Japanese grammar

Japanese is an agglutinative, synthetic, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a pure vowel
system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent. Word order is
normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence
structure is topic–comment. Its phrases are exclusively head-final and compound sentences are exclusively
left-branching.[a] Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or make questions.
Nouns have no grammatical number or gender, and there are no articles. Verbs are conjugated, primarily for
tense and voice, but not person. Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a complex system of
honorifics with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and
persons mentioned.

In language typology, it has many features different from most European languages.

Contents
Distinctive aspects of modern Japanese sentence structure
Word order: head final and left branching
Word class system
Japanese as a topic-prominent language
Liberal omission of the subject of a sentence
Sentences, phrases and words
Phrasal movement
Word classification
Controversy over the characterization of nominal adjectives
Nouns
Grammatical case
Pronouns
Reflexive pronouns
Demonstratives
Conjugable words
Stem forms
Verbs
Transitive and intransitive verbs
Adjectival verbs and nouns
Copula ( だ da)
Euphonic changes ( 音便
, onbin)
Historical sound change
Verb conjugations
Polite forms of adjectives
Respectful verbs

1
 Colloquial contractions
Other independent words
Adverbs
Conjunctions and interjections
Ancillary words
Particles
Topic, theme, and subject: は wa and が ga
Thematic wa
Contrastive wa
Exhaustive ga
Objective ga
を o, で de, に ni, へ e
Objects, locatives, instrumentals:
Quantity and extents: と to, も mo, か ka, や ya, から kara, まで made
Coordinating: と to, に ni, よ yo
Final: か ka, ね ne, よ yo and related
Compound particles
Auxiliary verbs
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
External links

Distinctive aspects of modern Japanese sentence structure

Word order: head final and left branching

The modern theory of constituent order ("word order"), usually attributed to Joseph Greenberg, identifies
several kinds of phrases. Each one has a head and possibly a modifier. The head of a phrase either
precedes its modifier (head initial) or follows it (head final). Some of these phrase types, with the head
marked in boldface, are:

genitive phrase, i.e., noun modified by another noun ("the cover of the book", "the book's
cover");
noun governed by an adposition ("on the table", "underneath the table");
comparison ("[X is] bigger than Y", i.e., "compared to Y, X is big").
noun modified by an adjective ("black cat").

Some languages are inconsistent in constituent order, having a mixture of head initial phrase types and head
final phrase types. Looking at the preceding list, English for example is mostly head initial, but nouns
follow the adjectives which modify them. Moreover, genitive phrases can be either head initial or head final
in English. Japanese, by contrast, is the epitome of a head final language:

2
 genitive phrase:
猫 の 色
neko no iro
cat gen color
"the cat's (neko no) color (iro)"

noun governed by an adposition:

日本 に
nihon ni
Japan in
"in Japan"

comparison:
Y より 大きい
Y yori ookii
Y‍ than big
"bigger than Y"

noun modified by an adjective:

黒い 猫
kuroi neko
black cat

Head finality in Japanese sentence structure carries over to the building of sentences using other sentences.
In sentences that have other sentences as constituents, the subordinated sentences (relative clauses, for
example), always precede what they refer to, since they are modifiers and what they modify has the
syntactic status of phrasal head. Translating the phrase "the man who was walking down the street" into
Japanese word order would be "street down walking was man".[b]

Head finality prevails also when sentences are coordinated instead of subordinated. In the world's
languages, it is common to avoid repetition between coordinated clauses by optionally deleting a
constituent common to the two parts, as in "Bob bought his mother some flowers and his father a tie",
where the second bought is omitted. In Japanese, such "gapping" must precede in the reverse order: "Bob
mother for some flowers and father for tie bought". The reason for this is that in Japanese, sentences (other
than occasional inverted sentences or sentences containing afterthoughts) always end in a verb (or other
predicative words like adjectival verbs, adjectival nouns, auxiliary verbs)—the only exceptions being a few
sentence-ending particles such as ka, ne, and yo. The particle ka turns a statement into a question, while the
others express the speaker's attitude towards the statement.

Word class system

Japanese has five major lexical word classes:

nouns
verbal nouns (correspond to English gerunds like 'studying', 'jumping', which denote
activities)
nominal adjectives (names vary, also called na-adjectives or "adjectival nouns")
verbs
adjectives (so-called i-adjectives)

3
More broadly, there are two classes: uninflectable (nouns, including verbal nouns and adjectival nouns) and
inflectable (verbs, with adjectives as defective verbs). To be precise, a verbal noun is simply a noun to
which suru ( する , "do") can be appended, while an adjectival noun is like a noun but uses -na ( 〜な )
〜の
instead of -no ( ) when acting attributively. Adjectives (i-adjectives) inflect identically to the negative
form of verbs, which end in na-i ( ない ). Compare tabe-na-i (食べない , don't eat) → tabe-na-katta ( 食べ
なかった 熱い
, didn't eat) and atsu-i ( , is hot) → atsu-katta (熱かった , was hot).

Some scholars, such as Eleanor Harz Jorden, refer to adjectives instead as adjectivals, since they are
grammatically distinct from adjectives: they can predicate a sentence. That is, atsui ( 熱い
) is glossed as
"hot" when modifying a noun phrase, as in atsui gohan ( 熱いご飯 , hot food), but as "is hot" when
predicating, as in gohan wa atsui ( ご飯は熱い , [the] food is hot).

The two inflected classes, verb and adjective, are closed classes, meaning they do not readily gain new
members.[1][2] Instead, new and borrowed verbs and adjectives are conjugated periphrastically as verbal
noun + suru (e.g. benkyō suru ( 勉強する , do studying; study)) and adjectival noun + na. This differs from
Indo-European languages, where verbs and adjectives are open classes, though analogous "do"
constructions exist, including English "do a favor", "do the twist" or French "faire un footing" (do a
"footing", go for a jog), and periphrastic constructions are common for other senses, like "try climbing"
(verbal noun) or "try parkour" (noun). Other languages where verbs are a closed class include Basque: new
Basque verbs are only formed periphrastically. Conversely, pronouns are closed classes in Western
languages but open classes in Japanese and some other East Asian languages.

In a few cases new verbs are created by appending -ru ( 〜る

) suffix to a noun or using it to replace the end
of a word. This is most often done with borrowed words, and results in a word written in a mixture of
katakana (stem) and hiragana (inflectional ending), which is otherwise very rare.[3] This is typically casual,
with the most well-established example being sabo-ru ( サボる , skip class; play hooky) (circa 1920), from
sabotāju ( サボタージュ , sabotage), with other common examples including memo-ru ( メモる , write a
メモ
memo), from memo ( ), and misu-ru ( ミスる , make a mistake) from misu ( ミス, mistake). In cases
ル る
where the borrowed word already ends with a ru ( ), this may be punned to a ru ( ), as in gugu-ru ( ググ
る , to google), from gūguru (
[4]
グーグル , Google), and dabu-ru ( ダブる , to double), from daburu ( ダブル ,
double).

New adjectives are extremely rare; one example is kiiro-i ( 黄色い 黄

, yellow), from adjectival noun kiiro (
色 ), and a more casual recent example is kimo-i ( きもい , gross), by contraction of kimochi waru-i (気持ち
悪い , bad-feeling).[5] By contrast, in Old Japanese -shiki (〜しき ) adjectives (precursors of present i-
adjectives ending in -shi-i (〜しい ), formerly a different word class) were open, as reflected in words like
痛々しい
ita-ita-shi-i ( 痛い
, pitiful), from the adjective ita-i ( 神々しい
, painful, hurt), and kō-gō-shi-i ( ,
神
heavenly, sublime), from the noun kami ( , god) (with sound change). Japanese adjectives are unusual in
being closed class but quite numerous – about 700 adjectives – while most languages with closed class
adjectives have very few.[6][7] Some believe this is due to a grammatical change of inflection from an
aspect system to a tense system, with adjectives predating the change.

The conjugation of i-adjectives has similarities to the conjugation of verbs, unlike Western languages where
inflection of adjectives, where it exists, is more likely to have similarities to the declension of nouns. Verbs
and adjectives being closely related is unusual from the perspective of English, but is a common case across
languages generally, and one may consider Japanese adjectives as a kind of stative verb.

Japanese vocabulary has a large layer of Chinese loanwords, nearly all of which go back more than one
thousand years, yet virtually none of them are verbs or "i-adjectives" – they are all nouns, of which some
are verbal nouns (suru) and some are adjectival nouns (na). In addition to the basic verbal noun + suru

4
 form, verbal nouns with a single-character root often experienced sound changes, such as -suru ( 〜する )
→ -zuru ( 〜ずる ) (rendaku) → -jiru ( 〜じる ), as in kin-jiru ( 禁じる , forbid), and some cases where the
stem underwent sound change, as in tassuru ( 達する 達
, reach), from tatsu ( ).

Verbal nouns are uncontroversially nouns, having only minor syntactic differences to distinguish them from
pure nouns like 'mountain'. There are some minor distinctions within verbal nouns, most notably that some
primarily conjugate as -o suru ( 〜をする ) (with a particle), more like nouns, while others primarily
conjugate as -suru (〜する ), and others are common either way. For example, keiken o suru ( 経験をする ,
to experience) is much more common than keiken suru ( 経験する ), while kanben suru ( 勘弁する , to
pardon) is much more common than kanben o suru ( 勘弁をする ).[8] Nominal adjectives have more
syntactic differences versus pure nouns, and traditionally were considered more separate, but they, too, are
ultimately a subcategory of nouns.

There are a few minor word classes that are related to adjectival nouns, namely the taru adjectives and naru
adjectives. Of these, naru adjectives are fossils of earlier forms of na adjectives (the nari adjectives of Old
Japanese), and are typically classed separately, while taru adjectives are a parallel class (formerly tari
adjectives in Late Old Japanese), but are typically classed with na adjectives.

Japanese as a topic-prominent language

In discourse pragmatics, the term topic refers to what a section of discourse is about. At the beginning of a
section of discourse, the topic is usually unknown, in which case it is usually necessary to explicitly
mention it. As the discourse carries on, the topic need not be the grammatical subject of each new sentence.

Starting with Middle Japanese, the grammar evolved so as to explicitly distinguish topics from nontopics.
This is done by two distinct particles (short words which do not change form). Consider the following pair
of sentences:

太陽 が 昇る。
taiyō ga noboru
sun nontopic rise

太陽 は 昇る。
taiyō wa noboru
sun topic rise

太陽
Both sentences translate as "the sun rises". In the first sentence the sun ( , taiyō) is not a discourse topic
—not yet; in the second sentence it is a discourse topic. In linguistics (specifically, in discourse pragmatics)
a sentence such as the second one (with wa) is termed a presentational sentence because its function in the
discourse is to present sun as a topic, to "broach it for discussion". Once a referent has been established as
the topic of the current monolog or dialog, then in (formal) modern Japanese its marking will change from
ga to wa. To better explain the difference, the translation of the second sentence can be enlarged to "As for
the sun, it rises" or "Speaking of the sun, it rises"; these renderings reflect a discourse fragment in which
"the sun" is being established as the topic of an extended discussion.

Liberal omission of the subject of a sentence

The grammatical subject is commonly omitted in Japanese, as in

日本 に 行きました
nihon ni ikimashita

5
 Japan loc go-pol-pfv

The sentence literally expresses "went to Japan". Subjects are mentioned when a topic is introduced, or in
situations where an ambiguity might result from their omission. The preceding example sentence would
most likely be uttered in the middle of a discourse, where who it is that "went to Japan" will be clear from
what has already been said (or written).

