Japanese grammar

Japanese is a synthetic language with a regular agglutinative subject-object-verb (SOV) morphology, with both productive and fixed
elements. In language typology, it has many features divergent from most European languages. Its phrases are exclusively head-final
and compound sentences are exclusively left-branching.[1] There are many such languages, but few in Europe. It is a topic-prominent
language.

Contents
1 Some distinctive aspects of modern Japanese sentence structure
1.1 Word order: head final and left branching
1.2 Word class system
1.3 Japanese as a topic-prominent language
1.4 Liberal omission of the subject of a sentence
2 Sentences, phrases and words
3 Word classification
3.1 Controversy over the characterization of nominal adjectives
4 Nouns
4.1 Grammatical case
4.2 Pronouns
4.3 Reflexive pronouns
4.4 Demonstratives
5 Conjugable words
5.1 Stem forms
5.2 Verbs
5.2.1 Transitive and intransitive verbs
5.3 Adjectival verbs and nouns
5.4 The copula ( da)
5.5 Euphonic changes ( onbin)
5.5.1 Historical sound change
5.5.2 Verb conjugations
5.5.3 Polite forms of adjectives
5.5.4 Respectful verbs
5.5.5 Colloquial contractions

6 Other independent words

6.1 Adverbs
6.2 Conjunctions and interjections
7 Ancillary words
7.1 Particles
7.1.1 Topic, theme, and subject: wa and ga
7.1.1.1 Thematic wa
7.1.1.2 Contrastive wa
7.1.1.3 Exhaustive ga
7.1.1.4 Objective ga
7.1.2 Objects, locatives, instrumentals: o, de, ni, e
7.1.3 Quantity and extents: to, mo, ka, ya, kara, made
7.1.4 Coordinating: to, ni, yo
 7.1.5 Final: ka, ne, yo and related
7.1.6 Compound particles
7.2 Auxiliary verbs
8 References
9 Bibliography
10 Further reading
11 External links

Some distinctive aspects of modern Japanese sentence structure

Word order: head final and left branching

The modern theory of constituent order ("word order"), usually attributed to Joseph Greenberg, identifies several kinds of phrase.
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 ("thecover of the book", "the book'scover");
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 ("blackcat").
Some languages are inconsistent in constituent order, having a mixture of head initial phrase types and head final phrase types.
Looking at the preceding list, English for example is mostly head initial, but nouns follow the adjectives which modify them.
Moreover, genitive phrases can be either head initial or head final in English. Japanese, by contrast, is the epitome of a head final
language:

genitive phrase: "" (neko no iro), cat GEN color = "the cat's (neko no) color (iro)";
noun governed by an adposition: (nihon ni), Japan in = "in Japan";
comparison: "Y" (Y yori ookii), Y than big = "bigger than Y";
noun modified by an adjective:kuroi neko = "black cat".
Head finality in Japanese sentence structure carries over to the building of sentences using other sentences. In sentences that have
other sentences as constituents, the subordinated sentences (relative clauses, for example), always precede what they refer to, since
they are modifiers and what they modify has the syntactic status of phrasal head. Translating the phrase the man who was walking
down the street into Japanese word order would be street down was walking man. (Note that Japanese has no articles, and the
different word order obviates any need for the relative pronoun who.)

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

Word class system

Japanese has five majorlexical word classes:

nouns
verbal nouns (correspond to English gerunds like 'studying', 'jumping', which denote activities)
 nominal adjectives (names vary, also called na-adjectives or "adjectival nouns")
verbs
adjectives (so-called i-adjectives)
More broadly, there are two classes: uninflectable (nouns, including verbal nouns and adjectival nouns) and inflectable (verbs, with
adjectives as defective verbs). To be precise, a verbal noun is simply a noun to which suru (, "do") can be appended, while an
adjectival noun is like a noun but uses -na () instead of -no () when acting attributively. Adjectives (i-adjectives) inflect
identically to the negative form of verbs, which end in na-i (). Compare tabe-na-i (, don't eat) tabe-na-katta (
, didn't eat) and atsu-i (, is hot) atsu-katta (, was hot).

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

The two inflected classes, verb and adjective, are closed classes, meaning they do not readily gain new members.[2][3] Instead, new
and borrowed verbs and adjectives are conjugated periphrastically as verbal noun + suru (e.g. benky suru (, do studying;
study)) and adjectival noun + na. This differs from Indo-European languages, where verbs and adjectives are open classes, though
analogous "do" constructions exist, including English "do a favor", "do the twist" or French "faire un footing" (do a "footing", go for
a jog), and periphrastic constructions are common for other senses, like "try climbing" (verbal noun) or "try parkour" (noun). Other
languages where verbs are a closed class include Basque: new Basque verbs are only formed periphrastically. Conversely, pronouns
are closed classes in Western languages but open classes in Japanese and some otherEast Asian languages.

