Japanese adjectives

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According to many analyses, the Japanese language does not have words that function as adjectives in a syntactic sense, i.e. tree diagrams of Japanese sentences can be constructed without employing adjective phrases. However, there are words that function as adjectives in a semantic sense. This article deals with these words.

Contents 1 Types of adjective 2 Syntactic analysis of adjectives 3 Inflection 3.1 Adverb forms 3.2 Polite forms 4 Terminology

[edit] Types of adjective

There are three types of words that can be considered to be adjectives in Japanese:

• adjectival verbs (Japanese: 形容詞, keiyōshi, "(true) adjective"), or i-adjectives

These have a conjugating ending -i which can become, for example, past or negative. For example, atsui (暑い) "hot":

atsui hi ("a hot day")

Kyō wa atsui. ("Today is hot.")

• adjectival nouns (形容動詞, keiyō-dōshi, "adjectival noun"), or na-adjectives

These attach to a form of the copula, which then inflects. For example, hen (変) "strange":

hen na hito ("a strange person")

Kare wa hen da. ("He is strange.")

• attributives (連体詞, rentaishi, "attributive")

These may only occur before nouns, not in a predicative position. They are various in derivation and word class. For example, ōki na (大きな) "big":

ōki na koto "a big thing"

[edit] Syntactic analysis of adjectives

Adjectival verbs (keiyōshi) may predicate sentences and inflect for past, negative, etc. As they head verb phrases, they can be considered a type of verbal (verb-like part of speech). Their inflections are different and not so numerous as full verbs.

Adjectival nouns (keiyō-dōshi) always occur with a form of the copula, traditionally considered part of the adjectival noun itself. The only difference between nouns and adjectival nouns is in the attributive form, where nouns take no and adjectives take na. This has led many linguists to consider them a type of nominal (noun-like part of speech). Together with this form of the copula they may also predicate sentences and inflect for past, negative, etc.

Attributives (rentaishi) are few in number, and unlike the other words, are strictly limited to modifying nouns. Rentaishi never predicate sentences. They derive from other word classes, and so are not always given the same treatment syntactically. For example, ano (あの, "that") can be analysed as a noun or pronoun a plus the genitive ending no; aru (ある or 或る, "a certain"), saru (さる, "a certain"), and iwayuru (いわゆる, "so-called") can be analysed as verbs (iwayuru being an obsolete passive form of the verb iu (言う) "to speak"); and ōki na (大きな, "big") can be analysed as the one remaining form of the obsolete adjectival noun ōki nari. Attributive onaji (同じ, "the same") is sometimes considered to be a rentaishi, but it is usually analysed as simply an irregular adjectival verb (note that it has an infinitive onajiku). The final form onaji, which occurs with the copula, is usually considered to be a noun, albeit one derived from the adjectival verb.

It can be seen that attributives are analysed variously as nouns, verbs, or adjectival nouns. Both the predicative forms (shūshikei) and attributive forms (rentaikei) of adjectival verbs and adjectival nouns can be analysed as verb phrases, making the attributive forms of adjectival verbs and adjectival nouns relative clauses. According to this analysis, Japanese has no syntactic adjectives.

[edit] Inflection

Adjectival verbs (i-adjectives) are inflected by dropping the -i from the end and replacing it with the appropriate ending. Adjectival nouns (na-adjectives) are inflected by dropping the -na and replacing it with the appropriate form of the verb da, the copula.

	present	past	present neg.	past neg.
i adjective	atsui	atsukatta	atsukunai	atsukunakatta
na adjective	hen da	hen datta	hen de wa nai	hen de wa nakatta

The de wa in the conjugation of the copula is often contracted in speech to ja.

[edit] Adverb forms

Both adjectival verbs and adjectival nouns form adverbs. In the case of adjectival verbs, -i changes to -ku:

atsuku naru "become hot"

and in the case of adjectival nouns, na changes to ni:

hen ni naru "become strange"

[edit] Polite forms

Both adjectival verbs and adjectival nouns are made more polite by the use of desu, but the way that desu is used is different. With adjectival verbs, desu is added directly after the inflected plain form and has no syntactic function; its only purpose is to make the utterance more polite (see Honorific speech in Japanese). With adjectival nouns, desu is used in its role as the polite form of the copula, therefore replacing da (the plain form of the copula) in the plain form of these adjectives.

	plain	polite	polite past	neg. polite	neg. polite past
keiyōshi	atsui	atsui desu	atsukatta desu	atsukunai desu	atsukunakatta desu
keiyōdōshi	hen da	hen desu	hen deshita	hen de wa arimasen	hen de wa arimasen deshita

[edit] Terminology

This page	Japanese (kanji)	Japanese (rōmaji)	Other names
adjectival verbs	形容詞	keiyōshi	adjectival verbs, i-adjectives, adjectives, stative verbs
adjectival nouns	形容動詞	keiyōdōshi	adjectival nouns, na-adjectives, copular nouns, quasi-adjectives, nominal adjectives, adjectival verbs
attributives	連体詞	rentaishi	attributives, true adjectives, prenominals, pre-noun adjectivals

The Japanese word keiyōshi is used to denote an English adjective.

Because the widespread study of Japanese is still relatively new in the Western world, there are no generally accepted English translations for the above parts of speech, with varying texts adopting different sets, and others extant not listed above.