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.Template:Efn 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.

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 Harold 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. By contrast, the Japanese language is consistently head-final:

• genitive phrase:

• noun governed by an adposition:

• comparison:

• noun modified by an adjective:

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".Template:Efn

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 proceed 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 Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, and Template:Transliteration. The particle Template:Transliteration 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:

• verbal nouns (correspond to English gerunds like 'studying', 'jumping', which denote activities)
• (names vary, also called Template:Transliteration-adjectives or "nominal adjectives")
• (so-called Template:Transliteration-adjectives)

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 the light verb Template:Nihongo3 can be appended, while an adjectival noun is like a noun but uses Template:Nihongo3 instead of Template:Nihongo3 when acting attributively. Adjectives (Template:Transliteration-adjectives) inflect identically to the negative form of verbs, which end in Template:Nihongo3. Compare Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3 and Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3.

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, Template:Nihongo3 is glossed as "hot" when modifying a noun phrase, as in Template:Nihongo3, but as "is hot" when predicating, as in Template:Nihongo3.

Open and closed classes

The two inflected classes, verb and adjective, are historically considered closed classes, meaning they do not readily gain new members—but see the following paragraphs.Template:RpTemplate:Rp Instead, new and borrowed verbs and adjectives are typically conjugated periphrastically as verbal noun + Template:Transliteration (e.g. Template:Nihongo3) and adjectival noun + Template:Transliteration. 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: very few Basque verbs (albeits very common ones) have synthetic conjugation, all the others 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 historically, and much more commonly recently, new verbs are created by appending the suffix Template:Nihongo3 to a noun or using it to replace the end of a word. This is most often, but not exclusively, 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. This is typically casual, with the most well-established example being Template:Nihongo3 (circa 1920), from Template:Nihongo3, with other common examples including Template:Nihongo3, from , and Template:Nihongo3 from Template:Nihongo3. In cases where the borrowed word already ends with or even contains a Template:Nihongo3 or Template:Nihongo3, this may be rebracketed as a verb ending and changed to a Template:Nihongo3, as in Template:Nihongo3, from Template:Nihongo3; Template:Nihongo3, from Template:Nihongo3; and Template:Nihongo3, from Template:Nihongo3. New verbs coined in this fashion are uniformly group 1 verbs and, at least in the Tokyo accent, consistently are stressed immediately before the final る.

New adjectives are extremely rare; one example is Template:Nihongo3, from adjectival noun Template:Nihongo3, and a more casual recent example is Template:Nihongo3, by contraction of Template:Nihongo3. By contrast, in Old Japanese Template:Nihongo3 adjectives (precursors of present Template:Transliteration-adjectives ending in Template:Nihongo3, formerly a different word class) were open, as reflected in words like Template:Nihongo3, from the adjective Template:Nihongo3, and Template:Nihongo3, from the noun Template:Nihongo3 (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. 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 Template:Transliteration-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 "Template:Transliteration-adjectives" – they are all nouns, of which some are verbal nouns (Template:Transliteration) and some are adjectival nouns (Template:Transliteration). In addition to the basic verbal noun + Template:Transliteration form, verbal nouns with a single-character root often experienced sound changes, such as Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3 (rendaku) → Template:Nihongo3, as in Template:Nihongo3, and some cases where the stem underwent sound change, as in Template:Nihongo3, from Template:Nihongo3.

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 Template:Nihongo3 (with a particle), more like nouns, while others primarily conjugate as Template:Nihongo3, and others are common either way. For example, Template:Nihongo3 is much more common than Template:Nihongo3, while Template:Nihongo3 is much more common than Template:Nihongo3. Adjectival nouns 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 adjective|Template:Transliteration adjectives]] and [[naru adjective|Template:Transliteration adjectives]]. Of these, Template:Transliteration adjectives are fossils of earlier forms of Template:Transliteration adjectives (the Template:Transliteration adjectives of Old Japanese), and are typically classed separately, while Template:Transliteration adjectives are a parallel class (formerly Template:Transliteration adjectives in Late Old Japanese), but are typically classed with Template:Transliteration adjectives.

Different classifications

The first structured description of the Japanese was in , an 1831 grammar by Tsurumine Shigenobu. It was based on earlier Dutch grammars such as Shizuki Tadao's and . The words hinshi and shihin also came about from these early late-Edo and early-Meiji grammars. Since then, there have been multiple conflicting classifications of the parts of speech of Japanese.