In a few cases new verbs are created by appending -ru () to a noun or using it to replace the end of a word. This is most often
done with borrowed words, and results in a word written in a mixture of katakana (stem) and hiragana (inflectional ending), which is
otherwise very rare.[4] This is typically casual, with the most well-established example being sabo-ru (, cut class; play hooky)
(circa 1920), from sabotju (, sabotage), with other common examples including memo-ru (, write a memo),
from memo (, memo), and misu-ru (, make a mistake) from misu (, mistake). In cases where the borrowed word
already ends with a ru (), this may be punned to a ru (), as in gugu-ru (, to google), from Google (), and dabu-
ru (, to double), from daburu (, double).[5]

New adjectives are extremely rare; one example is kiiro-i (, yellow), from adjectival noun kiiro (), and a more casual
recent example is kimo-i ( , gross), by contraction of kimochi waru-i ( , bad-feeling).[6] By contrast, in Old
Japanese -shiki () adjectives (precursors of present i-adjectives ending in -shi-i (), formerly a different word class)
were open, as reflected in words like ita-ita-shi-i (, painful), from the adjective ita-i (, painful, hurt), and k-g-shi-i
(, heavenly, sublime), from the noun kami (, god) (with sound change). Japanese adjectives are unusual in being closed
class but quite numerous about 700 adjectives while most languages with closed class adjectives have very few.[7][8] Some
believe this is due to a grammatical change of inflection from an aspect system to a tense system, with adjectives predating the
change.

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

Japanese vocabulary has a large layer of Chinese loanwords, nearly all of which go back more than one thousand years, yet virtually
none of them are verbs or "i-adjectives" they are all nouns, of which some are verbal nouns (suru) and some are adjectival nouns
(na). In addition to the basic verbal noun + suru form, verbal nouns with a single-character root often experienced sound changes,
such as -suru ( ) -zuru ( ) -jiru ( ), as in kin-jiru ( , forbid), and some cases where the stem
underwent sound change, as intassuru (, reach), from tatsu ().

Verbal nouns are uncontroversially nouns, having only minor syntactic differences to distinguish them from pure nouns like
'mountain'. There are some minor distinctions within verbal nouns, most notably that some primarily conjugate as -wo suru (
) (with a particle), more like nouns, while others primarily conjugate as -suru (), and others are common either way. For
example, keiken wo suru (, to experience) is much more common than keiken suru (), while kanben suru (
, to pardon) is much more common than kanben wo suru ().[9] Nominal adjectives have more syntactic differences
versus pure nouns, and traditionally were considered more separate, but they
, too, are ultimately a subcategory of nouns.

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

Japanese as a topic-prominent language

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

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

taiy ga noboru
sun NONTOPIC rise

taiy wa noboru
sun TOPIC rise

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

Liberal omission of the subject of a sentence

The grammatical subject is commonly omitted in Japanese, as in

nihon ni ikimashita
Japan LATIVE go-POLITE -PERFECT

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

Sentences, phrases and words

Text ( bunsh) is composed of sentences ( bun), which are in turn composed ofphrases ( bunsetsu), which are its smallest
coherent components. Like Chinese and classical Korean, written Japanese does not typically demarcate words with spaces; its
agglutinative nature further makes the concept of a word rather different from words in English. The reader identifies word divisions
by semantic cues and a knowledge of phrase structure. Phrases have a single meaning-bearing word, followed by a string of suffixes,
auxiliary verbs and particles to modify its meaning and designate its grammatical role. In the following example, phrases are
indicated by vertical bars:

taiy ga | higashi no | sora ni | noboru
sun SUBJECT | east POSSESSIVE | sky LOCATIVE | rise
The sun rises in the eastern sky.

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

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 wordsalso including fragments of wordswhich 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 jiritsugo (
), "independent words", for words having lexical meaning, and fuzokugo ( ), "ancillary words", 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 pasttense suffix -ta (which might have developed as a contraction of-te ari).

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

katsuygo (), word classes which have inflections

dshi (), verbs,

keiyshi (), i-type adjectives.
keiydshi (), na-type adjectives

hikatsuygo () or mukatsuygo (), word classes which do not have

inflections

meishi (), nouns

daimeishi (), pronouns
fukushi (), adverbs
setsuzokushi (), conjunctions
kandshi (), interjections
rentaishi (), prenominals

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

Controversy over the characterization of nominal adjectives

Uehara (1998)[10] observes that Japanese grammarians have disagreed as to the criteria that make some words "inflectional", katsuy,
and others not, in particular, the keiydshi "na-adjectives" or "na-nominals". (It is not disputed that nouns like 'book'
and 'mountain' are noninflectional and that verbs and i-adjectives are inflectional.) The claim that na-adjectives are inflectional rests
on the claim that the syllableda 'is', usually regarded as a "copula verb", is really a suf
fixan inflection. Thushon 'book', generates a
one-word sentence, honda 'it is a book', not a two-word sentence, hon da. However, numerous constructions seem to be incompatible
with the suffixal copula claim.