Sentences, phrases and words

文章
Text ( 文
, bunshō) is composed of sentences ( , bun), which are in turn composed of phrases ( 文節 ,
bunsetsu), which are its smallest coherent components. Like Chinese and classical Korean, written
Japanese does not typically demarcate words with spaces; its agglutinative nature further makes the concept
of a word rather different from words in English. The reader identifies word divisions by semantic cues and
a knowledge of phrase structure. Phrases have a single meaning-bearing word, followed by a string of
suffixes, auxiliary verbs and particles to modify its meaning and designate its grammatical role.

太陽が 東の 空に
taiyō ga higashi no sora ni
sun sbj east poss sky loc
昇る。
noboru
rise
The sun rises in the eastern sky.

Some scholars romanize Japanese sentences by inserting spaces only at phrase boundaries (i.e., "taiyō-ga
higashi-no sora-ni noboru"), treating an entire phrase as a single word. This represents an almost purely
phonological conception of where one word ends and the next begins. There is some validity in taking this
approach: phonologically, the postpositional particles merge with the structural word that precedes them,
and within a phonological phrase, the pitch can have at most one fall. Usually, however, grammarians
adopt a more conventional concept of word ( 単語 , tango), one which invokes meaning and sentence
structure.

Phrasal movement

In Japanese, phrasal constituents can be moved to the beginning or the end of the sentence. Leftward
movement of a phrasal constituent is referred to as "scrambling".

Word classification
In linguistics generally, words and affixes are often classified into two major word categories: lexical
words, those that refer to the world outside of a discourse, and function words—also including fragments
of words—which help to build the sentence in accordance with the grammar rules of the language. Lexical
words include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and sometimes prepositions and postpositions, while
grammatical words or word parts include everything else. The native tradition in Japanese grammar
scholarship seems to concur in this view of classification. This native Japanese tradition uses the
自立語
terminology jiritsugo ( , independent words), for words having lexical meaning, and fuzokugo ( 付属
語 , auxiliary words), for words having a grammatical function.

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 Classical Japanese had some auxiliary verbs (i.e., they were independent words) which have become
grammaticized in modern Japanese as inflectional suffixes, such as the past tense suffix -ta (which might
have developed as a contraction of -te ari).

Traditional scholarship proposes a system of word classes differing somewhat from the above-mentioned.
The "independent" words have the following categories.

katsuyōgo ( 活用語), word classes which have inflections

dōshi (動詞), verbs,
keiyōshi (形容詞), i-type adjectives.
keiyōdōshi (形容動詞), na-type adjectives

hikatsuyōgo (非活用語) or mukatsuyōgo (無活用語), word classes which do not have

inflections

meishi (名詞), nouns

daimeishi (代名詞), pronouns
fukushi (副詞), adverbs
setsuzokushi (接続詞), conjunctions
kandōshi (感動詞), interjections
rentaishi (連体詞), prenominals

Ancillary words also divide into a nonconjugable class, containing grammatical particles ( 助詞, joshi) and
counter words ( 助数詞 , josūshi), and a conjugable class consisting of auxiliary verbs ( 助動詞 , jodōshi).
There is not wide agreement among linguists as to the English translations of the above terms.

Controversy over the characterization of nominal adjectives

Uehara (1998)[9] observes that Japanese grammarians have disagreed as to the criteria that make some
words inflectional and others not; in particular, the nominal adjectives – keiyōdōshi ( 形容動詞 ) or na-
adjectives. (It is not disputed that nouns like hon 'book' are non-inflectional and that verbs and i-adjectives
are inflectional.) The claim that nominal adjectives are inflectional rests on the claim that the element da,
regarded as a copula by proponents of non-inflectional nominal adjectives, is really a suffix—an inflection.
That is, kireida ('it is pretty') is a one-word sentence, not a two-word sentence, kirei da. However,
numerous constructions show that da is less bound to the roots of nouns and nominal adjectives than -i and
-(r)u are to the roots of i-adjectives and verbs, respectively.

(1) Reduplication for emphasis

Hora! Hon, hon! ('See! It is a book!')

Hora! Kirei, kirei! ('See! It is pretty!')
Hora! Furu-i, furu-i! ('See! It is old!') (the adjectival inflection -i cannot be left off)
Hora! Ik-u, ik-u! ('See! It does go!') (the verbal inflection -u cannot be left off)

(2) Questions. In Japanese, questions are formed by adding the particle ka (or in colloquial
speech, just by changing the intonation of the sentence).

Hon ka? ('Is it a book?')

Kirei ka? ('Is it pretty?')

7
 Furu-i ka? ('Is it old?) (-i cannot be left off)
Ik-u ka? ('Does it go?') (-u cannot be left off)

(3) Several epistemic modality predicates, e.g., mitai ('seem like')

Hon mitai da ('It seems to be a book')

Kirei mitai da ('It seems to be pretty')
Furu-i mitai da ('It seems to be old') (-i cannot be left off)
Ik-u mitai da ('It seems to go') (-u cannot be left off)

On the basis of such constructions, Uehara finds that the copula da is not suffixal and that nominal
adjectives pattern with nouns in being non-inflectional.

Similarly, Eleanor Jorden considers this class of words a kind of nominal, not adjective, and refers to them
as na-nominals in her textbook Japanese: The Spoken Language.

Nouns
Japanese has no grammatical gender, number, or articles; though the demonstrative sono ( その , "that,
those"), is often translatable as "the". Thus, linguists agree that Japanese nouns are noninflecting: neko ( )猫
can be translated as "cat", "cats", "a cat", "the cat", "some cats" and so forth, depending on context.
However, as part of the extensive pair of grammatical systems that Japanese possesses for honorification
(making discourse deferential to the addressee or even to a third party) and politeness, nouns too can be
modified. Nouns take politeness prefixes (which have not been regarded as inflections): o- for native nouns,
and go- for Sino-Japanese nouns. A few examples are given in the following table. In a few cases, there is
suppletion, as with the first of the examples given below, 'rice'. (Note that while these prefixes are almost
always written in hiragana as o- ( お〜 ご〜
) or go- ( 御
), the kanji represents both o and go in formal
writing.)

Lacking number, Japanese does not differentiate between

count and mass nouns. A small number of nouns have Respectful forms of nouns
collectives formed by reduplication (possibly meaning plain respectful
accompanied by voicing and related processes (rendaku));
人
for example: hito ( , 'person') and hitobito ( 人々 , meal 飯
meshi ( ) ご飯)
go-han (
'people'). Reduplication is not productive. Words in money kane (金) o-kane (お金)
Japanese referring to more than one of something are
o-karada (お体)
karada (体)
collectives, not plurals. Hitobito, for example, means "a
body
lot of people" or "people in general"; it is never used to onmi (御身)
mean "two people". A phrase like edo no hitobito would
o-kotoba (お言葉)
kotoba (言葉)
be taken to mean "the people of Edo", or "the population word(s)
of Edo", not "two people from Edo" or even "a few mikotonori (詔)
people from Edo". Similarly, yamayama means "many
mountains".

A limited number of nouns have collective forms that refer to groups of people. Examples include watashi-
tachi (私たち , 'we'); anata-tachi ( あなたたち , 'you' [plural]); bokura ( 僕ら
, 'we' (less formal, more
我
masculine)). One uncommon personal noun, ware ( , 'I', or in some cases, 'you'), has a much more
common reduplicative collective form: wareware ( 我々, 'we').

達 等
The suffixes -tachi ( ) and -ra ( ) are by far the most common collectivizing suffixes. These are, again,
not pluralizing suffixes: tarō-tachi does not mean "some number of people named Taro", but instead
indicates the group including Taro. Depending on context, tarō-tachi might be translated into "Taro and his
friends", "Taro and his siblings", "Taro and his family", or any other logical grouping that has Taro as the

8
 representative. Some words with collectives have become fixed phrases and (commonly) refer to one
person. Specifically, kodomo ( 子供 友達
, 'child') and tomodachi ( , 'friend') can be singular, even though -
[t]omo and -[t]achi were originally collectivizing in these words; to unambiguously refer to groups of
子供たち
them, an additional collectivizing suffix is added: kodomo-tachi ( , 'children') and tomodachi-tachi
(友達たち , 'friends'), though tomodachi-tachi is somewhat uncommon. Tachi is sometimes applied to
車
inanimate objects, kuruma ( , 'car') and kuruma-tachi ( 車たち , 'cars'), for example, but this usage is
colloquial and indicates a high level of anthropomorphisation and childlikeness, and is not more generally
accepted as standard.

Grammatical case

Grammatical cases in Japanese are marked by particles placed after the nouns.[10] A distinctive feature of
Japanese is the presence of two cases which are roughly equivalent to the nominative case in other
languages: one representing the sentence topic, other representing the subject. The most important case
markers are the following:

が は
Nominative – ga ( ) for subject, wa ( ) for the topic
Genitive – no ( ) の
に
Dative – ni ( )
Accusative – o ( )を
へ
Lative – e ( ), used for destination direction (like in "to some place")
から), used for source direction (like in "from some place")
Ablative – kara (
Instrumental/Locative– de (で)

Pronouns

Common pronouns
person very informal plain, informal polite

first
俺
ore ( , male) 僕
boku ( , male) 私
watashi ( )
あたし, female)
atashi ( 私
watashi ( , gender neutral) 私
watakushi ( )

anta (あんた) 君
kimi ( ) anata (貴方)
second
omae (お前) anata (あなた) sochira (そちら)

kare (彼, referring to males)

third あいつ, pejorative)
aitsu ( kanojo (彼女, referring to females) あの方 (ano kata)
ano hito (あの人)

Although many grammars and textbooks mention pronouns ( 代名詞, daimeishi), Japanese lacks true
pronouns. (Daimeishi can be considered a subset of nouns.) Strictly speaking, linguistic pronouns do not
take modifiers, but Japanese daimeishi do. For example, se no takai kare ( 背の高い彼 , lit. "tall he") is
valid in Japanese. Also, unlike true pronouns, Japanese daimeishi are not closed-class; new daimeishi are
introduced and old ones go out of use relatively quickly.

9
A large number of daimeishi referring to people are translated as pronouns in their most common uses.
彼
Examples: kare ( , he); kanojo ( 彼女 私
, she); watashi ( , I); see also the adjoining table or a longer list.[11]
己 僕
Some of these "personal nouns" such as onore ( , I (exceedingly humble)), or boku ( , I (young male)),
also have second-person uses: onore ( おのれ ) in second-person is an extremely rude "you", and boku in
second-person is a diminutive "you" used for young boys. Kare and kanojo also mean "boyfriend" and
"girlfriend" respectively, and this usage of the words is possibly more common than the use as pronouns.

Like other subjects, personal daimeishi are seldom used and are de-emphasized in Japanese. This is partly
because Japanese sentences do not always require explicit subjects, and partly because names or titles are
often used where pronouns would appear in a translation:

「木下さん は、 背
"Kinoshita-san wa, se
が 高い です
ga takai desu
ね。」
ne."
(addressing Mr. Kinoshita) "You're pretty tall, aren't you?"

「専務、 明日 福岡市
"Senmu, asu Fukuoka-shi
西区 の 山本商事
nishi-ku no Yamamoto-shōji
の 社長 に
no shachō ni
会って いただけます か？」
atte itadakemasu ka?"
(addressing the managing director) "Would it be possible for you to meet the president of
Yamamoto Trading Co. in West Ward, Fukuoka tomorrow?"

The possible referents of daimeishi are sometimes constrained depending on the order of occurrence. The
following pair of examples from Bart Mathias[12] illustrates one such constraint.

本田君 に 会って、
Honda-kun ni atte,
彼 の 本
kare no hon
を 返した。
o kaeshita
(I) met Honda and returned his book. ("His" here can refer to Honda.)

彼 に 会って、
Kare ni atte,
本田君 の 本
Honda-kun no hon
を 返した。
o kaeshita
(I) met him and returned Honda's book. (Here, "him" cannot refer to Honda.)