Grammarian	Year	Count
Tsurumine Shigenobu	1831
Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture	1872	eight parts of speech
Tanaka Yoshikado	1874
	1877
Nakane Kiyoshi	1876
Yasuda Keisai	1877
Hori Hidenari	1877	three parts of speech	Template:Efn			Template:Efn
Nakajima Misao	1879
Ōya Tōru	1880
	1899	seven parts of speech
Basil Hall Chamberlain	1887
Ōtsuki Fumihiko	1889
	1897
Ochiai Naobumi	1890	nine parts of speech
	1893	nine parts of speech
	1895
	1897
	1915	twelve parts of speech
Tejima Haruji	1890
	1899
Takada Utarō	1899
Ōwada Takeki	1891
	1901
Takatsu Kuwasaburō	1891	ten parts of speech
Okakura Yoshisaburō	1891	nine parts of speech
Hayama Hisanori	1891
Hirata Moritane	1893	eight parts of speech
Shinbo Iwaji	1896
Shiratori Kikuji	1893	nine parts of speech
	1898
Matsushita Daizaburō	1898													Template:Efn
	1901
	1924																Template:Efn
	1928																Template:Efn
Morishita Matsue	1900
Matsudaira Shizuka	1900
	1908	ten parts of speech
Mitsuchi Chūzō	1901
Kanai Yasuzō	1901	ten parts of speech
Ishikawa Kuraji	1901
Suzuki Nobuyuki	1902
	1904
	1906
Haga Yaichi	1905
Yoshioka Kyōsuke	1906	ten parts of speech
	1933	ten parts of speech
Mitsuya Shigematsu	1908	Template:Efn
Hoshina Kōichi	1909	ten parts of speech
	1917	nine parts of speech
Tsuge Zenzō	1916
Yamada Yoshio	1917
	1922
	1938	nine parts of speech
Fujimura Tsukuru and Shimazu Hisamoto	1921
Yoshizawa Yoshinori	1923	ten parts of speech
Hashimoto Shinkichi	1935
Tōjō Misao	1937	eleven parts of speech
Hiroshima Higher Normal School	1937	ten parts of speech
Iwai Yoshio	1937	ten parts of speech
Kindaichi Kyōsuke	1939
Iwabuchi Etsutarō	1943	ten parts of speech

The term assumed different meanings, such as a verb form ( or ) that precedes a noun, or as a proposed alternative to , because Japanese "adjectives" are verb-like in nature, unlike European adjectives. As shown in the table, Matsushita Daizaburō (1924) used keiyōshi explicitly for the Eurocentric idea of adjectives as words that precede nouns, while reserving keiyō dōshi for Japanese "adjectives" as verb-like words (although later in 1928, he swapped out keiyōshi for to avoid confusion, on the model of as words that precede verbs). Ochiai Naobumi (1895) defined keiyō dōshi not as a grammatical category, but as a semantic one with meanings similar to those of stative verbs (, ). It was not until Haga Yaichi's usage in 1905 that keiyō dōshi came to be refer to adjectival words whose ended with or (in modern Japanese, they end with ).

The of today has followed Iwabuchi Etsutarō's model outlined in his 1943 grammar, , compiled for the . It recognizes 10 parts of speech as shown in the table.

Among historical classifications, the grammarian Matsushita Daizaburō notably compared his own terminology to the terminologies translated from and modeled after European ones at the time. In particular, he rejected the equation of what were dubbed in Japanese to the concept of "adjectives" in European grammars, although he revised his systems over the years, which ended up conforming to the popular usage of the term keiyōshi. According to Matsushita (1930):

Matsushita Daizaburō's own terminology			European-based terminology for Japanese grammarTemplate:Efn	European-based terminology for European grammarsTemplate:Efn	English terminology
	Template:Efn				noun
					pronoun
		Template:Efn
	Template:Efn		Template:Efn
Template:Efn			Template:Efn		adjective
	Template:Efn			Template:Efn
	Template:Efn				verb
					adverb
					conjunction
					preposition
				Template:Efn	interjection

The distinction between Japanese so-called "adjectives" and European true adjectives reflect in how differently they inflect. European adjectives are a type of nouns, that is, words that decline and express case, gender and number, and that include substantive nouns (or just substantives or nouns), adjective nouns (or just adjectives), numeral nouns (or just numerals) and pronouns (see Template:Section link). Japanese "adjectives", on the other hand, do not decline, but conjugate and express tense, mood, aspect, evidentiality, etc., and thus are more similar to European verbs. See

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:

In the first sentence 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 Template:Transliteration) is termed a presentational sentence because its function in the discourse is to present dog 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 Template:Transliteration to Template:Transliteration.

To better explain the difference, the first sentence can be translated to "There's a dog eating a sandwich", while the second sentence can be translated to "Speaking of the dog, it's eating a sandwich"; these renderings reflect a discourse fragment in which "the dog" is being established as the topic of an extended discussion. The first sentence answers the question "What is going on?," whereas the second sentence answers the question "What is the dog doing?"

Liberal omission of the subject of a sentence

The grammatical subject is commonly omitted in Japanese, as in

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

is composed of , which are in turn composed of , 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.

Some scholars romanize Japanese sentences by inserting spaces only at phrase boundaries (i.e., "Template:Transliteration"), 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 , 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 terminology Template:Nihongo3, for words having lexical meaning, and Template:Nihongo3, for words having a grammatical function.

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 Template:Transliteration (which might have developed as a contraction of Template:Transliteration).

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

Template:Nihongo3, word classes which have inflections

Template:Nihongo3, verbs

Template:Nihongo3, Template:Transliteration-type adjectives

Template:Nihongo3, Template:Transliteration-type adjectives

Template:Nihongo3 or Template:Nihongo3, word classes which do not have inflections

Template:Nihongo3, nouns

Template:Nihongo3, pronouns

Template:Nihongo3, adverbs

Template:Nihongo3, conjunctions

Template:Nihongo3, interjections

Template:Nihongo3, prenominals

Ancillary words also divide into a nonconjugable class, containing and , and a conjugable class consisting of . There is not wide agreement among linguists as to the English translations of the above terms.