(1) Reduplication for emphasis

Hora! Hon, hon! 'See, it is a book!'

Hora! Kirei, kirei! 'See, it is pretty!'
Hora! Furui, furui! 'See, it is old!' (the adjectival inflection -i cannot be left off)
Hora! Iku, iku! 'See, it does go!' (the verbal inflection -u cannot be left off)

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

Hon/kirei ka? 'Is it a book? ; Is it pretty?'

Furu-i/Ik-u ka? 'Is it old? ; Does it go?' (the inflections cannot be left off)

(3) Several auxiliary verbs, e.g., mitai, 'looks like it's'

Hon mitai da; Kirei mitai da 'It seems to be a book; It seems to be pretty'
Furu-i mitai da; Ik-u mitai da 'It seems to be old; It seems to go'

On the basis of such constructions, Uehara (1998) finds that the copula is indeed an independent word, and that regarding the
parameters on which i-adjectives share the syntactic pattern of verbs, the nominal adjectives pattern with pure nouns instead.

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

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

Lacking number, Japanese does not differentiate between count and mass
nouns. (An English speaker learning Japanese would be well advised to Respectful forms of nouns

treat Japanese nouns as mass nouns.) A small number of nouns have meaning plain respectful
collectives formed by reduplication (possibly accompanied by voicing and meal meshi go-han
related processes (rendaku)); for example: hito 'person' and hitobito
money kane o-kane
'people'. Reduplication is not productive. Words in Japanese referring to
more than one of something are collectives, not plurals. Hitobito, for o-karada
body karada
example, means "a lot of people" or "people in general". It is never used to onmi
mean "two people". A phrase like edo no hitobito would be taken to mean o-kotoba
word(s) kotoba
"the people of Edo", or "the population of Edo", not "two people from Edo" mikotonori
or even "a few people from Edo". Similarly, yamayama means "many
mountains".
A limited number of nouns have collective forms that refer to groups of people. Examples include watashi-tachi, 'we'; anata-tachi,
'you (plural)'; bokura, 'we (less formal, more masculine)'. One uncommon personal noun,ware, 'I', or in some cases, 'you', has a much
more common reduplicative collective formwareware 'we'.

The suffixes -tachi () and -ra () are by far the most common collectivizing suffixes. These are, again, not pluralizing suffixes:
tar-tachi does not mean "some number of people named Taro", but instead indicates the group including Taro. Depending on
context, tar-tachi might be translated into "Taro and his friends", "Taro and his siblings", "Taro and his family", or any other logical
grouping that has Taro as the representative. Some words with collectives have become fixed phrases and (commonly) refer to one
person. Specifically, kodomo 'child' and tomodachi 'friend' can be singular, even though -[t]omo and -[t]achi were originally
collectivizing in these words; to unambiguously refer to groups of them, an additional collectivizing suffix is added: kodomotachi
'children' and tomodachitachi 'friends', though tomodachitachi is somewhat uncommon. Tachi is sometimes applied to inanimate
objects, kuruma 'car' and kuruma-tachi, 'cars', for example, but this usage is colloquial and indicates a high level of
anthropomorphisation and childlikeness, and is not more generally accepted as standard.

Grammatical case
Grammatical cases in Japanese are marked by particles placed after the nouns.[11] 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 - (ga) for subject, (wa) for the topic

Genitive - (no)
Dative - (ni)
Accusative - (wo)
Lative - (e), used for destination direction (like in "to some place")
Ablative - (kara), used for source direction (like in "from some place")
Instrumental - (de)

Pronouns

Some common pronouns

person very informal plain, informal polite respectful

boku (male)
first ore (male) atashi (female) watashi watakushi
watashi (both)

anta
kimi anata
second omae anata-sama
anata sochira

kare (male)
kanojo (female)
third aitsu (pejorative)
ano hito

Although many grammars and textbooks mention pronouns ( daimeishi), Japanese lacks true pronouns. (Daimeishi can be
considered a subset of nouns.) Strictly speaking, pronouns do not take modifiers, but Japanese daimeishi do: se no takai
kare (lit. tall he) is valid in Japanese. Also, unlike true pronouns, Japanese daimeishi are not closed-class: new daimeishi are
introduced and old ones go out of use relatively quickly
.
A large number of daimeishi referring to people are translated as pronouns in their most common uses. Examples: kare, (he);
kanojo, (she); watashi, (I); see also the adjoining table or a longer list.[12] Some of these "personal nouns" such as onore, I
(exceedingly humble), or boku, I (young male), also have second-person uses: onore in second-person is an extremely
rude "you", and boku in second-person is a diminutive "you" used for young boys. This further differentiates daimeishi from
pronouns, which cannot change their person. Kare and kanojo also mean "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" respectively, and this usage of
the words is possibly more common than the use as pronouns.