10
 Reflexive pronouns

English has a reflexive form of each personal pronoun (himself, herself, itself, themselves, etc.); Japanese, in
contrast, has one main reflexive daimeishi, namely jibun ( 自分 ), which can also mean 'I'. The uses of the
reflexive (pro)nouns in the two languages are very different, as demonstrated by the following literal
translations (*=impossible, ??=ambiguous):

English Japanese reason

History the target of
repeats itself. ＊ 歴史 jibun must
be animate
* Rekishi
は 自分
wa jibun
を 繰り返す。
o kurikaesu.

Hiroshi talked there is no

to Kenji about
himself
ひろし は ambiguity in
this
Hiroshi wa
健司 に
(=Hiroshi). translation,
as
Kenji ni explained

自分 の below

jibun no
こと を
koto o
話した。
hanashita.
*Makoto
expects that
？？ 誠 jibun can be
in a
?? Makoto
Shizuko will
take good care
of himself
は 静子 different
sentence or
dependent
wa Shizuko
(=Makoto;
note that が 自分 clause, but
its target is
Shizuko is ga jibun ambiguous
female).
を 大事
o daiji
に する
ni suru
こと を
koto o
期待 して
kitai shite
いる。
iru.
either "Makoto expects that Shizuko will take good care of
him", or "Makoto expects that Shizuko will take good care of
herself."

11
If the sentence has more than one grammatical or semantic subject, then the target of jibun is the subject of
the primary or most prominent action; thus in the following sentence jibun refers unambiguously to
Shizuko (even though Makoto is the grammatical subject) because the primary action is Shizuko's reading.

誠 は 静子
Makoto wa Shizuko
に 自分 の
ni jibun no
家 で 本
uchi de hon
を 読ませた。
o yomaseta.
Makoto made Shizuko read book(s) in her house.

In practice the main action is not always discernible, in which case such sentences are ambiguous. The use
of jibun in complex sentences follows non-trivial rules.

There are also equivalents to jibun such as mizukara. Other uses of the reflexive pronoun in English are
covered by adverbs like hitorideni which is used in the sense of "by oneself". For example,

機械 が ひとりでに
kikai ga hitorideni
動き出した。
ugokidashita.
"The machine started operating by itself."

Change in a verb's valency is not accomplished by use of reflexive pronouns (in this Japanese is like
English but unlike many other European languages). Instead, separate (but usually related) intransitive
verbs and transitive verbs are used. There is no longer any productive morphology to derive transitive verbs
from intransitive ones, or vice versa.

Demonstratives

Demonstratives occur in the ko-, so-, and a- series. The ko- (proximal) series refers to things closer to the
speaker than the hearer, the so- (medial) series for things closer to the hearer, and the a- (distal) series for
things distant to both the speaker and the hearer. With do-, demonstratives turn into the corresponding
interrogative form. Demonstratives can also be used to refer to people, for example

12
 Demonstratives
ko- so- a- do-
kore sore are dore
-re
this one that one that one over there which one?
kono sono ano dono
-no
(of) this (of) that (of) that over there (of) what?
konna sonna anna donna
-nna
like this like that like that over there what sort of?

koko soko asoko 1 doko

-ko
here there over there where?

kochira sochira achira dochira

-chira 2
this way that way that way over there which way?

kō sō ā1 dō
-u 3
in this manner in that manner in that (other) manner how? in what manner?

koitsu soitsu aitsu doitsu

-itsu
this person that person that (other) person who?

1. irregular formation
2. colloquially contracted to -cchi
3. -ou is represented by -ō
「こちら は 林さん
"Kochira wa Hayashi-san
です。」
desu."
"This is Mr. Hayashi."

Demonstratives limit, and therefore precede, nouns; thus kono hon ( この本) for "this/my book", and sono
hon (その本 ) for "that/your book".

When demonstratives are used to refer to things not visible to the speaker or the hearer, or to (abstract)
concepts, they fulfill a related but different anaphoric role. The anaphoric distals are used for shared
information between the speaker and the listener.

A： 先日、 札幌
A: Senjitsu, Sapporo
に 行って 来ました。
ni itte kimashita.
A: I visited Sapporo recently.

B： あそこ （＊そこ）
B: Asoko (*Soko)
は いつ 行って
wa itsu itte
も いい 所
mo ii tokoro
です ね。
13
 desu ne.
B: Yeah, that's a great place to visit whenever you go.

Soko instead of asoko would imply that B does not share this knowledge about Sapporo, which is
inconsistent with the meaning of the sentence. The anaphoric medials are used to refer to experience or
knowledge that is not shared between the speaker and listener.

佐藤： 田中 と
Satō: Tanaka to
いう 人 が
iu hito ga
昨日 死んだ ん
kinō shinda n
だ って。
da tte...
Sato: I heard that a man called Tanaka died yesterday...

森： えっ、 本当？
Mori: E', hontō?
Mori: Oh, really?

佐藤： だから、 その
Satō: Dakara, sono
（＊あの） 人、 森さん
(*ano) hito, Mori-san
の 昔 の
no mukashi no
隣人 じゃ なかった
rinjin ja nakatta
っけ？
kke?
Sato: It's why I asked... wasn't he an old neighbour of yours?

Again, ano is inappropriate here because Sato does not (did not) know Tanaka personally. The proximal
demonstratives do not have clear anaphoric uses. They can be used in situations where the distal series
sound too disconnected:

一体 何 です
Ittai nan desu
か、 これ （＊あれ）
ka, kore (*are)
は
wa?
What on earth is this?

Conjugable words

14
 Stem forms

Conjugative suffixes and auxiliary verbs are attached to the stem forms of the affixee. In modern Japanese,
there are six stem forms, ordered following from the -a, -i, -u, -e, -o endings that these forms have in 5-row
(五段 ) verbs (according to the あ、い、う、え、お collation order of Japanese), where terminal and
attributive forms are the same for verbs (hence only 5 surface forms), but differ for nominals, notably na-
nominals.

Irrealis form ( 未然形 , mizenkei) -a (and -ō)

is used for plain negative (of verbs), causative and passive constructions. The most
common use of this form is with the -nai auxiliary that turns verbs into their negative
(predicate) form. (See Verbs below.) The -ō version is used for volitional expression and
formed by a euphonic change ( 音便
, onbin).
Continuative form ( 連用形 , ren'yōkei) -i
is used in a linking role (a kind of serial verb construction). This is the most productive
stem form, taking on a variety of endings and auxiliaries, and can even occur
independently in a sense similar to the -te ending. This form is also used to negate
adjectives.
Terminal form ( 終止形 , shūshikei) -u
is used at the ends of clauses in predicate positions. This form is also variously known as
plain form (基本形 , kihonkei) or dictionary form ( 辞書形, jishokei) – it is the form that verbs
are listed under in a dictionary.
Attributive form ( 連体形 , rentaikei) -u
is prefixed to nominals and is used to define or classify the noun, similar to a relative
clause in English. In modern Japanese it is practically identical to the terminal form, except
that verbs are generally not inflected for politeness; in old Japanese these forms differed.
Further, na-nominals behave differently in terminal and attributive positions; see Adjectival
verbs and nouns, below.
Hypothetical form ( 仮定形 , kateikei) -e
is used for conditional and subjunctive forms, using the -ba ending.
Imperative form ( 命令形 , meireikei) -e
is used to turn verbs into commands. Adjectives do not have an imperative stem form.

The application of conjugative suffixes to stem forms follow certain euphonic principles ( 音便, onbin).
Verbs

Verbs (動詞 , dōshi) in Japanese are rigidly constrained to the end of a clause. This means that the predicate
position is always located at the end of a sentence.

猫 は 魚
Neko wa sakana
Cat topic fish
を 食べる
o taberu
object eat
"A cat eats fish"

15
The subject and objects of the verb are indicated by means of particles, and the grammatical functions of
the verb (primarily tense and voice) are indicated by means of conjugation. When the subject and the
dissertative topic coincide, the subject is often omitted; if the verb is intransitive, the entire sentence may
consist of a single verb. Verbs have two tenses indicated by conjugation, past and non-past. The semantic
difference between present and future is not indicated by means of conjugation. Usually there is no
ambiguity as context makes it clear whether the speaker is referring to the present or future. Voice and
aspect are also indicated by means of conjugation, and possibly agglutinating auxiliary verbs. For example,
the continuative aspect is formed by means of the continuative conjugation known as the gerundive or -te
見る
form, and the auxiliary verb iru ("to be"); to illustrate, miru ( , "to see") → mite iru ( 見ている , "to be
seeing").

Verbs can be semantically classified based on certain conjugations.

Stative verbs
indicate existential properties, such as "to be" ( いる, iru), "to be able to do" (出来る,
dekiru), "to need" ( 要る, iru), etc. These verbs generally do not have a continuative
conjugation with -iru because they are semantically continuative already.
Continual verbs
conjugate with the auxiliary -iru to indicate the progressive aspect. Examples: "to eat" ( 食
べる 飲む
, taberu), "to drink" ( 考える
, nomu), "to think" ( , kangaeru). To illustrate the
conjugation, taberu (食べる, "to eat") → tabete iru (食べている, "to be eating").
Punctual verbs
conjugate with -iru to indicate a repeated action, or a continuing state after some action.
Example: shiru ( 知る, "to know") → shitte iru ( 知っている , "to be knowing"); utsu ( , "to打つ
hit") → utte iru ( 打っている , "to be hitting (repeatedly)").
Non-volitional verb
indicate uncontrollable action or emotion. These verbs generally have no volitional,
imperative or potential conjugation. Examples: konomu ( 好む
, "to like / to prefer"
[emotive]), mieru ( 見える
, "to be visible" [non-emotive]).
Movement verbs
indicate motion. Examples: aruku ( 歩く
, "to walk"), kaeru ( 帰る
, "to return"). In the
continuative form (see below) they take the particle ni to indicate a purpose.

There are other possible classes, and a large amount of overlap between the classes.

Lexically, nearly every verb in Japanese is a member of exactly one of the following three regular
conjugation groups (see also Japanese godan and ichidan verbs).

Group 2a (上一段 , kami ichidan, lit. upper 1-row)

verbs with a stem ending in -i. The terminal stem form always rhymes with -iru. Examples:
miru (見る 着る
, "to see"), kiru ( , "to wear").
Group 2b (下一段, shimo ichidan, lit. lower 1-row)
verbs with a stem ending in -e. The terminal stem form always rhymes with -eru.
Examples: taberu (食べる, "to eat"), kureru (くれる, "to give" (to someone of lower or more
intimate status)). (Some Group 1 verbs resemble Group 2b verbs, but their stems end in r-,
not -e.)
Group 1 ( 五段, godan, lit. 5-row)
verbs with a stem ending in a consonant. When this is r- and the verb ends in -eru, it is not
apparent from the terminal form whether the verb is Group 1 or Group 2b, e.g. kaeru ( , 帰る

16
 "to return"). If the stem ends in w-, that consonant sound only appears in before the final -a
of the irrealis form.

The "row" in the above classification means a row in the gojūon table. "Upper 1-row" means the row that
is one row above the center row (the u-row) i.e. i-row. "Lower 1-row" means the row that is one row
below the center row (the u-row) i.e. e-row. "5-row" means the conjugation runs through all 5 rows of the
gojūon table. A conjugation is fully described by identifying both the row and the column in the gojūon
table. For example, miru ( 見る マ行上一段活用
, "to see") belongs to ma-column i-row conjugation ( ),
taberu (食べる バ行下一段活用
, "to eat") belongs to ba-column e-row conjugation ( 帰る
), and kaeru ( ,
ラ行五段活用
"to return") belongs to ra-column 5-row conjugation ( ).