Controversy over the characterization of adjectival nouns

Uehara (1998) observes that Japanese grammarians have disagreed as to the criteria that make some words inflectional and others not, in particular, the adjectival nouns – or Template:Transliteration-adjectives. (Template:Citation needed span) The claim that adjectival nouns are inflectional rests on the claim that the element Template:Transliteration, regarded as a copula by proponents of non-inflectional adjectival nouns, is really a suffix—an inflection. That is, Template:Nihongo3 is a one-word sentence, not a two-word sentence, Template:Transliteration. However, numerous constructions show that Template:Transliteration is less bound to the roots of nouns and adjectival nouns than Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration are to the roots of Template:Transliteration-adjectives and verbs, respectively.Template:Rp

(1) Reduplication for emphasis

Template:Nihongo3

Template:Nihongo3

Template:Nihongo3 (the adjectival inflection Template:Transliteration cannot be left off)

Template:Nihongo3 (the verbal inflection Template:Transliteration cannot be left off)

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

Template:Nihongo3

Template:Nihongo3

Template:Nihongo3 (Template:Transliteration cannot be left off)

Template:Nihongo3 (Template:Transliteration cannot be left off)

(3) Several epistemic modality predicates, e.g., Template:Nihongo3

Template:Nihongo3

Template:Nihongo3

Template:Nihongo3 (Template:Transliteration cannot be left off)

Template:Nihongo3 (Template:Transliteration cannot be left off)

On the basis of such constructions, Uehara finds that the copula Template:Transliteration is not suffixal and that adjectival nouns 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 Template:Transliteration-nominals in her textbook Japanese: The Spoken Language.

Nouns

Japanese has no grammatical gender, number, or articles; though the demonstrative Template:Nihongo3, is often translatable as "the". Thus, linguists agree that Japanese nouns are noninflecting: 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): Template:Transliteration for native nouns, and Template:Transliteration 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, '飯(meal/rice)'. (Note that while these prefixes are almost always written in hiragana as or , the kanji represents both Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration in formal writing.)

Respectful forms of nouns

meaning	plain	respectful
meal
money
body		Template:Pb
word(s)		Template:Pb

Lacking grammatical number, Japanese does not differentiate between count and mass nouns. A small number of nouns have collectives formed by reduplication (possibly accompanied by voicing and related processes (rendaku)); for example: Template:Nihongo3 and Template:Nihongo3. Reduplication is not productive. Words in Japanese referring to more than one of something are collectives, not plurals. Template:Transliteration, for example, means "a lot of people" or "people in general"; it is never used to mean "two people". A phrase like Template:Transliteration would be taken to mean "the people of Edo", or "the population of Edo", not "two people from Edo" or even "a few people from Edo". Similarly, Template:Transliteration means "many mountains".

A limited number of nouns have collective forms that refer to groups of people. Examples include Template:Nihongo3; Template:Nihongo3; Template:Nihongo3. One uncommon personal noun, Template:Nihongo3, has a much more common reduplicative collective form: Template:Nihongo3.

The suffixes Template:Nihongo3 and Template:Nihongo3 are by far the most common collectivizing suffixes. These are, again, not pluralizing suffixes: Template:Transliteration does not mean "some number of people named Taro", but instead indicates the group including Taro. Depending on context, Template:Transliteration 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 representative. Some words with collectives have become fixed phrases and (commonly) refer to one person. Specifically, Template:Nihongo3 and Template:Nihongo3 can be singular, even though Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration were originally collectivizing in these words; to unambiguously refer to groups of them, an additional collectivizing suffix is added: Template:Nihongo3 and Template:Nihongo3, though Template:Transliteration is somewhat uncommon. Template:Transliteration is sometimes applied to inanimate objects, Template:Nihongo3 and Template:Nihongo3, for example, but this usage is colloquial and indicates a high level of anthropomorphisation and childlikeness, and is proscribed and not broadly accepted as standard.

Grammatical case

Grammatical cases in Japanese are marked by particles placed after the nouns. 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:

• Nominative – for subject, for the topic
• Genitive –
• Dative –
• Accusative –
• Lative – , used for destination direction (like in "to some place")
• Ablative – , used for source direction (like in "from some place")
• Instrumental/Locative –

Pronouns

Common pronouns

person	very informal	plain, informal	polite
first	Template:Nihongo3Template:PbTemplate:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3Template:PbTemplate:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3Template:PbTemplate:Nihongo3
second	Template:Nihongo3Template:PbTemplate:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3Template:PbTemplate:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3Template:PbTemplate:Nihongo3
third	Template:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3Template:PbTemplate:Nihongo3Template:PbTemplate:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3

Although many grammars and textbooks mention , Japanese lacks true pronouns. (Template:Transliteration can be considered a subset of nouns.) Strictly speaking, pronouns cannot take adjectives or other certain parts of speech as modifiers, but Japanese Template:Transliteration can. For example, Template:Nihongo3 is grammatical in Japanese.Template:Efn Also, unlike true pronouns, Japanese Template:Transliteration are not a closed class; new Template:Transliteration are commonly introduced, and old ones go out of use relatively quickly.