Like other subjects, Japanese deemphasizes personal daimeishi, which are seldom used. 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:

Kinoshita-san wa, se ga takai desu ne.
(addressing Mr. Kinoshita) "You're pretty tall, aren't you?"

Semmu, asu Fukuoka-shi nishi-ku no Yamamoto-shji no shach ni atte itadakemasu ka?
(addressing the managing director) "Would it be possible for you to meet the president of
Yamamoto Trading Co. in West Ward, Fukuoka tomorrow?"

The possible referents of daimeishi are sometimes constrained depending on the order of occurrence. The following pair of examples
from Bart Mathias[13] illustrates one such constraint.

Honda-kun ni atte, kare no hon o kaeshita ()

(I) met Honda and returned his book. ("His" here can refer to Honda.)
Kare ni atte, Honda-kun no hon o kaeshita ()
(I) met him and returned Honda's book. (Here, "him" cannot refer to Honda.)

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

English Japanese reason

History repeats itself. *Rekishi wa jibun o kurikaesu.(* the target of jibun must be
) animate

Hiroshi talked to Kenji about Hiroshi wa Kenji ni jibun no koto o there is no ambiguity in the
himself (=Hiroshi). hanashita. ( translation as explained
) below

*Makoto expects that Shizuko will ?? jibun can be in a different

take good care of himself
(=Makoto; note that Shizuko is
female).
sentence or dependent
??Makoto wa Shizuko ga jibun o daiji ni clause, but its target is
suru koto o kitai shite iru. ambiguous
either "Makoto expects that Shizuko will
take good care of him", or "Makoto expects
that Shizuko will take good care of herself."

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

Makoto wa Shizuko ni jibun no uchi de hon o yomaseta.
Makoto made Shizuko read book(s) in her house.
In practice the main action is not always discernible, in which case such sentences are ambiguous. The use of jibun in complex
sentences follows non-trivial rules.

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

kikai ga hitorideni ugokidashita
"The machine started operating by itself."

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

Demonstratives

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

-ko
koko soko asoko1 doko
here there over there where?

kochira sochira achira dochira

-chira3
this way that way that way over there which way?

k s 1 d
-u2
in this manner in that manner in that (other) manner how? in what manner?

koitsu soitsu aitsu doitsu

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

1. irregular formation
2. -ou is represented by -
3. colloquially contracted to -cchi

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

Kochira wa Hayashi-san desu.
"This is Mr. Hayashi."

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

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

A
 A: Senjitsu, Sapporo ni itte kimashita.
A: I visited Sapporo recently.
B(*)
B: Asoko (*Soko) wa itsu itte mo ii tokoro desu ne.
B: Yeah, that's a great place to visit whenever you go.

Soko instead of asoko would imply that B doesn't 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
.

Sat : Tanaka to iu hito ga kin shinda n da tte...
Sato: I heard that a man called Tanaka died yesterday...
?
Mori: E', hont?
Mori: Oh, really?
(*)
Sat : Dakara, sono (*ano) hito, Mori-san no mukashi no rinjin ja nakatta 'kke?
Sato: It's why I asked... wasn't he an old neighbour of yours?

Again, ano is inappropriate here because Sato doesn't (didn't) 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:

(*)?
Ittai nan desu ka, kore (*are) wa?
What on earth is this?

Conjugable words

Stem forms
Prior to discussing the conjugable words, a brief note about stem forms. Conjugative suffixes and auxiliary verbs are attached to the
stem forms of the affixee. In modern Japanese there are the following six stem forms.

Note that this order follows from the -a, -i, -u, -e, -o endings that these forms have in (5-row) 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, notablyna-nominals.

Irrealis form ( mizenkei) -a (and -)

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

The application of conjugative suffixes to stem forms follow certain euphonic principles
( onbin), which are discussed below.

Verbs
Verbs ( dshi) in Japanese are rigidly constrained to the ends of clauses in what is known as the predicate position. This means
that the verb is always located at the end of a sentence.

neko wa sakana o taberu
Cats TOPIC fish OBJECT eat
Cats eat fish.
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 ofconjugation. 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
nonpast. 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, and the auxiliary verb iru "to be"; to illustrate, miru ("to see")
mite iru ("to be seeing").

Verbs can be semantically classified based on certain conjugations.

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

There are other possible classes, and a large amount of overlap between the classes.
Lexically, nearly every verb in Japanese is a member of exactly one of the following three regular conjugation groups (see also
Japanese consonant and vowel verbs).