One should avoid confusing verbs in ra-column 5-row conjugation ( ラ行五段活用 ) with verbs in i-row
conjugation (上一段活用) or e-row conjugation (下一段活用). For example, kiru (切る, "to cut") belongs
to ra-column 5-row conjugation (ラ行五段活用), whereas its homophone kiru (着る , "to wear") belongs
to ka-column i-row conjugation ( カ行上一段活用 ). Likewise, neru ( 練る , "to knead") belongs to ra-
column 5-row conjugation (ラ行五段活用), whereas its homophone neru (寝る, "to sleep") belongs to na-
column e-row conjugation (ナ行下一段活用).

Historically, Classical Japanese had upper and lower 1-row groups ( 上・下一段 , kami/shimo ichidan),
upper and lower 2-row groups ( 上・下二段 , kami/shimo nidan) and a 4-row group ( 四段 , yodan). The
nidan verbs became most of the ichidan verbs in modern Japanese (only a handful of kami ichidan verbs
and a single shimo ichidan verb existed in classical Japanese). The yodan group was reclassified as the
godan group during the post-WWII writing reform in 1946, to write Japanese as it is pronounced. Since
verbs have migrated across groups in the history of the language, the conjugation of classical verbs cannot
be ascertained from knowledge of modern Japanese alone.

Of the irregular classes, there are two:

sa-group
which has only one member, suru ( する
, "to do"). In Japanese grammars these words are
classified as sa-hen ( サ変
), an abbreviation of sa-gyō henkaku katsuyō ( サ行変格活用
),
sa-row irregular conjugation).
ka-group
来る
which also has one member, kuru ( , "to come"). The Japanese name for this class is
ka-gyō henkaku katsuyō (カ行変格活用) or simply ka-hen (カ変).

Classical Japanese had two further irregular classes, the na-group, which contained shinu ( 死ぬ , "to die")
and inu (往ぬ , "to go"/"to die"), the ra-group, which included such verbs as ari ( あり ), the equivalent of
modern aru, as well as quite a number of extremely irregular verbs that cannot be classified.

The following table illustrates the stem forms of the above conjugation groups, with the root indicated with
dots. For example, to find the hypothetical form of the group 1 verb kaku ( 書く ), look in the second row to
find its root, kak-, then in the hypothetical row to get the ending -e, giving the stem form kake. When there
are multiple possibilities, they are listed in the order of increasing rarity.

17
 Group 1 2a 2b
sa ka
Example 使・)
tsuka(w). ( 書・)
kak. ( mi. ( 見・) tabe. (食べ・)
kak.a (書 さ
tsukaw.a (使
Irrealis form1
わ) 2 か) 見 食べ)
sa ( )
shi (し) 来
(未然形, mizenkei) tsuka.o (使お)
kak.o (書
mi. ( ) tabe. (
se (せ)
ko ( )

こ)
Continuative
form 使い)
tsuka.i ( kak.i ( 書き) mi. ( ) 見 tabe. ( 食べ) shi ( ) し ki ( )来
( 連用形, ren'yōkei)
Terminal form
終止形 使う) kak.u ( 書 見る) 食べる) する) 来る)
( ,
shūshikei)
tsuka.u (
く )
mi.ru ( tabe.ru ( suru ( kuru (

Attributive form Same as terminal form

Hypothetical
form 使え) kak.e ( 書 見れ) 食べれ) すれ) 来れ)
( 仮定形, kateikei)
tsuka.e (
け )
mi.re ( tabe.re ( sure ( kure (

shiro ( し
見ろ) 食べろ) ろ )
Imperative form
使え) kak.e ( 書 mi.ro (
mi.yo (見
tabe.ro (
tabe.yo (食べ せ 来い)
(命令形, meireikei) tsuka.e (
け )
よ) よ)
seyo (
よ)
koi (

sei (せい)

1. The -a and -o irrealis forms for Group 1 verbs were historically one, but since the post-WWII
spelling reforms they have been written differently. In modern Japanese the -o form is used
only for the volitional mood and the -a form is used in all other cases; see also the
conjugation table below.
2. The unexpected ending is due to the verb's root being tsukaw- but w- only being
pronounced before -a in modern Japanese.

The above are only the stem forms of the verbs; to these one must add various verb endings in order to get
the fully conjugated verb. The following table lists the most common conjugations. Note that in some cases
the form is different depending on the conjugation group of the verb. See Japanese verb conjugations for a
full list.

18
 group 1 group 2a group 2b sa-group ka-group
 
formation
rule 書く) 見る) taberu ( 食べ する) 来る)
kaku ( miru (
る
)
suru ( kuru (

polite cont. + masu kaki.masu ( 書 mi.masu tabe.masu ( 食 shi.masu ki.masu

imperfective (ます ) き・ます ) (見・ます) べ・ます ) し・ます
( ) 来・ます)
(

kai.ta (書い・ mi.ta (見・ tabe.ta (食べ・ shi.ta (し・

plain
perfective
cont. + ta
た
( ) た) 2 た) た) た) ki.ta ( 来・た)
plain
irrealis + nai 書
kaka.nai ( mi.nai ( 見・ 食
tabe.nai ( し・
shi.nai ( ko.nai ( 来・
negative
imperfective
ない
( ) か・ない) ない) べ・ない) ない) ない)
plain irrealis + kaka.nakatta mi.nakatta tabe.nakatta shi.nakatta ko.nakatta
negative なか (書か・なかっ
nakatta ( 見・なかっ (食べ・なかっ (し・なかっ (来・なかっ
(
perfective った ) た) た た)
) た) た)
tabe.te (食べ
kai.te (書いて) mi.te (見て) shi.te (して) ki.te (来て)
-te form cont. + -te
(て) て)
2
(gerundive)

provisional hyp. + ba kake.ba (書 mire.ba (見 tabere.ba (食 sure.ba (す kure.ba (来

conditional (ば) け・ば) れ・ば) べれ・ば) れ・ば) れ・ば)
past cont. + tara kai.tara (書い mi.tara (見た tabe.tara (食べ shi.tara (し ki.tara (来た
conditional (たら) たら) 2 ら) たら) たら) ら)
irrealis + u kako.u (書こ・
(う) う)
volitional
irrealis + yō mi.yō (見・ tabe.yō (食 shi.yō (し・ ko.yō (来・
(よう) よう) べ・よう) よう) よう)
irrealis + reru kaka.reru (書 sa.reru (さ・
(れる) か・れる) れる)
passive
tabe.rareru (食
irrealis +
rareru (られ
mi.rareru ko.rareru
(見・られる) べ・られる) 来・られる
る) ( )

irrealis + seru kaka.seru (書 sa.seru

(せる) か・せる) (さ・せる )
causative irrealis +
saseru ( させ mi.saseru
見・させる) (食べ・させる)
tabe.saseru ko.saseru
来・させる)
る )
( (

る kake.ru ( 書 dekiru ( 出来
hyp. + ru ( )
け・る ) る )1
potential irrealis +
られ mi.rareru 食
tabe.rareru ( ko.rareru
rareru (
る )
見・られる)
( べ・られる) (来・られる)

1. This is an entirely different verb; suru ( する

) has no potential form.
2. These forms change depending on the final syllable of the verb's dictionary form (whether u,
ku, gu, su, etc.). For details, see [[#Euphonic changes ( 音便
onbin)|Euphonic changes]],
below, and the article Japanese verb conjugation.

19
The polite ending -masu conjugates as a group 1 verb, except that the negative imperfective and perfective
forms are -masen and -masen deshita respectively, and certain conjugations are in practice rarely if ever
used. The passive and potential endings -reru and -rareru, and the causative endings -seru and -saseru all
conjugate as group 2b verbs. Multiple verbal endings can therefore agglutinate. For example, a common
formation is the causative-passive ending: -sase-rareru.

僕 は 姉
Boku wa ane
に 納豆 を
ni nattō o
食べさせられた。
tabesaserareta.
I was made to eat nattō by my (elder) sister.

As should be expected, the vast majority of theoretically possible combinations of conjugative endings are
not semantically meaningful.

Transitive and intransitive verbs

Japanese has a large variety of related pairs of transitive verbs (that take a direct object) and intransitive
verbs (that do not usually take a direct object), such as the transitive hajimeru ( 始める , someone or
something begins an activity), and the intransitive hajimaru (始まる , an activity begins).[13][14]

20
 transitive verb intransitive verb

The intransitive verb passively

happens without direct
One thing acts out the transitive verb on another
intervention.
を
Usually uses o ( ) to link to the direct object
が
Usually uses ga ( ) or wa ( )は
to link subject and verb.

先生 が 授業
Sensei ga Jugyō
授業 を が
jugyō o ga
始める。 始まる。
hajimeru. hajimaru.
The teacher starts the class. The class starts.

車 に 車
Kuruma ni Kuruma
何 か に
nani ka ni
を 入れる 入る
o ireru hairu
To put something in the car To enter the car

dasu (出す, 'to take/put out') deru (出る, 'to exit')

kesu (消す, 'to extinguish') kieru (消える, 'to go out')

akeru (開ける, 'to open [something]') aku (開く, 'to open'/'to be open')

tsuku (付く, 'to attach'/'to be

tsukeru (付ける, 'to attach [something]')
attached')

shimeru (閉める, 'to close [something]') shimaru (閉まる, 'to close'/'to be

closed')

mitsukeru (見つける, 'to find') 見つかる, 'to be found')

mitsukaru (

nuku (抜く, 'to extract') nukeru (抜ける, 'to come out')

okosu (起こす, 'to wake [someone] up') okiru (起きる, 'to wake up')

umu (生む, 'to give birth') umareru (生まれる, 'to be born')

Note: Some intransitive verbs (usually verbs of motion) take what looks like a direct object, but is not.[15]
For example, hanareru ( 離れる , to leave):

私 は 東京
Watashi wa Tōkyō
を 離れる。
o hanareru.
I leave Tokyo.

21
Adjectival verbs and nouns

Semantically speaking, words that denote attributes or properties are primarily distributed between two
morphological classes (there are also a few other classes):

adjectival verbs ( 形容詞

, keiyōshi, conventionally called "i-adjectives")– these have roots
and conjugating stem forms, and are semantically and morphologically similar to stative
verbs.
adjectival nouns ( 形容動詞 , keiyōdōshi, lit. "adjectival verb", conventionally called "na-
adjectives")– these are nouns that combine with the copula.

Unlike adjectives in languages like English, i-adjectives in Japanese inflect for aspect and mood, like verbs.
Japanese adjectives do not have comparative or superlative inflections; comparatives and superlatives have
to be marked periphrastically using adverbs like motto ('more') and ichiban ('most').

Every adjective in Japanese can be used in an attributive position, and nearly every Japanese adjective can
be used in a predicative position. There are a few Japanese adjectives that cannot predicate, known as
連体詞
rentaishi ( , attributives), which are derived from other word classes; examples include ōkina ( 大き
な , "big"), chiisana ( 小さな おかしな
, "small"), and okashina ( , "strange") which are all stylistic na-type
variants of normal i-type adjectives.

いい
All i-adjectives except for ii ( , good) have regular conjugations, and ii is irregular only in the fact that it
is a changed form of the regular adjective yoi ( 良い) permissible in the terminal and attributive forms. For
all other forms it reverts to yoi.

Stem forms for adjectives

i-adjectives na-adjectives

yasu. ( 安・い) 静か-)

shizuka- (

未然形, mizenkei)
Irrealis form ( .karo (安かろ) -daro (静かだろ)

Continuative form (連用形, ren'yōkei) .ku (安く) -de (静かで)

Terminal form¹ (終止形, shūshikei) .i (安い) -da (静かだ)

-na (静かな)/
Attributive form¹ ( 連体形, rentaikei) .i (安い)
-naru (静かなる)

Hypothetical form (仮定形, kateikei) .kere (安けれ) -nara (静かなら)

Imperative form² (命令形, meireikei) .kare (安かれ) -nare (静かなれ)

1. The attributive and terminal forms were formerly .ki ( 安き

) and .shi ( 安し
), respectively; in
modern Japanese these are used productively for stylistic reasons only, although many set
phrases such as nanashi ( 名無し , anonymous) and yoshi ( よし
, [general positive
interjection], sometimes written yosh), derive from them.
2. The imperative form is extremely rare in modern Japanese, restricted to set patterns like
osokare hayakare ( 遅かれ早かれ , 'sooner or later'), where they are treated as adverbial
phrases. It is impossible for an imperative form to be in a predicate position.