A large number of Template:Transliteration referring to people are translated as pronouns in their most common uses. Examples: Template:Nihongo3; Template:Nihongo3; Template:Nihongo3; see also the adjoining table or a longer list. Some of these "personal nouns" such as Template:Nihongo3, or Template:Nihongo3, also have second-person uses: in second-person is an extremely rude "you", and Template:Transliteration in second-person is a diminutive "you" used for young boys. Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration 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 Template:Transliteration 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:

The possible referents of Template:Transliteration are sometimes constrained depending on the order of occurrence. The following pair of examples from Bart Mathias illustrates one such constraint.

Reflexive pronouns

English has a reflexive form of each personal pronoun (himself, herself, itself, themselves, etc.); Japanese, in contrast, has one main reflexive Template:Transliteration, namely Template:Nihongo3, 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):

example	reason
Template:Fs interlinear	the target of Template:Transliteration must be animate
Template:Fs interlinear	there is no ambiguity in this translation, as explained below
Template:Fs interlinear Either "Makoto expects that Shizuko will take good care of him", or "Makoto expects that Shizuko will take good care of herself."	Template:Transliteration can be in a different sentence or dependent clause, but its target is ambiguous

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

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

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

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. In modern Japanese, there is no longer any productive morphology to derive new transitive verbs from intransitive ones, or vice versa.

Demonstratives

Demonstratives

	Template:Transliteration	Template:Transliteration	Template:Transliteration	Template:Transliteration
Template:Transliteration	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbthis one	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbthat one	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbthat one over there	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbwhich one?
Template:Transliteration	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pb(of) this	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pb(of) that	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pb(of) that over there	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pb(of) what?
Template:Transliteration	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pblike this	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pblike that	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pblike that over there	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbwhat sort of?
Template:Transliteration	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbhere	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbthere	Template:Transliteration 1Template:Pbover there	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbwhere?
Template:Transliteration	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbthis way	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbthat way	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbthat way over there	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbwhich way?
Template:Transliteration 3	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbin this manner	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbin that manner	Template:Transliteration 1Template:Pbin that (other) manner	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbhow? in what manner?
Template:Transliteration	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbthis person	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbthat person	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbthat (other) person	Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pbwho?

1. irregular formation
2. colloquially contracted to -cchi
3. Template:Transliteration is represented by Template:Transliteration

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

Demonstratives limit, and therefore precede, nouns; thus for "this/my book", and 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.

Template:Transliteration instead of Template:Transliteration 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.

Again, Template:Transliteration 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:

Conjugable words

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 Template:Transliteration endings that these forms have in verbs (according to the collation order of Japanese), where terminal and attributive forms are the same for verbs (hence only 5 surface forms), but differ for nominals, notably Template:Transliteration-nominals.

Template:Transliteration (and Template:Transliteration)

is used for plain negative (of verbs), causative and passive constructions. The most common use of this form is with the Template:Transliteration auxiliary that turns verbs into their negative (predicate) form. (See Verbs below.) The Template:Transliteration version is used for volitional expression and formed by a .

Template:Transliteration

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 Template:Transliteration ending. This form is also used to negate adjectives.

Template:Transliteration

is used at the ends of clauses in predicate positions. This form is also variously known as or – it is the form that verbs are listed under in a dictionary.

Template:Transliteration

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, Template:Transliteration-nominals behave differently in terminal and attributive positions; see Adjectival verbs and nouns, below.

Template:Transliteration

is used for conditional and subjunctive forms, using the Template:Transliteration ending.

Template:Transliteration

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 .

Verbs

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.

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 form of Japanese verb|Template:Transliteration form]], and the auxiliary verb Template:Nihongo3; to illustrate, Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3.

Verbs can be semantically classified based on certain conjugations.

Stative verbs

indicate existential properties, such as , , , etc. These verbs generally do not have a continuative conjugation with Template:Transliteration because they are semantically continuative already.

Continual verbs

conjugate with the auxiliary Template:Transliteration to indicate the progressive aspect. Examples: , , . To illustrate the conjugation, Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3.

Punctual verbs

conjugate with Template:Transliteration to indicate a repeated action, or a continuing state after some action. Example: Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3; Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3.

Non-volitional verb

indicate uncontrollable action or emotion. These verbs generally have no volitional, imperative or potential conjugation. Examples: Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3.

Movement verbs

indicate motion. Examples: Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3. In the continuative form (see § Verbal adverbs) they take the particle Template:Transliteration 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).

verbs with a stem ending in Template:Transliteration. The terminal stem form always rhymes with Template:Transliteration. Examples: Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3.

verbs with a stem ending in Template:Transliteration. The terminal stem form always rhymes with Template:Transliteration. Examples: Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3. (Some Group 1 verbs resemble Group 2b verbs, but their stems end in Template:Transliteration, not Template:Transliteration.)

verbs with a stem ending in a consonant. When this is Template:Transliteration and the verb ends in Template:Transliteration, it is not apparent from the terminal form whether the verb is Group 1 or Group 2b, e.g. Template:Nihongo3. If the stem ends in Template:Transliteration, that consonant sound only appears in before the final Template:Transliteration 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 Template:Transliteration-row) i.e. i-row. "Lower 1-row" means the row that is one row below the center row (the Template:Transliteration-row) i.e. Template:Transliteration-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, Template:Nihongo3 belongs to Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3 belongs to Template:Nihongo3, and Template:Nihongo3 belongs to Template:Nihongo3.

