Japanese grammar

Japanese is an agglutinative, synthetic, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a Monophthong vowel system, phonemic vowel and Gemination 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. 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.

• 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 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".

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 , , and . The particle turns a statement into a question, while the others express the speaker's attitude towards the statement.

• meishi
• verbal nouns (correspond to English gerunds like 'studying', 'jumping', which denote activities)
• keiyō dōshi (names vary, also called -adjectives or "nominal adjectives")
• verbs
• keiyōshi (so-called -adjectives)

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

In a few cases historically, and much more commonly recently, new verbs are created by appending the suffix 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 (circa 1920), from , with other common examples including , from メモ, and from . In cases where the borrowed word already ends with or even contains a or , this may be Rebracketing as a verb ending and changed to a , as in , from ; , from ; and , from . 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 , from adjectival noun , and a more casual recent example is , by contraction of . Languages with different open and closed word classes By contrast, in Old Japanese adjectives (precursors of present -adjectives ending in , formerly a different word class) were open, as reflected in words like , from the adjective , and , from the noun (with Rendaku). Japanese adjectives are unusual in being closed class but quite numerous – about 700 adjectives – while most languages with closed class adjectives have very few. The Typology of Adjectival Predication, Harrie Wetzer, p. 311 The Art of Grammar: A Practical Guide, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, p. 96 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 -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 "-adjectives" – they are all nouns, of which some are verbal nouns () and some are adjectival nouns (). In addition to the basic verbal noun + form, verbal nouns with a single-character root often experienced sound changes, such as → (rendaku) → , as in , and some cases where the stem underwent sound change, as in , from .

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

The term assumed different meanings, such as a verb form (ren'yōkei or rentaikei) that precedes a noun, or as a proposed alternative to keiyōshi, 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 fukutaishi to avoid confusion, on the model of fukushi 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 (, ). It was not until 's usage in 1905 that keiyō dōshi came to be refer to adjectival words whose shūshikei ended with nari or tari (in modern Japanese, they end with da).

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

Among historical classifications, the grammarian 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 keiyōshi 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):

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 inu 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 ) 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 to .

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 "You know 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?"

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).

Some scholars Romanization Japanese sentences by inserting spaces only at phrase boundaries ( i.e., ""), 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: phonology, the postpositional particles Clitic, and within a phonological phrase, the pitch can have at most one fall. Usually, however, grammarians adopt a more conventional concept of tango, one which invokes meaning and sentence structure.

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 (which might have developed as a contraction of ).

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

, word classes which have inflections

: , verbs

: , -type adjectives

: , -type adjectives

or , word classes which do not have inflections

: , nouns

: , pronouns

: , adverbs

: , conjunctions

: , interjections

: , prenominals

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

instead of  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.
     

For example, the modern  reading  (for yō) arose from the historical . 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.
     

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

A common linguistic joke shows the insufficiency of rote translation with the sentence boku wa unagi da, 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.

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

In this use, is required.

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

The first interpretation is the thematic , treating boku ga shitte iru hito as the theme of the predicate 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 . 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.

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:

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: dekiru, hoshii, suki da, kirai da. The equivalent of the English subject is instead the topic in Japanese and thus marked by , 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 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 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".

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

The general instrumental particle is de, 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 ni.

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

"On":

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

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

For an incomplete list of conjuncts, ya is used.

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

Quantities are listed between kara and made.

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

朝9時(午前9時)から11時まで授業があるんだ。

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

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

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

is also used in the sense of "than".
     

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 au or hanasu.

This last use is also a function of the particle ni, but indicates reciprocation which 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。)

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。)

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

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

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.

A final yo 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: ze and zo usually used by males; na a less formal form of ; wa used like by females (and males in the Kansai region), etc. They are essentially limited to speech or transcribed dialogue.

• particle + verb (term. or cont. or form)
• particle + noun + particle
• noun + particle

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

jodōshi

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

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

1. masu has stem forms: irrealis ませ and ましょ, continuative まし, terminal ます, attributive ます, hypothetical ますれ, imperative ませ.
2. rareru in potential usage is sometimes shortened to reru (group 2); thus instead of . However, it is considered non-standard.
3. saseru is sometimes shortened to sasu (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.

• Note: is the only modern verb of shimo nidan type (and it is different from the shimo nidan type of classical Japanese), with conjugations: irrealis え, continuative え, terminal える or うる, attributive うる, hypothetical うれ, imperative えろ or えよ.

• 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. .
• Jorden, Eleanor Harz, Noda, Mari. (1987).
• Katsuki-Pestemer, Noriko. (2009): A Grammar of Classical Japanese. München: LINCOM. .
• Kiyose, Gisaburo N. (1995). Japanese Grammar: A New Approach. Kyoto: Kyoto University Press. .
• 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. .
• Makino, Seiichi & Tsutsui, Michio. (1986). A dictionary of basic Japanese grammar. Japan Times.
• Makino, Seiichi & Tsutsui, Michio. (1995). A dictionary of intermediate Japanese grammar. Japan Times.
• Martin, Samuel E. (1975). A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. .
• McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981). Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: 口語日本文法便覧 Kōgo. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press. ; .
• Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987). How to be polite in Japanese: 日本語の敬語 Nihongo. Tokyo: Japan Times. .
• Masayoshi Shibatani (1990). 9780415047395, Routledge. ISBN 9780415047395
• Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985). Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. . Graduate Level
• Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996). An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. (hbk); (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
• Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999). The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. . Readings/Anthologies

• 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