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

verbs with a stem ending in i. The terminal stem form always rhymes with -iru. Examples:
miru ("to see"), kiru ("to wear").
Group 2b ( shimo ichidan, lit. lower 1-row group)
verbs with a stem ending in e. The terminal stem form always rhymes with -eru. Examples:
taberu ("to eat"), kureru ("to give" (to someone of lower or more intimate
status)). (Note that some Group 1 verbs resemble Group 2b verbs, but their stems end in r,
not e.)
Group 1 ( godan, lit. 5-row group)
verbs with a stem ending in a consonant. When this is r and the verb ends in -eru, it is not
apparent from the terminal form whether the verb is Group 1 or Group 2b, e.g. kaeru
("to return"). If the stem ends in w, that sound only appears in before the final a of the irrealis
form.

The "row" in the above classification means a row in the gojon table. "Upper 1-row" means the row that is one row above the center
row (the u-row) i.e. i-row. "Lower 1-row" means the row that is one row below the center row (the u-row) i.e. e-row. "5-row" means
the conjugation runs though all 5 rows of the gojon table. A conjugation is fully described by identifying both the row and the
column in the gojon table. For example, (miru, "to see") belongs to (ma-column i-row conjugation),
(taberu, "to eat") belongs to (ba-column e-row conjugation), and (kaeru, "to return") belongs to
(ra-column 5-row conjugation).

One should avoid confusing verbs in (ra-column 5-row conjugation) with verbs in (i-row conjugation) or
(e-row conjugation). For example, (kiru, "to cut") belongs to (ra-column 5-row conjugation),
whereas its homophone (kiru, "to wear") belongs to (ka-column i-row conjugation). Likewise, (neru, "to
knead") belongs to (ra-column 5-row conjugation), whereas its homophone (neru, "to sleep") belongs to
(na-column e-row conjugation).

Historical note: classical Japanese had upper and lower 1- and 2-row groups and a 4-row group ( kami/shimo ichidan,
kami/shimo nidan, and yodan, the nidan verbs becoming most of today's ichidan verbs (there were only a handful of
kami ichidan verbs and only one single shimo ichidan verb in classical Japanese), and the yodan group, due to the writing reform in
1946 to write Japanese as it is pronounced, naturally became the moderngodan verbs. Since verbs have migrated across groups in the
history of the language, conjugation of classical verbs is not predictable from a knowledge of modern Japanese alone.

Of the irregular classes, there are two:

sa-group
which has only one member, (suru, "to do"). In Japanese grammars these words are
classified as sa-hen, an abbreviation of sa-gy henkaku katsuy, sa-row
irregular conjugation).
ka-group
which also has one member, (kuru, "to come"). The Japanese name for this class is
ka-gy henkaku katsuy or simply ka-hen.

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

The following table illustrates the stem forms of the above conjugation groups, with the root indicated with dots. For example, to find
the hypothetical form of the group 1 verb kaku, look in the second row to find its root, kak, then in the hypothetical row to get
the ending -e, giving the stem formkake. When there are multiple possibilities, they are listed in the order of increasing rarity
.
 1 2a 2b
group/
sa ka
example tsuka(w). kak. mi. tabe.

sa
Irrealis form1 tsukaw.a2 kak.a
mi. tabe. shi ko
( mizenkei) tsuka.o kak.o
se

Continuative form
tsuka.i kak.i mi. tabe. shi ki
( ren'ykei)

Terminal form
tsuka.u kak.u mi.ru tabe.ru suru kuru
( shshikei)

Attributive form
same as terminal form
( rentaikei)

Hypothetical form
tsuka.e kak.e mi.re tabe.re sure kure
( kateikei)

shiro
Imperative form mi.ro tabe.ro
tsuka.e kak.e seyo koi
( meireikei) mi.yo tabe.yo
sei

1. The -a and -o irrealis forms for Group 1 verbs were historically one, but since the post-WWII spelling reforms they
have been written differently. In modern Japanese the -o form is used only for the volitional mood and the a- form is
used in all other cases; see also the conjugation table below
.
2. The unexpected ending is due to the verb's root beingtsukaw- but [w] only being pronounced before [a] in modern
Japanese.
The above are only the stem forms of the verbs; to these one must add various verb endings in order to get the fully conjugated verb.
The following table lists the most common conjugations. Note that in some cases the form is different depending on the conjugation
group of the verb. SeeJapanese verb conjugationsfor a full list.
 group 1 group 2a group 2b sa-group ka-group
formation rule
kaku miru suru kuru
taberu

polite
cont. + masu
imperfective kaki.masu mi.masu tabe.masu shi.masu ki.masu

plain
cont. + ta
perfective kai.ta2 mi.ta tabe.ta shi.ta ki.ta

plain

negative irrealis + nai
imperfective kaka.nai mi.nai tabe.nai shi.nai ko.nai

plain
irrealis
negative
+ nakatta
perfective kaka.nakatta mi.nakatta tabe.nakatta shi.nakatta ko.nakatta

