affirmative negative
present ない theoretically‚ 未然形 + ない past 連用形 + あった (c) theoretically‚ 未然形 + なかった
‘Theoretically’ is used here‚ because often it doesn’t make a lot of sense to negate the adjective for negation itself. We’d end up with ある again.
64 Verb grammar — § 2.2 Adjectives
2.2 Adjectives
We need to spend some extra time looking at verbal adjectives‚ and adjectives in gen-eral‚ because they can do something verbs cannot do‚ and that’s to indicate properties.
With that‚ we get the added bonus that they let us compare properties‚ allowing us to say something is red‚ redder than something else‚ or the reddest thing we’ve ever seen. While in English these are three distinct concepts‚ Japanese shows itself to be a sparse language yet again‚ using the 連体形
れんたいけい
for both the a ributive as well as com-parative forms:
A: “Fish like salmon and tuna’s go en expensive recently.”
B: “So buy a cheap(er) fish.”
Even though 安い means “cheap” when used as normal a ributive‚ it can also mean “cheaper” when there is some context in which the property “cheap” contrasts to some other property “expensive”. This goes for all adjectives: there is no distinc-tion between the a ributive (normal adjective) and comparative (the English “-er”
form of adjectives) forms of verbal adjectives in Japanese‚ similar to how there is no distinction between present and immediate future tense for verbs in Japanese.
When we want to compare the same property‚ however‚ such as comparing a cheap fish to an even cheaper fish‚ we can use もっと to indicate explicit comparative:
A: あのう、安い傘
A: “I am looking for a cheap umbrella.”
B: “A cheap umbrella you said? What about this one?”
A: “Ah‚ that’s a nice umbrella. But I was wondering whether you had an even cheaper one.”
B: “Ah‚ I’m sorry but we do not have any umbrellas cheaper than this.”
In this conversation‚ もっと is used to ask for an “even more” cheap item‚ but only after it has been established that the item in question is (already) cheap. An example of incorrect use of もっと would be:
Verb grammar — § 2.3 Noun inflection 65
A: この傘はちょっと高
たか
いですね。もっと安いのがありますか。
If we were to translate this sentence‚ it would say “This umbrella is a bit ex-pensive. Do you have an even cheaper one?” This is clearly incorrect use of language‚
as we can only ask for an even cheaper item if the present one is already cheap.
The superlative‚ in English the “most …” version of an adjective‚ is formed in Japanese by prefixing the word 一番
いちばん
to the adjective (which literally means “first”‚ in the context of a ranking):
一番速
いちばんはや
い 車
くるま
はあのフェラーリです。
“The fastest car (here) is that Ferrari.”
Remember that this is an adjective construction and that 一番 requires an adjective to turn into a superlative. Many students new to the language will use 一番 without an adjective‚ and end up saying things like 一番先生
いちばんせんせい
or 一番車
いちばんくるま
‚ which would literally mean “most teacher” and “most car”. These sentences are not grammatical in either Japanese or English‚ since they lack a modifier to explain exactly what these nouns are the most of. Usually when this mistake is made‚ all that is missing is the adjective いい‚ meaning good: 一番
いちばん
いい creates the superlative “best”.
2.3 Noun inflection
Nouns do not inflect in Japanese. More interestingly‚ they don’t even decline like they do in English; turning “book” into “books” for instance‚ or “us” into “our”‚ are declensions that indicate something in addition to the root noun‚ like plurality or possession. Instead‚ everything is either done by marking nouns (or indeed entire noun phrases) with particles‚ or by using copula verbs in Japanese.
2.3.1 Particles
There are three important particles that we can use when dealing with noun inflec-tion/declension‚ being の‚ と‚ and や.
The particle の is generally explained as being used to genitivally link nouns‚
but that doesn’t tell us what it really does. In Japanese‚ genitive is expressed as either marking possession (origin or root concept)‚ description‚ or a contextualising con-struction. In English‚ examples of these would be ‘my car’ in “this is my car”‚ ‘love song’ in “this is a love song”‚ and ‘old story’ in “that’s just an old story”‚ but while in English these are seemingly different constructions‚ in Japanese they all use の:
66 Verb grammar — § 2.3 Noun inflection
In this sentence‚ which illustrates の being used for possession‚ the function is fairly obvious: “[X]の[Y]” means “[X]’s [Y]” or “[Y] of [X]”. This is the simplest use of の. However‚ things get more complicated when we look at the other three functions.
これは愛
あい
の歌
うた
です。
“This is a love song.”
In this sentence‚ the idea behind the pa ern is slightly more complicated‚ be-cause it’s related to a pa ern of thought that we’re generally not used to in English.
