1
The merger gave birth to new tenses, one of which is what we now call non-past. The non-past form (dictionary form) in Japanese has this special quality of being “unbound” temporally – it can represent:
には can attach naturally because these are all “open” or “generalizeable” concepts.
Consider this example:
The past tense does not retain these “unbound” qualities so には can not logically attach. The non-past (dictionary form) represents an action concept or potentiality that can be “pertained to” or “continued from”.
This does not work, as the past tense does not allow continuation or “linking”. た marks something as temporally bound/finite. You can’t “generalize” or “continue from” something that’s already marked as a completed instance.
This works because the non-past is showing “to study” as a temporally unbound state that can be attached to.
には needs to indicate the ongoing validity of the statement. The teacher’s statement is being presented as currently relevant information.
As you can see, it’s fine for the main predicate to be past tense as long as what には attaches to maintains that generalizeable quality!
This helps explain why we need こと/の with past tense – they convert the specific instance back into a general concept or specific instance that can be “pertained to”.
には vs ことには
- The adnominal merger refers to when the Japanese verb endings used for modifying nouns (連体形) and ending sentences (終止形) merged into a single form, creating the modern day dictionary form. This was one of the major changes in Japanese grammar history, affecting how verbs could be used in both modification and predication. ↩︎
Sources
Bjarke Frellesvig’s “A history of the Japanese language”
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