-te form
cont. + -te
(gerundive) kai.te2 mi.te tabe.te shi.te ki.te

provisional
hyp. + ba
conditional kake.ba mire.ba tabere.ba sure.ba kure.ba

past
cont. + tara
conditional kai.tara2 mi.tara tabe.tara shi.tara ki.tara

irrealis + u
kako.u
volitional

irrealis + -y
mi.y tabe.y shi.y ko.y

irrealis + reru
kaka.reru sa.reru
passive
irrealis + -

rareru mi.rareru ko.rareru
tabe.rareru

irrealis + seru
kaka.seru sa.seru
causative
irrealis + -

saseru mi.saseru ko.saseru
tabe.saseru

hyp. + ru
kake.ru dekiru1
potential

irrealis + -

rareru mi.rareru ko.rareru
tabe.rareru

1. This is an entirely different verb; suru has no potential form.

2. These forms change depending on the final syllable of the verb's dictionary form (whether
u, ku, gu, su, etc.). For
details, see Euphonic changes, below, and the article Japanese verb conjugations and adjective declensions .
The polite ending -masu conjugates as a group 1 verb, except that the negative imperfective and perfective forms are -masen and -
masen deshita respectively, and certain conjugations are in practice rarely if ever used. The passive and potential endings -reru and -
rareru, and the causative endings -seru and -saseru all conjugate as group 2b verbs. Multiple verbal endings can therefore
agglutinate. For example, a common formation is thecausative-passive ending, -sase-rareru.

Boku wa ane ni natt o tabesaserareta.
 I was made to eat natt by my (elder) sister.

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

Transitive and intransitive verbs

Japanese has a large variety of related pairs of transitive verbs (that take a direct object) and intransitive verbs (that do not usually
take a direct object), such as the transitivehajimeru (, someone or something begins an activity), and the intransitive hajimaru
(, an activity begins).[14][15]

transitive verb intransitive verb

One thing acts out the transitive verb on The intransitive verb passively happens without direct
another. intervention.

Usually uses o to link to the direct object. Usually uses ga or wa to link subject and verb.

Sensei ga jugy o hajimeru. Jugy ga hajimaru.
The teacher starts the class. The class starts.

Kuruma ni ireru. Kuruma ni hairu.
To put in the car. To enter the car.

Note: Some intransitive verbs (usually verbs of motion) take what it looks like a direct object, but it is not.[16] For example, hanareru
(, to leave):

Watashi wa Tokyo o hanareru.
I leave Tokyo.

Adjectival verbs and nouns

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

adjectival verbs (conventionally called i"-adjectives") ( keiyshi) these have roots and conjugating stem
forms, and are semantically and morphologically similar tostative verbs.
adjectival nouns (conventionally called n" a-adjectives") ( keiydshi, lit. "adjectival verb") these are nouns
that combine with the copula.
Unlike adjectives in languages like English, i-adjectives in Japanese inflect for aspect and mood, like verbs. Japanese adjectives do
not have comparative or superlative inflections; comparatives and superlatives have to be marked periphrastically using adverbs like
motto 'more' and ichiban 'most'.
Every adjective in Japanese can be used in an attributive position. Nearly every Japanese adjective can be used in a predicative
position; this differs from English where there are many common adjectives such as "major", as in "a major question", that cannot be
used to in the predicate position (that is, *"The question is major" is not grammatical English). There are a few Japanese adjectives
that cannot predicate, known as (rentaishi, attributives), which are derived from other word classes; examples include

kina "big", chiisana "small", and okashina "strange" which are all stylistic na-type variants of normal i-type
adjectives.

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

Stem forms for adjectives

i-adjectives na-adjectives

yasu. - shizuka-

Irrealis form
.karo -daro
( mizenkei)

Continuative form
.ku -de
( ren'ykei)

Terminal form
.i -da
( shshikei)

Attributive form -na /

.i
( rentaikei) -naru

Hypothetical form
.kere -nara
( kateikei)

Imperative form
.kare -nare
( meireikei)