One should avoid confusing verbs in Template:Nihongo3 with verbs in Template:Nihongo3 or . For example, Template:Nihongo3 belongs to , whereas its homophone Template:Nihongo3 belongs to . Likewise, Template:Nihongo3 belongs to , whereas its homophone Template:Nihongo3 belongs to .

Historically, Classical Japanese had , and a . The Template:Transliteration verbs became most of the Template:Transliteration verbs in modern Japanese (only a handful of Template:Transliteration verbs and a single Template:Transliteration verb existed in classical Japanese). The Template:Transliteration group was reclassified as the Template:Transliteration 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:

Template:Transliteration-group

which has only one member, Template:Nihongo3. In Japanese grammars these words are classified as Template:Nihongo3, an abbreviation of Template:Nihongo3, sa-row irregular conjugation).

Template:Transliteration-group

which also has one member, Template:Nihongo3. The Japanese name for this class is Template:Nihongo3 or simply Template:Nihongo3.

Classical Japanese had two further irregular classes, the Template:Transliteration-group, which contained Template:Nihongo3 and Template:Nihongo3, the Template:Transliteration-group, which included such verbs as Template:Nihongo3, the equivalent of modern Template:Transliteration, 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 Template:Nihongo3, look in the second row to find its root, Template:Transliteration, then in the hypothetical row to get the ending Template:Transliteration, giving the stem form Template:Transliteration. When there are multiple possibilities, they are listed in the order of increasing rarity.

Group	1		2a	2b	Template:Transliteration	Template:Transliteration
Example
	2Template:Pb	Template:Pb			Template:PbTemplate:Pb
Attributive form	Same as terminal form
			Template:Pb	Template:Pb	Template:PbTemplate:Pb

1. The Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration 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 Template:Transliteration form is used only for the volitional mood and the Template:Transliteration 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 Template:Transliteration but Template:Transliteration only being pronounced before Template:Transliteration 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.

	formation rule	group 1	group 2a	group 2b	Template:Transliteration-group	Template:Transliteration-group
politeTemplate:Pbimperfective	cont. +
plainTemplate:Pbperfective	cont. +	2
plainTemplate:PbnegativeTemplate:Pbimperfective	irrealis +
plainTemplate:PbnegativeTemplate:Pbperfective	irrealis +
Template:Transliteration form (gerundive)	cont. +	2
provisionalTemplate:Pbconditional	hyp. +
pastTemplate:Pbconditional	cont. +	2
volitional	irrealis +
	irrealis +
passive	irrealis +
	irrealis +
causative	irrealis +
	irrealis +
potential	hyp. +				1
	irrealis +

1. This is an entirely different verb; has no potential form.
2. These forms change depending on the final syllable of the verb's dictionary form (whether Template:Transliteration etc.). For details, see Euphonic changes, below, and the article Japanese verb conjugation.

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

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 Template:Nihongo3, and the intransitive Template:Nihongo3.

transitive verb	intransitive verb
One thing acts out the transitive verb on another Usually uses to link to the direct object	The intransitive verb passively happens without direct intervention. Usually uses or to link subject and verb.
Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear
Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear
Template:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	Template:Nihongo3

Note: Some intransitive verbs (usually verbs of motion) take what looks like a direct object, but is not. For example, Template:Nihongo3:

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):

• – these have roots and conjugating stem forms, and are semantically and morphologically similar to stative verbs.
• – these are nouns that combine with the copula.

Unlike adjectives in languages like English, Template:Transliteration-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 Template:Nihongo3 and Template:Nihongo3.

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 Template:Nihongo3, which are derived from other word classes; examples include Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3, and Template:Nihongo3 which are all stylistic Template:Transliteration-type variants of normal Template:Transliteration-type adjectives. Some examples not based on Template:Transliteration are Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3, and Template:Nihongo3.

All Template:Transliteration-adjectives except for Template:Nihongo3 have regular conjugations, and Template:Transliteration is irregular only in the fact that it is a changed form of the regular adjective Template:Nihongo3 permissible in the terminal and attributive forms. For all other forms it reverts to Template:Transliteration.

Stem forms for adjectives

	Template:Transliteration-adjectives	Template:Transliteration-adjectives
		/Template:Pb

1. The attributive and terminal forms were formerly and , respectively; in modern Japanese these are used productively for stylistic reasons only, although many set phrases such as Template:Nihongo3 and Template:Nihongo3, derive from them.
2. The imperative form is extremely rare in modern Japanese, restricted to set patterns like Template:Nihongo3, 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. Template:Transliteration is not treated separately, because all conjugation forms are identical to those of Template:Transliteration.