In the sentence‚ the “song”‚ 歌‚ is considered a specific kind of song‚ which we can explain by saying “it genitivally stems from 愛”‚ meaning that as a whole‚ the word derives its core meaning from 歌‚ but its nuance from 愛. This is a complicated way to look at what’s going on in a seemingly simple particle‚ so it is usually easier to note the specific interpretation instead: we can say that 愛 describes 歌‚ or that 愛 acts as context for 歌‚ and that this construction is closely related to the idea of a compound noun.
In this interpretation‚ “[X]の[Y]” typically translates to “[X] [Y]” in English‚
so that 愛の歌 becomes “love song”‚ and for instance 昔
むかし
の 話
はなし
becomes “old story”
(with 昔 being a noun meaning ‘long ago’‚ and 話 meaning ‘story’). If we use this in a slightly bigger‚ more interesting sentence‚ we see the following:
ただの 昔
むかし
の 話
はなし
です。
“(That)’s just an old story.”
This sentence is particularly interesting because it uses の twice. ただの[X]
means “just X”‚ with ただ meaning ‘just’ or ‘merely’‚ and [X] being any noun phrase‚
in this case “昔の話”. This kind of chaining can be taken to extremes‚ such as in the following example:
“My sister’s friend‚ Sasaki‚ came over (today).”
Let us analyse what happens in this chain. It usually makes most sense to analyse long chains like these by looking at the [X]の[Y] pa erns in a last-to-first order‚ because (as always) the most important words come last:
Verb grammar — § 2.3 Noun inflection 67
[X]の[Y] translation
友達の「佐崎」 (my/your/his/her/our/their) friend‚ Sasaki 姉さんの友達 (my/your/his/her/our/their) sister’s friend うちの姉さん (my/our) sister
While this sounds like an artificial example‚ it is actually quite common to find three or even four nouns linked through の to create a single‚ more and more specific noun phrase. The main issue with learning to use these pa erns‚ and more importantly‚ understanding them while listening to native speakers‚ is that the most important information comes last‚ so you have to keep track of all the context nouns before the final operative noun gets used.
The other two particles‚ と and や‚ are much simpler to understand than の:
と links nouns to form an exhaustive list‚ while や forms a representative list. For instance‚ if someone went to the supermarket and bought orange juice‚ milk and tea‚
and that’s all they bought‚ then we can list all these things with と:
ジュースと 牛乳
ぎゅうにゅう
とお茶
ちゃ
を買
か
った。
“(I) bought juice‚ milk and tea.”
However‚ if they instead bought a lot of refreshments (say they were planning a party)‚ then the following sentence would be easier than listing every individual item on the shopping list:
ジュースや牛乳やお茶を買った。
“(I) bought juice‚ milk‚ tea (and the like).”
That’s the only difference betweenと and や (for the purpose of noun listing).
Both form a list of items‚ and by using と you imply that what you describe is the whole list‚ while if you use や you imply that even though it’s a list‚ it’s not the whole list‚ just a representative snippet. Of course‚ it (almost) goes without saying that you cannot mix と and や.
2.3.2 Inflection
Actual inflection of nouns relies on copula verbs‚ as it does in English. While in English only the verb “to be” fulfils the role of copula‚ in Japanese there are a number of copulae to pick from. So‚ for the moment‚ we will look at the two most common copulae: the plain form だ and its polite counterpart‚ です. Technically‚ these are both verbs‚ although だ is somewhat more complex than です. If we look at their verb bases‚ we see the following:
68 Verb grammar — § 2.3 Noun inflection
です だ copula
未然形 でしよ だろ だろ
連用形 でし だっ (で) で
終止形 です だ です/だ
連体形 です な です/な
已然形 なら なら
First‚ there is no 命令形‚ which kind of makes sense — one cannot order some-thing to all of a sudden have some property; chairs don’t become red because you order them to‚ people don’t become angry just because you tell them to‚ and it doesn’t suddenly become night because you ordain it so. At least not without superpowers of some sort‚ which are beyond the scope of this book.
Secondly‚ the “copula” column is a bit special: it tells you which form is typ-ically used when a certain base form is relied on. When we need a 連体形 copula‚
we can use either だ or です depending on whether we want plain form or polite form‚ but when we need a continuative (which will be explained in the next chapter)‚
modern Japanese uses で.
Third‚ there is a 終止形 entry‚ which most modern verbs do not use. The reason it exists for (this) copula is that だ is relatively special: when used to end noun phrases‚ its 終止形 is used‚ and so it uses the form だ. However‚ when used a ributively (effectively turning nouns into adjectives)‚ which uses the 連体形‚ the classical 連体形 is used and we end up with な. Although the language reforms of the 20thcentury have for the most part merged the functions of 終止形 and 連体形‚
this particular instance of separate form has been preserved‚ rather than go en rid of.
Luckily you will rarely‚ if ever‚ need to recite the bases for です or だ‚ but だ is used a ributively so frequently that you should have li le problem remembering when to use だ and when to use な.