1. The attributive and terminal forms were formerly .ki and .shi, respectively; in modern Japanese these are
, although many set phrases such as nanashi (anonymous) and
used productively for stylistic reasons only
yoshi (sometimes written yosh', general positive interjection) derive from them.
2. The imperative form is extremely rare in modern Japanese, restricted to set patterns like osokare
hayakare 'sooner or later', where they are treated as adverbial phrases. It is impossible for an imperative form to be
in a predicate position.
Common conjugations of adjectives are enumerated below. ii is not treated separately, because all conjugation forms are identical to
those of yoi.
 i-adjectives na-adjectives
yasui, "cheap" shizuka, "quiet"

root + -i
informal yasui
(Used alone, without the root + copula da shizuka da
nonpast "is cheap"
copula) "is quiet"

informal cont. + atta cont. + atta shizuka
past yasuk.atta
(u + a collapse) (e + a collapse) d.atta
"was cheap"
"was quiet"

()
informal ()
cont. + () (wa)
negative cont. + () (wa) nai yasuku(wa)nai shizuka de
nonpast nai
"isn't cheap" (wa) nai
"isn't quiet"

()
informal ()
cont. + () (wa) cont. + ()
negative yasuku(wa)nakatta shizuka de
past nakatta (wa) nakatta
"wasn't cheap" (wa) nakatta
"wasn't quiet"

polite
root + -i + copula desu yasui desu root + copula desu shizuka desu
nonpast
"is cheap" "is quiet"

inf. cont + inf. cont + ()
arimasen yasuku arimasen (wa) arimasen shizuka de
polite wa arimasen
negative
non past
inf. neg. non-past + copula inf. cont + ()
desu yasukunai desu (wa) nai desu shizuka de
wa nai desu

inf. cont + ()
inf. cont +
(wa) arimasen
arimasen deshita yasuku arimasen deshita shizuka de
deshita
polite wa arimasen
negative deshita
past

inf. neg. past + copula inf. neg. past +
desu yasukunakatta desu nakatta desu shizuka de
wa nakatta
desu

-te form cont. + te cont.
yasuku.te shizuka de

()
provisional
hyp. + ba hyp. (+ ba) shizuka
conditional yasukere.ba
nara(ba)

past
inf. past + ra inf. past + ra shizuka
conditional yasukatta.ra
datta.ra

irrealis + u yasukar
irrealis + u
volitional /root + dar / yasuidar = root + dar shizuka dar

adverbial cont. root + ni

yasuku. shizuka ni
 degree
root + sa root + sa
(-ness) yasu-sa shizuka-sa

1. note that these are just forms of thei-type adjective nai

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: yokar 'OK' (lit: let it be good) in response to a report or
request.
Adjectives too are governed by euphonic rules in certain cases, as noted in the section on it below. For the polite negatives of na-type
adjectives, see also the section below on the copula da.

The copula ( da)

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

Stem forms of the copula

Irrealis form
( de wa
mizenkei)
Continuative
form
de
(
ren'youkei)

Terminal da (informal)
form desu (polite)
( de gozaimasu
shshikei) (respectful)
Attributive
form
de aru
(
rentaikei)
Hypothetical
form
nara
(
kateikei)
Imperative
form
impossible
(
meireikei)

Note that there are no potential, causative, or passive

forms of the copula, just as with adjectives.

The following are some examples.

JON wa gakusei da
John is a student.

Ashita mo hare nara,
PIKUNIKKU shiy
 If tomorrow is clear too, let's Conjugations of the copula
have a picnic.
informal da
In continuative conjugations, de wa is often nonpast polite desu
contracted in speech to ja; for some kinds of
respectful de gozaimasu
informal speech ja is preferable to de wa, or is the
only possibility. cont. + atta
informal
datta
past
polite deshita

respectful de gozaimashita

informal cont. + wa nai

negative polite cont. + wa arimasen

nonpast
cont. + wa
respectful
gozaimasen

informal cont. + wa nakatta

cont. + wa
negative polite
past arimasen deshita

cont. + wa
respectful
gozaimasen deshita

informal hyp. + ba
conditional polite
cont. + areba
respectful

informal nara
provisional polite
same as conditional
respectful

informal dar

volitional polite desh

respectful de gozaimash

informal cont.
adverbial polite cont. + arimashite
and
-te forms cont. +
respectful
gozaimashite

Euphonic changes ( onbin)

Historical sound change

Modern pronunciation is a result of a long history of phonemic drift that can be traced back to written records of the thirteenth
century, and possibly earlier. However, it was only in 1946 that the Japanese ministry of education modified existing kana usage to
conform to the standard dialect ( kytsgo). 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 palatalized morae yu, yo () combine
with the initial consonant, if present, yielding a Spelling changes

palatalized syllable. The most basic example of this is archaic modern

modern ky ( , today), which a + u

historically developed askefu () ky (), a + fu
via the efu () y () rule.
i + u
y1
A few sound changes are not reflected in the spelling. i + fu

Firstly, ou merged with oo, both being pronounced as u + fu

a long . Secondly, the particles and are still
e + u
written using historical kana usage, though these are y
e + fu
pronounced as wa and o, rather than ha and wo, with
the rare exception of , which is pronounced as o + fu

-n wo, as in sen'en wo itadakimasu( o + ho

, I humbly receive one thousand yen). o + wo

auxiliary verb mu n
Among Japanese speakers, it is not generally
understood that the historical kana spellings were, at medial or final ha wa
one point, reflective of pronunciation. For example,
i, e, o
(lit. efu) for "leaf" (, modern ha) was pronounced medial or final hi, he, ho
(via wi, we, wo, see below)
something like [epu] by the Japanese at the time it was
any wi, we, wo i, e, o1
borrowed. However, a modern reader of a classical
text would still read this as [yoo], the modern
1. usually not reflected in spelling
pronunciation.