Common conjugations of adjectives are enumerated below. ii is not treated separately, because all
conjugation forms are identical to those of yoi.

22
 i-adjectives na-adjectives
 
yasui (安い, "cheap") shizuka ( 静か, "quiet")
informal
root + -i
安い, "is cheap") shizuka da ( 静か
nonpast (Used alone, without the
copula)
yasui ( root + copula da
だ , "is quiet")

あった) 安かった, "was cont. + atta (あ shizuka d.atta ( 静

informal
past
cont. + atta (
(u + a collapse)
yasuk.atta (
cheap")
った ) かだった , "was
(e + a collapse) quiet")

informal
は ない)¹ yasuku(wa)nai ( 安く は な
( ) cont. + (wa) nai
shizuka de (wa)
静かで は な
negative
nonpast
cont. + (wa) nai (( )
い
, "isn't cheap") は ない
(( ) )
nai (
い
( )
, "isn't quiet")

informal
はな yasuku(wa)nakatta ( 安く cont. + (wa)
shizuka de (wa)
静かで
negative
cont. + (wa) nakatta (( )
かった は なかった
( ) , "wasn't はな
nakatta (( )
nakatta (
は なかった
past )¹
cheap") かった )
( ) ,
"wasn't quiet")

polite root + -i + copula desu ( で yasui desu ( 安いです, "is root + copula shizuka desu ( 静
nonpast す ) cheap") desu ( です ) かです , "is quiet")

ありません)¹ yasuku arimasen ( 安くあり inf. cont + (wa)

はあ
shizuka de wa
静かで
polite
arimasen (
ません
)
arimasen (( )
りません )
arimasen (
はありません )
negative
nonpast
inf. neg. non-past + copula yasukunai desu ( 安くない inf. cont + (wa)
はな
shizuka de wa nai
静かではな
desu ( です )¹ です
)
nai desu (( )
いです )
desu (
いです )

inf. cont + (wa) shizuka de wa

　
inf. cont + arimasen yasuku arimasen deshita arimasen arimasen deshita
ありませんでした)
deshita ( 安くありませんでした
( ) はあ
deshita (( ) (静かではありま
polite りませんでした ) せんでした )
negative
past shizuka de wa
inf. neg. past + copula yasukunakatta desu ( 安く inf. neg. past +
な かではなかったで 静
nakatta desu (
desu ( です )¹ なかったです )
nakatta desu (
かったです )¹
す)
shizuka de (静か
-te form cont. + te ( ) て yasuku.te ( 安くて) cont.
で)
provisional
conditional
hyp. + ba ( ) ば yasukere.ba ( 安ければ) hyp. (+ ba (ば))
shizuka nara(ba)
(静かなら(ば))

past
conditional
ら
inf. past + ra ( ) 安かったら)
yasukatta.ra (
inf. past + ra
ら( )
shizuka datta.ra
静かだったら
( )

yasukarō (安かろう)
う
irrealis + u ( ) う
安いだろ
irrealis + u ( )
= root + darō (だ
shizuka darō ( 静
volitional²
/root + darō ( だろう) / yasuidarō (
う ) ろう) かだろう )

安く) に shizuka ni (静か

adverbial cont. yasuku. ( root + ni ( )
に)

degree root + sa ( ) さ yasu-sa ( 安さ) さ

root + sa ( ) shizuka-sa ( 静か
(-ness)
さ)

23
 1. Note that these are just forms of the i-type adjective nai ( ない
)
2. Since most adjectives describe non-volitional conditions, the volitional form is interpreted as
"it is possible", if sensible. In some rare cases it is semi-volitional: yokarō ( 良かろう
, 'OK', lit:
"let it be good") in response to a report or request.

Adjectives too are governed by euphonic rules in certain cases, as noted in the section on it below. For the
polite negatives of na-type adjectives, see also the section below on the copula da ( ).だ
Copula ( だ da)
The copula da behaves very much like a verb or an adjective in terms of conjugation.

Stem forms of the copula

未然形, mizenkei)
Irrealis form ( では)
de wa (

Continuative form (連用形, ren'yōkei) de (で)

da (だ, informal)
Terminal form ( 終止形, shūshikei) desu (です, polite)
de gozaimasu (でございます, respectful)

連体形, rentaikei)
Attributive form ( de aru (である)

Hypothetical form (仮定形, kateikei) nara (なら)

Imperative form (命令形, meireikei) impossible

Note that there are no potential, causative, or passive forms of the copula, just as with adjectives.

The following are some examples.

ジョンは学生だ。
JON wa gakusei da

"John is a student."

明日も晴れなら、ピクニックしよう。
Ashita mo hare nara, PIKUNIKKU shiyō

"If tomorrow is clear too, let's have a picnic."

In continuative conjugations, de wa ( では ) is often contracted in speech to ja ( じゃ ); for some kinds of

informal speech ja is preferable to de wa, or is the only possibility.

24
 Conjugations of the copula

informal だ
da ( )

nonpast polite desu (です)

respectful de gozaimasu (でございます)

cont. + atta (あった)

informal
datta (だった)
past
polite deshita (でした)

respectful de gozaimashita (でございました)

informal cont. + wa nai (はない) ja nai (じゃない)

negative polite cont. + wa arimasen (はありません) (じゃありません, ja arimasen)

nonpast
cont. + wa gozaimasen (はございませ
(じゃございません, ja gozaimasen)
respectful
ん)
informal cont. + wa nakatta (はなかった) ja nakatta (じゃなかった)

cont. + wa arimasen deshita (はありま ja arimasen deshita (じゃありませ

negative past
polite
せんでした) んでした)
cont. + wa gozaimasen deshita (はござ ja gozaimasen deshita (じゃござい
respectful
いませんでした) ませんでした)
informal hyp. + ba (ば)
conditional polite
respectful
cont. + areba ( あれば)
informal nara ( なら)
provisional polite
same as conditional
respectful

informal だろう)
darō (

volitional polite deshō (でしょう)

respectful de gozaimashō (でございましょう)

informal cont.
adverbial and -te
forms
polite ありまして)
cont. + arimashite (

respectful cont. + gozaimashite (ございまして)

Euphonic changes ( 音便, onbin)

Historical sound change

Modern pronunciation is a result of a long history of phonemic drift that can be traced back to written
records of the 13th century, and possibly earlier. However, it was only in 1946 that the Japanese ministry of
education modified existing kana usage to conform to the standard dialect ( 共通語 , kyōtsūgo). All earlier

25
texts used the archaic orthography, Spelling changes
now referred to as historical kana
Archaic Modern
usage. The adjoining table is a nearly
exhaustive list of these spelling a+u( あ＋う) おう)
a + fu (あ＋ふ)
ō(
changes.

Note that the palatalized morae ゆ i + u (い＋う)

and よ (yu and yo) combine with the
i + fu (い＋ふ)
yū ( ゆう) 1

initial consonant (if present) yielding a

palatalized syllable. The most basic u + fu (う＋ふ) ū( うう)
example of this is modern kyō ( 今日 e + u (え＋う)
（きょう） , today), which よう)
historically developed as kefu ( けふ ) e + fu (え＋ふ)
yō (

きょう
→ kyō ( えふ
), via the efu ( )
o + fu (お＋ふ) おう)
よう
→ yō ( ) rule.
ō(

o + ho (お＋ほ)
A few sound changes are not
o + wo (お＋を)
ō( おお)
reflected in the spelling. Firstly, ou
merged with oo, both being む
auxiliary verb mu ( ) ん
n( )
pronounced as a long ō. Secondly, the
particles は and を are still written medial or final ha (は) wa (わ)
using historical kana usage, though i (い), e (え), o (お)
these are pronounced as wa and o medial or final hi (ひ), he (へ), ho (ほ)
(via wi, we, wo, see below)
respectively, rather than ha and wo.
ゐ ゑ を
any wi ( ), we ( ), wo ( ) い え お
i ( ), e ( ), o ( )1
Among Japanese speakers, it is not
generally understood that the 1. Usually not reflected in spelling
historical kana spellings were, at one
point, reflective of pronunciation. For example, the modern on'yomi reading yō ( よう 葉
) (for leaf ( , yō))
arose from the historical efu (えふ ). The latter was pronounced something like [ʲepu] by the Japanese at the
time it was borrowed (compare Middle Chinese [jiɛp̚]). However, a modern reader of a classical text would
still read this as [joː], the modern pronunciation.

Verb conjugations

Conjugations of some verbs and adjectives differ from the prescribed formation rules because of euphonic
changes. Nearly all of these euphonic changes are themselves regular. For verbs the exceptions are all in the
ending of the continuative form of group when the following auxiliary starts with a t-sound (i.e. ta ( ), teた
て
( ), tari (たり ), etc.).

26
 Continuative ending Changes to Example

*kaite (＊買いて) → katte (買って)

い ち
i ( ), chi ( ) or ri
っ (double consonant) *uchite (＊打ちて) → utte (打って)
り
( )
*shirite (＊知りて) → shitte (知って)

*asobite (＊遊びて) → asonde (遊ん

で)
び み
bi ( ), mi ( ) or ni ん タ
syllabic n ( ), with the following t ( ) sound *sumite (＊住みて) → sunde (住ん
に
( ) voiced で)
*shinite (＊死にて) → shinde (死ん
で)
き
ki ( ) い
i( ) *kakite (＊書きて) → kaite (書いて)

*oyogite (＊泳ぎて) → oyoide (泳い

gi (ぎ) i (い), with the following t (タ) sound voiced
で)
* denotes impossible/ungrammatical form.

There is one other irregular change: iku ( 行く, to go), for which there is an exceptional continuative form:
行き
iki ( て
) + te ( ) → itte (行って ), iki (行き) + ta (た) → itta (行った), etc.
There are dialectical differences, which are also regular and generally occur in similar situations. For
思うた
example, in Kansai dialect the -i + t- conjugations are instead changed to -ut-, as in omōta ( ) instead
of omotta ( 思った ), as perfective of omou ( 思う , think). In this example, this can combine with the
preceding vowel via historical sound changes, as in shimōta ( しもうた ) (au → ō) instead of standard
shimatta ( しまった ).

Polite forms of adjectives

The continuative form of proper adjectives, when followed by polite forms such as gozaru ( ござる 御座 /
る , be) or zonjiru ( 存じる , know, think), undergoes a transformation; this may be followed by historical
sound changes, yielding a one-step or two-step sound change. Note that these verbs are almost invariably
conjugated to polite -masu ( 〜ます ) form, as gozaimasu ( ございます ) and zonjimasu ( 存じます ) (note
the irregular conjugation of gozaru, discussed below), and that these verbs are preceded by the continuative
form – -ku ( 〜く 〜い
) – of adjectives, rather than the terminal form – -i ( ) – which is used before the more
everyday desu ( です , be).

The rule is -ku (〜く ) → -u (〜う ) (dropping the -k-), possibly also combining with the previous syllable
according to the spelling reform chart, which may also undergo palatalization in the case of yu, yo ( ゆ、
よ).
Historically there were two classes of proper Old Japanese adjectives, -ku (〜く) and -shiku (〜しく) ("-ku
adjective" means "not preceded by shi"). This distinction collapsed during the evolution of Late Middle
Japanese adjectives, and both are now considered -i ( 〜 い ) adjectives. The sound change for -shii
adjectives follows the same rule as for other -ii adjectives, notably that the preceding vowel also changes
and the preceding mora undergoes palatalization, yielding -shiku ( 〜しく ) → -shū ( 〜しゅう ), though
historically this was considered a separate but parallel rule.