	Template:Transliteration-adjectivesTemplate:PbTemplate:Nihongo3		Template:Transliteration-adjectivesTemplate:PbTemplate:Nihongo3
informal nonpast	root + Template:TransliterationTemplate:Pb(Used alone, without the copula)	Template:Nihongo3	root + copula Template:Transliteration	Template:Nihongo3
informal past	cont. + Template:Pb(Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration collapse)	Template:Nihongo3	cont. + Template:Pb(Template:Transliteration + Template:Transliteration collapse)	Template:Nihongo3
informal negative nonpast	cont. + ¹	Template:Nihongo3	cont. +	Template:Nihongo3
informal negative past	cont. + ¹	Template:Nihongo3	cont. +	Template:Nihongo3
polite nonpast	root + Template:Transliteration + copula	Template:Nihongo3	root + copula	Template:Nihongo3
polite negative nonpast	¹		inf. cont +
	inf. neg. non-past + copula ¹		inf. cont +
polite negative past	inf. cont +		inf. cont +
	inf. neg. past + copula ¹		inf. neg. past + ¹
Template:Transliteration form	cont. +		cont.
provisional conditional	hyp. +		hyp. (+ )
past conditional	inf. past +		inf. past +
volitional²	irrealis + /root +	/	irrealis + Template:Pb= root +
adverbial	cont.		root +
degree (-ness)	root +		root +

1. Note that these are just forms of the Template:Transliteration-type adjective
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: Template:Nihongo3 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 Template:Transliteration-type adjectives, see also the section below on the copula .

Copula ( Template:Transliteration)

The copula Template:Transliteration behaves very much like a verb or an adjective in terms of conjugation.

Stem forms of the copula

	Template:PbTemplate:Pb

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

The following are some examples.

"John is a student."

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

In continuative conjugations, is often contracted in speech to ; for some kinds of informal speech Template:Transliteration is preferable to Template:Transliteration, or is the only possibility.

Conjugations of the copula

nonpast	informal
	polite
	respectful
past	informal	cont. + Template:Pb
	polite
	respectful
negative nonpast	informal	cont. +
	polite	cont. +
	respectful	cont. +
negative past	informal	cont. +
	polite	cont. +
	respectful	cont. +
conditional	informal	hyp. +
	polite	cont. +
	respectful
provisional	informal
	polite	same as conditional
	respectful
volitional	informal
	polite
	respectful
adverbial and Template:Transliteration forms	informal	cont.
	polite	cont. +
	respectful	cont. +

Historical sound change

Spelling changes

Archaic	Modern
Template:Pb
Template:Pb	1
Template:Pb
Template:Pb
auxiliary verb
medial or final
medial or final , ,	, , Template:Pb(via Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, see below)
any , ,	, , 1

1. Usually not reflected in spelling

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 . All earlier texts used the archaic orthography, now referred to as historical kana usage. The adjoining table is a nearly exhaustive list of these spelling changes.

Note that the palatalized morae and (Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration) combine with the initial consonant (if present) yielding a palatalized syllable. The most basic example of this is modern Template:Nihongo3, which historically developed as Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3, via the Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3 rule.

A few sound changes are not reflected in the spelling. Firstly, Template:Transliteration merged with Template:Transliteration, both being pronounced as a long Template:Transliteration. Secondly, the particles and are still written using historical kana usage, though these are pronounced as Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration respectively, rather than Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration.

Template:Citation needed span For example, the modern Template:Transliteration reading Template:Nihongo3 (for ) arose from the historical Template:Nihongo3. The latter was pronounced something like by the Japanese at the time it was borrowed (compare ). However, a modern reader of a classical text would still read this as , 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 particle or auxiliary is derived from the ancient perfective auxiliary -tsu, including -te, -te ari → -tari → -ta. This is not the case with the unrelated desiderative auxiliaries -tashi → -tai and -tagaru, however.

Continuative ending	Changes to	Example
, or	(double consonant, sokuon, sokuonbin)	→ Template:Pb → Template:Pb →
, or	(hatsuon, hatsuonbin), with the following sound voiced	→ Template:Pb → Template:Pb →
	(i-onbin)	→
	, with the following sound voiced	→

* denotes impossible/ungrammatical form.

There is one other irregular change: Template:Nihongo3, for which there is an exceptional continuative form: + → , + → , etc. The more literary and/or dialectal variant is regular, hence . Older forms such as iite and ite have been recorded in 16th-century Christian publications.

For verbs like , , etc., there is a clear preference for sokuonbin in northern and eastern dialects, as in , ; and for u-onbin in western and southern dialects, as in , . In standard Japanese (eastern), however, there are three exceptions where u-onbin is preferred, , and . For these verbs, sokuonbin is rare, but not nonexistent, such as /, / and .Template:Efn Forms such as , , , , have been reported as well.

Polite forms of adjectives

The continuative form of proper adjectives, when followed by polite forms such as Template:Nihongo3 or Template:Nihongo3, 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 Template:Nihongo3 form, as Template:Nihongo3 and Template:Nihongo3 (note the irregular conjugation of Template:Transliteration, discussed below), and that these verbs are preceded by the continuative form – Template:Nihongo3 – of adjectives, rather than the terminal form – Template:Nihongo3 – which is used before the more everyday Template:Nihongo3.

The rule is Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3 (dropping the Template:Transliteration), possibly also combining with the previous syllable according to the spelling reform chart, which may also undergo palatalization in the case of Template:Nihongo3.

Historically there were two classes of proper Old Japanese adjectives, Template:Nihongo3 and Template:Nihongo3 ("Template:Transliteration adjective" means "not preceded by Template:Transliteration"). This distinction collapsed during the evolution of Late Middle Japanese adjectives, and both are now considered Template:Nihongo3 adjectives. The sound change for Template:Transliteration adjectives follows the same rule as for other Template:Transliteration adjectives, notably that the preceding vowel also changes and the preceding mora undergoes palatalization, yielding Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3, though historically this was considered a separate but parallel rule.

Continuative ending	Changes to	Example
		→Template:Pb
		→Template:Pb
		→Template:Pb
		(not present)
		→Template:Pb
		→Template:Pb

Respectful verbs

Respectful verbs such as Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3, etc. behave like group 1 verbs, except in the continuative and imperative forms.

	Change	Example
continuative	changed to	→ Template:Pb →
imperative	changed to	→ Template:Pb →

Colloquial contractions

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

Colloquial contractions

Full form	Colloquial	Example
	Template:Pbgroup 1	Template:Fs interlinear
	Template:Pbgroup 1	Template:Fs interlinear
		Template:Fs interlinear
		Template:Fs interlinear
	Template:Pbgroup 2b	Template:Fs interlinear
	Template:Pbgroup 1	Template:Fs interlinear
	Template:Pbgroup 1	Template:Fs interlinear
	Template:Pbgroup 2a	Template:Fs interlinear
		Template:Fs interlinear
		Template:Fs interlinear
		Template:Fs interlinear
		Template:Fs interlinear

There are occasional others, such as Template:Transliteration → Template:Transliteration as in Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3 and Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3 – 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, Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3.

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, Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3. 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 Template:Transliteration. E.g. Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3, used for instance as: Template:Nihongo3.

Adjectival adverbs

adjectives in the continuative form, as mentioned above. Example: Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3

Nominal adverbs

grammatical nouns that function as adverbs. Example: Template:Nihongo3.

Sound symbolism

words that mimic sounds or concepts. Examples: Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3, etc.

Often, especially for sound symbolism, the particle Template:Nihongo3 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: Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3, etc.

Interjections in Japanese differ little in use and translation from interjections in English:

Examples of interjections: Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3, etc.

Ancillary words

Particles

Particles in Japanese are postpositional, as they immediately follow the modified component. Both the pronunciation and spelling differs for the particles Template:Nihongo3, Template:Nihongo3 and Template:Nihongo3, and are romanized according to pronunciation rather than spelling. Only a few prominent particles are listed here.

Topic, theme, and subject: Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration

The complex distinction between the so-called topic, , and subject, , particles can often be confusing for second-language learners and students of Japanese. The clause 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 . Rather, a more literal translation 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, clarify the distinction. To simplify matters, the referents of Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration 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 Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration is a matter of focus: Template:Transliteration gives focus to the action of the sentence, i.e., to the verb or adjective, whereas Template:Transliteration gives focus to the subject of the action. However, when first being introduced to the topic and subject markers Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration, most are told that the difference between the two is simpler. The topic marker, Template:Transliteration, is used to declare or to make a statement. The subject marker, Template:Transliteration, is used for new information, or asking for new information.

Thematic Template:Transliteration

The use of Template:Transliteration 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.Template:Explain 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.

A common linguistic joke shows the insufficiency of rote translation with the sentence , 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 Template:Transliteration

Related to the role of Template:Transliteration 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, …".

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

In this use, Template:Transliteration is required.

In practice, the distinction between thematic and contrastive Template:Transliteration is not that useful. There can be at most one thematic Template:Transliteration in a sentence, and it has to be the first Template:Transliteration if one exists, and the remaining Template:Transliterations are contrastive. The following sentence illustrates the difference;Template:Rp

The first interpretation is the thematic Template:Transliteration, treating as the theme of the predicate . 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 Template:Transliteration. 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 Template:Transliteration

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

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:

Whereas the second example sentence could answer the question:

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

Objective Template:Transliteration

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

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: , , , . The equivalent of the English subject is instead the topic in Japanese and thus marked by Template:Transliteration, reflecting the topic-prominent nature of Japanese grammar.

Since these constructions in English describe an object, whereas the Japanese equivalents describe a subject marked with , some sources call this usage of 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 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".

Objects, locatives, instrumentals: Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration

The direct object of transitive verbs is indicated by the object particle .

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

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

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

"In":

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

The general locative particle is .

In this function it is interchangeable with . However, Template:Transliteration has additional uses: "at (prolonged)":

"On":

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

Quantity and extents: Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration

To conjoin nouns, と to is used.

The additive particle can be used to conjoin larger nominals and clauses. Template:Fs interlinear

For an incomplete list of conjuncts, is used. Template:Fs interlinear

When only one of the conjuncts is necessary, the disjunctive particle is used. Template:Fs interlinear

Quantities are listed between and . Template:Fs interlinear

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

Template:Transliteration

You see, I have classes between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.

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

The particle Template:Transliteration and a related particle Template:Transliteration are used to indicate lowest extents: prices, business hours, etc. Template:Fs interlinear

Template:Transliteration is also used in the sense of "than". Template:Fs interlinear

Coordinating: Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration

The particle is used to set off quotations.