27
 Continuative ending Changes to Example

〜あく) 〜おう) ＊おはやくございます) →

*ohayaku gozaimasu (
ohayō gozaimasu (おはようございます)
-aku ( -ō (

*ōkiku gozaimasu (＊大きくございます) →

〜いく)
-iku ( -yū ( 〜ゆう) ōkyū gozaimasu (大きゅうございます)

*samuku gozaimasu (＊寒くございます) →

-uku ( 〜うく) 〜うう)
-ū (
samū gozaimasu (寒うございます)

*-eku ( ＊〜えく) *-yō ( ＊〜よう) (not present)

〜おく) 〜おう) ＊面白くございます) →

*omoshiroku gozaimasu (
omoshirō gozaimasu (面白うございます)
-oku ( -ō (

*suzushiku gozaimasu (＊涼しくございます) →

-shiku ( 〜しく) -shū (〜しゅう)
suzushū gozaimasu (涼しゅうございます)

Respectful verbs

Respectful verbs such as kudasaru ( くださる なさる

, 'to get'), nasaru ( ござる
, 'to do'), gozaru ( , 'to be'),
irassharu ( いらっしゃる , 'to be/come/go'), ossharu ( おっしゃる , 'to say'), etc. behave like group 1 verbs,
except in the continuative and imperative forms.

Change Example

continuative り changed to -い ＊ござります) → gozaimasu (ございます)

*gozarimasu (
*irassharimase (＊いらっしゃりませ) → irasshaimase (いらっしゃいませ)
-

*kudasare (＊くだされ) → kudasai (ください)

imperative -れ changed to -い
*nasare (＊なされ) → nasai (なさい)

Colloquial contractions

In speech, common combinations of conjugation and auxiliary verbs are contracted in a fairly regular
manner.

28
 Colloquial contractions
Full form Colloquial Example

〜て -chau/-chimau ( 〜 負けてしまう, 'lose') → makechau/makechimau (負け

-te shimau (
しまう )
ちゃう ちまう/- )
makete shimau (
ちゃう 負けちまう
/ )
group 1

(〜じ
-de shimau ( 〜で -jau/-jimau
ゃう/〜じまう) shinde shimau ( 死んでしまう, 'die') → shinjau (死んじゃう) or
しまう )
group 1
shinjimau ( 死んじまう)
〜ては) 〜ちゃ) 食べてはいけない, 'must not eat') → tabecha ikenai
tabete wa ikenai (
-te wa ( -cha (
(食べちゃいけない )

nonde wa ikenai (飲んではいけない, 'must not drink') → nonja ikenai

-de wa ( 〜では) 〜じゃ)
-ja (
(飲んじゃいけない)

-te iru ( 〜ている) -teru ( 〜てる) nete iru ( 寝ている, 'is sleeping') → neteru (寝てる)
group 2b

-te oku ( 〜ておく) -toku ( 〜とく) shite oku ( しておく, 'will do it so') → shitoku (しとく)
group 1

-te iku ( 〜て行く) -teku ( 〜てく) dete ike ( 出て行け, 'get out!') → deteke (出てけ)
group 1

-te ageru ( 〜てあ -tageru ( 〜たげる) katte ageru ( 買ってあげる, 'buy something (for someone)') → kattageru
げる ) group 2a 買ったげる
( )

〜るの) 〜んの) nani shite iru no (何しているの, 'what are you doing?') → nani shitenno
-ru no ( -nno (
何してんの ( )

-rinasai (〜りなさ -nnasai (〜んなさ

yarinasai (やりなさい, 'do it!') → yannasai (やんなさい)
い) い)
-runa ( 〜るな) 〜んな)
-nna ( yaruna (やるな, 'don't do it!') → yanna (やんな)
-re wa or -reba (〜 dou sureba ii no darou (どうすればいいのだろう, 'what should I do?') →
れは or 〜れば) -rya (〜りゃ) dou surya iin darou (どうすりゃ(あ）いいんだろう)

There are occasional others, such as -aranai → -annai as in wakaranai ( 分からない, don't understand) →
wakannai ( 分かんない ) and tsumaranai ( つまらない , boring) → tsumannai ( つまんない ) – these are
considered quite casual and are more common among the younger generation.

Contractions differ by dialect, but behave similarly to the standard ones given above. For example, in the
Kansai dialect, -te shimau ( 〜てしまう ) → -temau ( 〜てまう ).

Other independent words

Adverbs

Adverbs in Japanese are not as tightly integrated into the morphology as in many other languages; adverbs
are not an independent class of words, but the role of an adverb is played by other words. For example,
every adjective in the continuative form can be used as an adverb; thus, yowai ( 弱い
, 'weak' [adj]) →

29
yowaku ( 弱く , 'weakly' [adv]). The primary distinguishing characteristic of adverbs is that they cannot
occur in a predicate position, just as it is in English. The following classification of adverbs is not intended
to be authoritative or exhaustive.

Verbal adverbs
verbs in the continuative form with the particle ni. E.g. miru ( 見る
, 'to see') → mi ni ( 見に
,
'for the purpose of seeing'), used for instance as: mi ni iku ( 見に行く, 'go to see
(something)').
Adjectival adverbs
adjectives in the continuative form, as mentioned above. Example: yowai ( 弱い
, 'weak'
[adj]) → yowaku ( 弱く, 'weakly' [adv])
Nominal adverbs
grammatical nouns that function as adverbs. Example: ichiban ( 一番 , 'most highly').
Sound symbolism
words that mimic sounds or concepts. Examples: kirakira ( きらきら, 'sparklingly'), pokkuri
( ぽっくり , 'suddenly'), surusuru ( するする, 'smoothly' (sliding)), etc.

と
Often, especially for sound symbolism, the particle to ( , 'as if') is used. See the article on Japanese sound
symbolism.

Conjunctions and interjections

Although called "conjunctions", conjunctions in Japanese are – as their English translations show – actually
a kind of adverb:

Examples of conjunctions: soshite ( そして, 'and then'), mata (また, 'and then/again'), etc.
Interjections in Japanese differ little in use and translation from interjections in English:

Examples of interjections: hai ( はい , yes/OK/uh), hē (へえ , wow!), iie (いいえ , no/no way), oi ( おい ,
hey!), etc.

Ancillary words

Particles

Particles in Japanese are postpositional, as they immediately follow the modified component. Both the
は へ を
pronunciation and spelling differs for the particles wa ( ), e ( ) and o ( ), and are romanized according
to pronunciation rather than spelling. Only a few prominent particles are listed here.

Topic, theme, and subject: は wa and が ga

は が
The complex distinction between the so-called topic, wa ( ), and subject, ga ( ), particles has been the
theme of many doctoral dissertations and scholarly disputes. The clause zō-wa hana-ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長
い ) is well known for appearing to contain two subjects. It does not simply mean "the elephant's nose is
long", as that can be translated as zō-no hana-wa nagai ( 象の鼻は長い ). Rather, a more literal translation

30
 would be "(speaking of) the elephant, its nose is long"; furthermore, as Japanese does not distinguish
between singular and plural the way English does, it could also mean "as for elephants, their noses are
long".

Two major scholarly surveys of Japanese linguistics in English, (Shibatani 1990) and (Kuno 1973), clarify
the distinction. To simplify matters, the referents of wa and ga in this section are called the topic and subject
respectively, with the understanding that if either is absent, the grammatical topic and subject may coincide.

As an abstract and rough approximation, the difference between wa and ga is a matter of focus: wa gives
focus to the action of the sentence, i.e., to the verb or adjective, whereas ga gives focus to the subject of the
action. However, when first being introduced to the topic and subject markers wa and ga, most are told that
the difference between the two is simpler. The topic marker, wa, is used to declare or to make a statement.
The subject marker, ga, is used for new information, or asking for new information.

Thematic wa

The use of wa to introduce a new theme of discourse is directly linked to the notion of grammatical theme.
Opinions differ on the structure of discourse theme, though it seems fairly uncontroversial to imagine a first-
in-first-out hierarchy of themes that is threaded through the discourse. However, the usage of this
understanding of themes can be limiting when speaking of their scope and depth, and the introduction of
later themes may cause earlier themes to expire. In these sorts of sentences, the steadfast translation into
English uses constructs like "speaking of X" or "on the topic of X", though such translations tend to be
bulky as they fail to use the thematic mechanisms of English. For lack of a comprehensive strategy, many
teachers of Japanese emphasize the "speaking of X" pattern without sufficient warning.

ジョンは学生です。
JON wa gakusei desu

(On the topic of) John, (he) is a student.

A common linguistic joke shows the insufficiency of rote translation with the sentence boku wa unagi da
僕はウナギだ
( ), which per the pattern would translate as "I am an eel." (or "(As of) me is eel"). Yet, in a
restaurant this sentence can reasonably be used to say "My order is eel" (or "I would like to order an eel"),
with no intended humour. This is because the sentence should be literally read, "As for me, it is an eel,"
with "it" referring to the speaker's order. The topic of the sentence is clearly not its subject.

Contrastive wa

Related to the role of wa in introducing themes is its use in contrasting the current topic and its aspects from
other possible topics and their aspects. The suggestive pattern is "X, but…" or "as for X, …".

雨は降っていますが…
ame wa futte imasu ga…

The rain is falling, but…

Because of its contrastive nature, the topic cannot be undefined.

31
 ＊誰かは本を読んでいる。
*dareka wa hon o yonde iru

Someone is reading the book.

In this use, ga is required.

In practice, the distinction between thematic and contrastive wa is not that useful. There can be at most one
thematic wa in a sentence, and it has to be the first wa if one exists, and the remaining was are contrastive.
The following sentence illustrates the difference;[16]

僕が知っている人は誰も来なかった。
boku ga shitte iru hito wa daremo konakatta
(1) Of all the people I know, none came.

(2) (People came but), there weren't any of the people I know.

The first interpretation is the thematic wa, treating "the people I know" (boku ga shitte iru hito) as the
theme of the predicate "none came" (dare mo konakatta). That is, if the speaker knows A, B, …, Z, then
none of the people who came were A, B, …, Z. The second interpretation is the contrastive wa. If the
likely attendees were A, B, …, Z, and of them the speaker knows P, Q and R, then the sentence says that P,
Q and R did not come. The sentence says nothing about A', B', …, Z', all of whom the speaker knows, but
none of whom were likely to come. In practice, the first interpretation is the likely one.

Exhaustive ga

Unlike wa, the subject particle ga nominates its referent as the sole satisfier of the predicate. This distinction
is famously illustrated by the following pair of sentences:

ジョンさんは学生です。
Jon-san wa gakusei desu

John is a student. (There may be other students among the people we're talking about.)

(このグループの中で)ジョンが学生です。
(Kono gurūpu no naka de) Jon ga gakusei desu

(Of all the people we are talking about) it is John who is the student.

The distinction between each example sentence may be made easier to understand if thought of in terms of
the question each statement could answer. The first example sentence could answer the question:

ジョンさんの仕事は何ですか。
Jon-san no shigoto wa nan desu ka

32
 What is John's occupation?

Whereas the second example sentence could answer the question:

どちらの方が学生ですか。
Dochira no kata ga gakusei desu ka

Which one (of them) is the student?

Similarly, in a restaurant, if asked by the waitstaff who has ordered the eels, the customer who ordered it
could say:

僕がウナギだ。
Boku ga unagi da

The eels are for me (not these other people).

Objective ga

For certain verbs, ga is typically used instead of o to mark what would be the direct object in English:

ジョンさんはフランス語が出来る。
Jon-san wa furansu-go ga dekiru

John knows French.

There are various common expressions that use verbs in English, often transitive verbs, where the action
happens to a specific object: "to be able to do something", "to want something", "to like something", "to
dislike something". These same ideas are expressed in Japanese using adjectives and intransitive verbs that
describe a subject, instead of actions that happen to an object: "to be possible" ( 出来る , dekiru), "to be
ほしい
desired/desirable" ( , hoshii), "to be liked" (好きだ 嫌いだ
, suki da), "to be disliked" ( , kirai da).
The equivalent of the English subject is instead the topic in Japanese and thus marked by wa, reflecting the
topic-prominent nature of Japanese grammar.

Since these constructions in English describe an object, whereas the Japanese equivalents describe a subject
が が
marked with ga ( ), some sources call this usage of ga ( ) the "objective ga". Strictly speaking, this label
may be misleading, as there is no object in the Japanese constructions.

As an example, the Japanese verb wakaru ( 分かる ) is often glossed as transitive English verb "to
understand". However, wakaru is an intransitive verb that describes a subject, so a more literal gloss would
be "to be understandable".

Jon-san wa nihongo ga wakaru. ( ジョンさんは日本語が分かる。)

33
 John understands Japanese. → translating into idiomatic English, using the transitive
verb "to understand"
As for John, Japanese is understandable. → translating more closely to the Japanese,
with "Japanese" as the subject of an intransitive descriptive verb

Objects, locatives, instrumentals: を o, で de, に ni, へ e

を
The direct object of transitive verbs is indicated by the object particle o ( ).

ジョンさんは青いセーターを着ている。
Jon-san wa aoi sētā o kite iru

John is wearing a blue sweater.

This particle can also mean "through" or "along" or "out of" when used with motion verbs:

メアリが細い道を歩いていた。
MEARI ga hosoi michi o aruite ita

Mary was walking along a narrow road.

国境の長いトンネルを抜けると雪国であった。
kokkyō no nagai TONNERU o nukeru to yukiguni de atta

The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country.

で
The general instrumental particle is de ( ), which can be translated as "using" or "by":

肉はナイフで切ること。
niku wa NAIFU de kiru koto

Meat must be cut with a knife.

電車で行きましょう。
densha de ikimashō

Let's go by train.

This particle also has other uses: "at" (temporary location):

34
 町角で先生に会った。
machikado de sensei ni atta

(I) met my teacher at the street corner.

"In":

海で泳ぐのは難しい。
umi de oyogu no wa muzukashii

Swimming in the sea is hard.

"With" or "in (the span of)":

劇は主人公の死で終る。
geki wa shujinkō no shi de owaru

The play ends with the protagonist's death.

俺は二秒で勝つ。
ore wa nibyō de katsu

I'll win in two seconds.

に
The general locative particle is ni ( ).

東京に行きましょう。
Tōkyō ni ikimashō

Let's go to Tokyo.

へ
In this function it is interchangeable with e ( ). However, ni has additional uses: "at (prolonged)":

私は大手町一丁目99番地に住んでいます。
watashi wa Ōtemachi itchōme 99 banchi ni sunde imasu

I live at Ōtemachi ichōme 99 banchi.

"On":

35
 氷は水に浮く。
kōri wa mizu ni uku

Ice floats on water.

"In (some year)", "at (some point in time)":

春の夕暮れに……
haru no yūgure ni…

On a spring eve…

Quantity and extents: と to, も mo, か ka, や ya, から kara, まで made

と to is used.
To conjoin nouns,

かばんには、教科書三冊と漫画本五冊を入れています。
Kaban ni wa kyōkasho san-satsu to manga-bon go-satsu o irete imasu
I have three textbooks and five comic books in the bag.

も
The additive particle mo ( ) can be used to conjoin larger nominals and clauses.

ヨハンはドイツ人だ。ブリゲッタもドイツ人だ。
YOHAN wa DOITSU-jin da. BURIGETTA mo DOITSU-jin da
Johann is a German. Brigitte is a German too.

彼は映画スターであり、政治家でもある。
kare wa eiga SUTĀ de ari, seijika de mo aru
He is a movie star and also a politician.

や
For an incomplete list of conjuncts, ya ( ) is used.

ボリスやイバンを呼べ。
BORISU ya IBAN o yobe
Call Boris, Ivan, etc.

か
When only one of the conjuncts is necessary, the disjunctive particle ka ( ) is used.

寿司か刺身か、何か注文してね。
sushi ka sashimi ka, nanika chūmon shite ne
Please order sushi or sashimi or something.

から, kara) and 'to' (まで, made).

Quantities are listed between 'from' (

華氏92度から96度までの熱は心配するものではない。
Kashi 92 do kara 96 do made no netsu wa shinpai suru mono de wa nai
A temperature between 92 Fahrenheit and 96 is not worrisome.

This pair can also be used to indicate time or space.

36
 朝9時(午前9時)から11時まで授業があるんだ。
asa ku-ji kara jūichi-ji made jugyō ga aru n da
You see, I have classes between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Because kara indicates starting point or origin, it has a related use as "because", analogously to English
"since" (in the sense of both "from" and "because"):

スミスさんはとても積極的な人ですから、いつも全部頼まれているのかもしれません。
SUMISU-san wa totemo sekkyokuteki na hito desu kara, itsumo zenbu tanomarete iru no
kamoshiremasen
Mr. Smith, because you're so assertive, you may always be asked to do everything.

The particle kara and a related particle yori are used to indicate lowest extents: prices, business hours, etc.

私たちの店は7時より営業しております。
Watashitachi no mise wa shichi-ji yori eigyō shite orimasu
Our shop is open for business from 7 onwards.

Yori is also used in the sense of "than".

お前は姉ちゃんよりうるさいんだ!
omae wa nē-chan yori urusai n da
You are louder/more talkative than my elder sister!

Coordinating: と to, に ni, よ yo

The particle to (と) is used to set off quotations.

「殺して… 殺して」とあの子は言っていた。
"koroshite… koroshite" to ano ko wa itteita
The girl was saying, "Kill me… kill me."

猫がニャーニャーと鳴く。
neko ga NYĀ NYĀ to naku
The cat says meow, meow.

It is also used to indicate a manner of similarity, "as if", "like" or "the way".

彼は「愛してるよ」と言って、ぽっくりと死んだ。
kare wa "aishiteru yo" to itte, pokkuri to shinda
He said "I love you," and dropped dead.

In a related conditional use, it functions like "after/when", or "upon".

雨が上がると、子ども達は授業を忘れて、日の当たっている水たまりの誘惑に夢中にな
る。
ame ga agaru to, kodomo-tachi wa jugyō o wasurete, hi no atatteiru mizutamari no yūwaku
ni muchū ni naru
Rain stops and then: children, forgetting their lessons, give in to the temptation of sun-
faced puddles.

国境の長いトンネルを抜けると雪国であった。
37
 kokkyō no nagai TONNERU o nukeru to, yukiguni de atta
The train came out of the long tunnel (and then) into the snow country.

会う, au) or to speak (with) (話す, hanasu).

Finally it is used with verbs like to meet (with) (

ジョンがメアリーと初めて会ったのは、1942年の春の夕暮れ時のことだった。
JON ga MEARI to hajimete atta no wa, 1942 nen no haru no yūguredoki no koto datta
John met Mary for the first time on a dusky afternoon of spring in 1942.

に
This last use is also a function of the particle ni ( ), but to indicates reciprocation which ni does not.

ジョンはメアリーと恋愛している。(usually say ジョンはメアリーと付き合っている。)

JON wa MEARI[II] to ren'ai shite iru (JON wa MEARI[II] to tsukiatte iru)
John and Mary are in love.

ジョンはメアリーに恋愛している。(usually say ジョンはメアリーに恋している。)

JON wa MEARI[II] ni ren'ai shite iru (JON wa MEARI[II] ni koi shite iru)
John loves Mary (but Mary might not love John back).

よ
Finally, the particle yo ( ) is used in a hortative or vocative sense.

可愛い娘よ、私に顔をしかめるな。
kawaii musume yo, watashi ni kao o shikameruna
Oh my beloved daughter, don't frown at me so!

Final: か ka, ね ne, よ yo and related

The sentence-final particle ka (か) turns a declarative sentence into a question.

そちらはアメリカ人でしょうか?
sochira wa amerika-jin deshō ka?
Are you perchance an American?

ね
Other sentence-final particles add emotional or emphatic impact to the sentence. The particle ne ( ) softens
a declarative sentence, similar to English "you know?", "eh?", "I tell you!", "isn't it?", "aren't you?", etc.

彼に電話しなかったのね。
kare ni denwa shinakatta no ne
You didn't call him up, did you?

近々ロンドンに引っ越されるそうですね。
chikajika rondon ni hikkosareru sō desu ne.
I hear you're moving to London soon. Is that true?

よ
A final yo ( ) is used in order to soften insistence, warning or command, which would sound very strong
without any final particles.

嘘なんかついてないよ！
uso nanka tsuite nai yo!
I'm not lying!

38
 ぜ ぞ
There are many such emphatic particles; some examples: ze ( ) and zo ( ) usually used by males; na ( )な
わ
a less formal form of ne; wa ( ) used like yo by females (and males in the Kansai region), etc. They are
essentially limited to speech or transcribed dialogue.

Compound particles

Compound particles are formed with at least one particle together with other words, including other
particles. The commonly seen forms are:

particle + verb (term. or cont. or -te form)

particle + noun + particle
noun + particle

Other structures are rarer, though possible. A few examples:

その件に関して知っている限りのことを教えてもらいたい。
sono ken ni kan-shite shitte-iru kagiri no koto o oshiete moraitai
Kindly tell me everything you know concerning that case. (particle + verb in cont.)

外国語を学習する上で大切なことは毎日の努力がものを言うということである。
gaikokugo o gakushū suru ue de taisetsu na koto wa mainichi no doryoku ga mono o iu to
iu koto de aru
In studying a foreign language, daily effort gives the most rewards. (noun + particle)

兄は両親の心配をよそに、大学をやめてしまった。
ani wa ryōshin no shinpai o yoso ni, daigaku o yamete shimatta
Ignoring my parents' worries, my brother dropped out of college. (particle + noun + particle)

Auxiliary verbs

All auxiliary verbs attach to a verbal or adjectival stem form and conjugate as verbs. In modern Japanese
there are two distinct classes of auxiliary verbs:

Pure auxiliaries ( 助動詞 , jodōshi)

are usually just called verb endings or conjugated forms. These auxiliaries do not function
as independent verbs.
Helper auxiliaries ( 補助動詞 , hojodōshi)
are normal verbs that lose their independent meaning when used as auxiliaries.

In classical Japanese, which was more heavily agglutinating than modern Japanese, the category of
auxiliary verb included every verbal ending after the stem form, and most of these endings were themselves
inflected. In modern Japanese, however, some of them have stopped being productive. The prime example
たり
is the classical auxiliary -tari ( た て
), whose modern forms -ta ( ) and -te ( ) are no longer viewed as
inflections of the same suffix, and can take no further affixes.

39
 Some pure auxiliary verbs
auxiliary group attaches to meaning modification example

masu ( ま makes the sentence

書く, 'to write') → kakimasu (書きます)
) す irregular1 continuative
polite
kaku (

見る, 'to see') → mirareru (見られる, 'to

miru (
rareru irrealis of makes V be able to see')

(られる )2 grp. 2 passive/honorific/potential taberu (食べる, 'to eat') → taberareru (食べら

2b れる, 'to be able to eat')
nomu (飲む, 'to drink/swallow') → nomareru
reru (れ irrealis of makes V
(飲まれる, 'to be drunk') (Passive form of
る ) grp. 1 passive/honorific
drink, not a synonym for intoxicated.)

saseru irrealis of 考える, 'to think') → kangaesaseru

kangaeru (
させる)
( 3 grp. 2 考えさせる, 'to cause to think')
(

omoishiru (思い知る, 'to realize') →

2b makes V causative
seru (せ
omoishiraseru (思い知らせる, 'to cause to
irrealis of
る) grp. 1
realize/to teach a lesson')

1. masu ( ます ませ ましょ, continuative まし, terminal ます,

) has stem forms: irrealis and
ます
attributive ますれ
, hypothetical ませ.
, imperative
2. rareru (られる) in potential usage is sometimes shortened to reru (れる) (group 2); thus
tabereru (食べれる, 'to be able to eat') instead of taberareru (食べられる). However, it is
considered non-standard.
3. saseru (させる) is sometimes shortened to sasu (さす) (group 1), but this usage is somewhat
literary.