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

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

Finally it is used with verbs like or .

This last use is also a function of the particle , but Template:Transliteration indicates reciprocation which Template:Transliteration does not.

Template:Transliteration

John and Mary are in love.

Template:Transliteration

John loves Mary (but Mary might not love John back).

Finally, the particle is used in a hortative or vocative sense.

Final: Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration and related

The sentence-final particle turns a declarative sentence into a question.

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

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

There are many such emphatic particles; some examples: and usually used by males; a less formal form of Template:Transliteration; used like Template:Transliteration 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 Template:Transliteration form)
• particle + noun + particle
• noun + particle

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

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:

are usually just called verb endings or conjugated forms. These auxiliaries do not function as independent verbs.

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 is the classical auxiliary , whose modern forms and are no longer viewed as inflections of the same suffix, and can take no further affixes.

Some pure auxiliary verbs

auxiliary	group	attaches to	meaning modification	example
	irregular1	continuative	makes the sentence polite	Template:Nihongo3 →
2	2b	irrealis of grp. 2	makes V passive/honorific/potential	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3 Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
		irrealis of grp. 1	makes V passive/honorific	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3 (Passive form of drink, not a synonym for intoxicated.)
3	2b	irrealis of grp. 2	makes V causative	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
		irrealis of grp. 1		Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3

1. has stem forms: irrealis and , continuative , terminal , attributive , hypothetical , imperative .
2. in potential usage is sometimes shortened to (group 2); thus Template:Nihongo3 instead of Template:Nihongo3. However, it is considered non-standard.
3. is sometimes shortened to (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.

Some helper auxiliary verbs

auxiliary	group	attaches to	meaning modification	example
Template:Nihongo3	1	Template:Transliteration form only for trans.	indicates state modification	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	2a	Template:Transliteration form for trans.	progressive aspect	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
	2a	Template:Transliteration form for intrans.	indicates state modification	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	1	Template:Transliteration form	"do something in advance"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
			"keep"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	1	Template:Transliteration form	"goes on V-ing"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	Template:Transliteration	Template:Transliteration form	inception, "start to V"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
			perfection, "have V-ed" (only past-tense)	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
			conclusion, "come to V"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	2b	continuative non-punctual	"V begins", "begin to V"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
		continuative punctual & subj. must be plural		Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	1	continuative	"start to V"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	1	Template:Transliteration form	"try to V"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	1	continuative	"do V again, correcting mistakes"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	1	continuative	"do V thoroughly" / "V happens upwards"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3 Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	(see note at bottom)	continuative	indicates potential	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	1	continuative only for intrans., non-volit.	"about to V", "almost V", "to start to V"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	1	continuative	"do V completely"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	1	continuative	"cancel by V" "deny with V"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	1	continuative	"V deep in", "V into"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	2b	continuative	"V down"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	2a	continuative	"overdo V"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	2b	continuative	"become accustomed to V"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	2b	continuative	"keep on V"	Template:Nihongo3 (e.g. rain) → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	1	continuative	"finish V-ing"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	2b	continuative only for intrans.	"V through"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	1	continuative	"by doing V, leave something behind"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	1	continuative only for intrans.	"be left behind, doing V"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	2b	continuative	"the proper way to V"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3	2b	continuative	"to forget to V"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3
Template:Nihongo3 'to come together'	1	continuative	"to do V to each other", "to do V together"	Template:Nihongo3 → Template:Nihongo3

• Note: Template:Nihongo3 is the only modern verb of shimo nidan type (and it is different from the shimo nidan type of classical Japanese), with conjugations: irrealis , continuative , terminal or , attributive , hypothetical , imperative or .

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.
• 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. Template:ISBN.
• Jorden, Eleanor Harz, Noda, Mari. (1987). Japanese: The Spoken Language
• Katsuki-Pestemer, Noriko. (2009): A Grammar of Classical Japanese. München: LINCOM. Template:ISBN.
• Kiyose, Gisaburo N. (1995). Japanese Grammar: A New Approach. Kyoto: Kyoto University Press. Template:ISBN.
• 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. Template:ISBN.
• Makino, Seiichi & Tsutsui, Michio. (1986). A dictionary of basic Japanese grammar. Japan Times. Template:ISBN
• Makino, Seiichi & Tsutsui, Michio. (1995). A dictionary of intermediate Japanese grammar. Japan Times. Template:ISBN
• Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. Template:ISBN.
• McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: 口語日本文法便覧 [Kōgo Nihon bunpō benran]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. Template:ISBN; Template:ISBN.
• Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: 日本語の敬語 [Nihongo no keigo]. Tokyo: Japan Times. Template:ISBN.
• Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. Template:ISBN. Graduate Level
• Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Template:ISBN (hbk); Template:ISBN (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
• Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Template:ISBN. Readings/Anthologies

External links

• FAQ from the Usenet newsgroup sci.lang.japan
• An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language, online version by Michiel Kamermans
• Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese  – Japanese online grammar guide
• Shoko Hamano, Visualizing Japanese Grammar – animated Japanese grammar lessons from George Washington University