Much of the agglutinative flavour of Japanese stems from helper auxiliaries, however. The following table
contains a small selection of many such auxiliary verbs.

40
 Some helper auxiliary verbs
meaning
auxiliary group attaches to example
modification

aru ( ある
, 'to be'
-te form

indicates state 開く, 'to open') → hiraite-aru (開い

hiraku (
[inanimate])
1 only for
trans.
modification てある, 'opened and is still open')
2a
-te form
progressive neru (寝る, 'to sleep') → nete-iru (寝ている,
iru ( いる
, 'to be'
for trans. aspect 'is sleeping')
[animate]) -te form
indicates state shimaru ( 閉まる , 'to close (intransitive)') →
2a
for intrans. modification shimatte-iru ( 閉まっている , 'is closed')

"do something in taberu (食べる, 'to eat') → tabete-oku (食べ

oku ( おく
, 'to
advance" ておく, 'eat in advance')
1 -te form
akeru (開ける, 'to open') → akete-oku (開
put/place')
"keep"
けておく, 'keep it open')
aruku (歩く, 'to walk') → aruite-iku (歩いて
iku ( 行く, 'to go') 1 -te form "goes on V-ing"
行く, 'keep walking')
inception, "start furu (降る, 'fall') → futte-kuru (降ってくる,
to V" 'start to fall')

くる, 'to come')

perfection, "have ikiru (生きる, 'live') → ikite-kita (生きてき
kuru ( ka -te form V-ed" (only past-
tense) た, 'have lived')
conclusion, kotonaru (異なる, 'differ') → kotonatte-kuru
"come to V" (異なってくる, 'come to differ')

continuative kaku (書く, 'to write') → kaki-hajimeru (書

non-
punctual き始める, 'start to write')
hajimeru ( 始める, 'to 2b continuative
"V begins",
begin')
punctual &
"begin to V"
着く, 'to arrive') → tsuki-hajimeru
tsuku (
subj. must
be plural
着き始める, 'have all started to arrive')
(

出す, 'to emit') kagayaku (輝く, 'to shine') → kagayaki-

dasu ( 1 continuative "start to V"
輝き出す, 'to start shining')
dasu (

suru (する, 'do') → shite-miru (してみる,

miru ( みる, 'to see') 1 -te form "try to V"
'try to do')

naosu ( なおす, 'to

"do V again, kaku ( 書く, 'to write') → kaki-naosu (書き
correct/heal')
1 continuative correcting
mistakes" なおす, 'rewrite')
"do V tatsu (立つ, 'to stand') → tachi-agaru (立ち
agaru ( あがる, 'to thoroughly" / "V 上がる, 'stand up')
dekiru (出来る, 'to come out') → deki-agaru
1 continuative
rise') happens
(出来上がる, 'be completed')
upwards"

eru/uru ( 得る, 'to be

(see
note at continuative
indicates aru (ある, 'to be') → ariuru (あり得る, 'is
able') potential possible')
bottom)

kakaru/kakeru ( かか 1 continuative "about to V", oboreru ( 溺れる, 'drown') → obore-kakeru

る・かける , 'to
only for
intrans.,
"almost V",
"to start to V"
( 溺れかける, 'about to drown')
hang/catch/obtain')
non-volit.

41
 きる, 'to cut') "do V 食べる, 'to eat') → tabe-kiru (食べ
taberu (
kiru ( 1 continuative
completely" きる, 'to eat it all')
momu (揉む, 'to rub') → momi-kesu (揉み
kesu ( 消す, 'to erase') 1 continuative
"cancel by V"

"deny with V" 消す, 'to rub out, to extinguish')

komu ( 込む
, 'to enter "V deep in", "V hanasu (話す, 'to speak') → hanashi-komu
(話し込む, 'to be deep in conversation')
1 continuative
deeply/plunge') into"

sageru ( 下げる, 'to hiku (引く, 'to pull') → hiki-sageru (引き下

lower')
2b continuative "V down"
げる, 'to pull down')
sugiru ( 過ぎる , 'to 2a continuative "overdo V" iu (言う, 'to say') → ii-sugiru (言いすぎる,
exceed') 'to say too much, to overstate')

tsukeru ( 付ける , 'to

"become iku (行く, 'to go') → iki-tsukeru (行き付け
attach')
2b continuative accustomed to
V" る, 'be used to (going)')
tsuzukeru ( 続ける, 'to furu (降る, 'to fall') (e.g. rain) → furi-
tsuzukeru (降り続ける, 'to keep falling')
2b continuative "keep on V"
continue')

tōsu ( 通す
, 'to yomu (読む, 'to read') → yomi-tōsu (読み通
show/thread/lead')
1 continuative "finish V-ing"
す, 'to finish reading')
nukeru ( 抜ける, 'to
continuative hashiru (走る, 'to run') → hashiri-nukeru (走
shed/spill/desert')
2b only for
intrans.
"V through"
り抜ける, 'to run through')
omou (思う, 'to think') → omoi-nokosu (思
nokosu ( 残す
, 'to
1 continuative
"by doing V,
leave something い残す, 'to regret', lit: to have something
leave behind') behind" left to think about)

nokoru ( 残る , 'to be
1
continuative
only for
"be left behind, ikiru ( 生きる, 'live') → iki-nokoru (生き残る,
left behind') doing V" 'to survive', lit: to be left alive)
intrans.

wakeru ( 分ける , 'to "the proper way 使う

tsukau ( 使い
, 'use') → tsukai-wakeru (
divide/split/classify')
2b continuative
to V" 分ける , 'to indicate the proper way to use')

wasureru ( 忘れる, 'to kiku (聞く, 'to ask') → kiki-wasureru (聞き

forget')
2b continuative "to forget to V"
忘れる, 'to forget to ask')
au (合う) 'to come 1 continuative
"to do V to each
other", "to do V
daku (抱く, 'to hug') → daki-au (抱き合う,
together' together" 'to hug each other')

Note: eru/uru (得る ) is the only modern verb of shimo nidan type (and it is different from the
え
shimo nidan type of classical Japanese), with conjugations: irrealis , continuative , え
terminal える うる
or , attributive うる
, hypothetical うれ
, imperative or .えろ えよ
Notes
a. In contrast, Romance languages such as Spanish are strongly right-branching, and
Germanic languages such as English are weakly right-branching.
b. Note that Japanese has no articles, and the different word order obviates any need for the
relative pronoun who.

42
 References
1. Uehara, p. 69
2. Dixon 1977, p. 48.
る
3. Adam (2011-07-18). "Homage to (ru), The Magical Verbifier" (http://japaneselevelup.com/h
る
omage-to- ru-the-magical-verbifier/).
「ディスる」「タクる」は が聞いたことがないと回答 国語世論調査で判明
4. " 70% " (http://nla
b.itmedia.co.jp/nl/articles/1409/25/news148.html) [70% of Japanese people have never
heard of the words taku-ru and disu-ru.]. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
5. Languages with different open and closed word classes (http://linguistics.stackexchange.co
m/questions/9012/languages-with-different-open-and-closed-word-classes)
6. The Typology of Adjectival Predication, Harrie Wetzer, p. 311 (https://books.google.com/boo
ks?id=ORUUwhdDPpUC&pg=PA311)
7. The Art of Grammar: A Practical Guide, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, p. 96 (https://books.google.
com/books?id=XFBVBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA96)
8. "Closed and open classes in Natlangs (Especially Japanese)" (https://web.archive.org/web/
20150222070657/http://aveneca.com/cbb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3855). Archived from the
original (http://aveneca.com/cbb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3855) on February 22, 2015.
Retrieved February 22, 2015.
9. Uehara, chapter 2, especially §2.2.2.2
10. Takahashi, Tarō; et al. (2010). Nihongo no Bunpō 日本語の文法 [A Japanese Grammar] (in
Japanese) (4 ed.). Japan: Hituzi Syobo Publishing. p. 27. ISBN 978-4-89476-244-2.
11. "What are the personal pronouns of Japanese?" (http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/pronoun.html) in
sci.lang.japan Frequently Asked Questions
12. Bart Mathias. Discussion of pronoun reference constraints (http://groups-beta.google.com/gr
oup/sci.lang.japan/msg/fed63fa6c3614895?dmode=source) on sci.lang.japan.
13. "What's the difference between hajimeru and hajimaru?" (http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/jitadous
hi.html) in sci.lang.japan Frequently Asked Questions
14. Kim Allen (2000) "Japanese verbs, part 2" (http://kimallen.sheepdogdesign.net/Japanese/ve
rbs2.html) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20070810194203/http://kimallen.sheepdog
design.net/Japanese/verbs2.html) 2007-08-10 at the Wayback Machine in Japanese for the
Western Brain
対応する他動詞のある自動詞の意味的・統合的特徴
15. " " (http://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ds
pace/bitstream/2433/8792/1/gen00006_079.pdf) (PDF). Kyoto University. Retrieved May 18,
2013.
16. (Kuno 1973)

Bibliography
Uehara, Satoshi (1998). Syntactic categories in Japanese: a cognitive and typological
introduction. Studies in Japanese linguistics. Vol. 9. Kurosio. ISBN 487424162X.

Further reading
Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection. Journal of the American
Oriental Society, 66, 97–109.
Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax. Language, 22, 200–248.

43
 Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point
of view. In C. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 25–56). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-
447350-4.
Jorden, Eleanor Harz, Noda, Mari. (1987). Japanese: The Spoken Language
Katsuki-Pestemer, Noriko. (2009): A Grammar of Classical Japanese. München: LINCOM.
ISBN 978-3-929075-68-7.
Kiyose, Gisaburo N. (1995). Japanese Grammar: A New Approach. Kyoto: Kyoto University
Press. ISBN 4-87698-016-0.
Kuno, Susumu. (1973). The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of
relativization phenomena. In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417–444). New York:
Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
Makino, Seiichi & Tsutsui, Michio. (1986). A dictionary of basic Japanese grammar. Japan
Times. ISBN 4-7890-0454-6
Makino, Seiichi & Tsutsui, Michio. (1995). A dictionary of intermediate Japanese grammar.
Japan Times. ISBN 4-7890-0775-8
Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University
Press. ISBN 0-300-01813-4.
McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: 口語日本文法便
覧 [Kōgo Nihon bunpō benran]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-
89346-149-0.
Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: 日本語の敬語
[Nihongo no keigo]. Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4-7890-0338-8.
Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The major languages of east
and south-east Asia. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 0-521-36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press.
ISBN 0-12-640030-X. Graduate Level
Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA:
Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level
Textbooks
Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies

External links
FAQ (http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/afaq.html) for sci.lang.japan.
Nihongoresources grammar book (http://grammar.nihongoresources.com/)
Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese (http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar)
Japanese grammar guide
Shoko Hamano, Visualizing Japanese Grammar (http://www.gwu.edu/~eall/vjg/vjghomepag
e/vjghome.htm) – Animated Japanese grammar lessons from George Washington
University.
On particles in Japanese (http://www.learnjapanesefree.com/basic-japanese-grammar.html)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20200804063214/http://www.learnjapanesefree.com/
basic-japanese-grammar.html) 2020-08-04 at the Wayback Machine

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