Verb conjugations

As mentioned above, conjugations of some verbs and adjectives differ from the prescribed formation rules because of euphonic
changes. Nearly all of these euphonic changes are themselves regular. For verbs the exceptions are all in the ending of the
continuative form of group when the following auxiliary starts with at-sound, i.e., ta, te, tari, etc.

continuative ending changes to example

* *kaite katte
i, chi or ri (double consonant) * *uchite utte
* *shirite shitte

* *asobite asonde
bi, mi or ni (syllabic n), with the following t sound voiced * *sumite sunde
* *shinite shinde

ki i * *kakite kaite

gi i, with the following t sound voiced * *oyogite oyoide

* denotes impossible/ungrammatical form.

There is one other irregular change: iku (to go), for which there is an exceptional continuative form: iki + te
itte, iki + ta itta, etc.

There are dialectical differences, which are also regular and generally occur in similar situations. For example, inKansai dialect the -i
+ t- conjugations are instead changed to -ut-, as in omta () instead of omotta (), as perfective of omou (, think).
In this example, this can combine with the preceding vowel via historical sound changes, as in shimta () (au ) instead
of standard shimatta ().
Polite forms of adjectives
The continuative form of proper adjectives, when followed by polite forms such as gozaru (, be) or zonjiru (, know,
think), undergoes a transformation; this may be followed by historical sound changes, yielding a one-step or two-step sound change.
Note that these verbs are almost invariably conjugated to polite-masu () form, as gozaimasu () and zonjimasu (
) (note the irregular conjugation ofgozaru, discussed below), and that these verbs are preceded by the continuative form -ku
() of adjectives, rather than the terminal form -i () which is used before the more everydaydesu (, be).

The rule is -ku () -u () (dropping the -k-), possibly also combining with the previous syllable according to the spelling
reform chart, which may also undergo palatalization in the case of (yu, yo).

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

continuative
changes to examples
ending

*ohayaku gozaimasu
-aku -
ohay gozaimasu

*kiku gozaimasu
-iku -y
ky gozaimasu

*samuku gozaimasu
-uku -
sam gozaimasu

*-eku *-y (not present)

*omoshiroku gozaimasu
-oku -
omoshir gozaimasu

*suzushiku gozaimasu
-shiku -sh
suzush gozaimasu

Respectful verbs
Respectful verbs such as kudasaru 'to get', nasaru 'to do', gozaru 'to be', irassharu 'to
be/come/go', ossharu 'to say', etc. behave like group 1 verbs, except in the continuative and imperative forms.

change examples

* *gozarimasu gozaimasu
continuative changed to
* *irassharimase irasshaimase

* *kudasare kudasai
imperative changed to
* *nasare nasai

Colloquial contractions
In speech, common combinations of conjugation and auxiliary verbs are contracted in a fairly regular manner
.
 Colloquial contractions
full form colloquial example

/-
makete shimau 'lose' /
-chau/-chimau
makechau/makechimau
-te shimau group 1

/
shinde shimau 'die' shinjau or
-de -jau/-jimau shinjimau
shimau group 1

tabete wa ikenai 'must not eat' tabecha

-te wa -cha ikenai

nonde wa ikenai 'must not drink' nonja

-de wa -ja ikenai

-teru nete iru 'is sleeping' neteru
-te iru
group 2b

-toku shite oku 'will do it so' shitoku
-te oku
group 1

-teku dete ike 'get out!' deteke
-te iku
group 1

-tageru katte ageru 'buy something (for someone)' kattageru
-te ageru group 2a

nani shite iru no 'what are you doing?' nani shitenno
-ru no -nno

yarinasai 'do it!' yannasai
-nnasai
-rinasai

yaruna 'don't do it!' yanna
-runa -nna

There are occasional others, such as -aranai -annai as in wakaranai (, don't understand) wakannai ()
and tsumaranai (, boring) tsumannai () 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, inKansai dialect -te shimau (
) -temau ().

Other independent words

Adverbs
Adverbs in Japanese are not as tightly integrated into the morphology as in many other languages. Indeed, adverbs are not an
independent class of words, but rather a role played by other words. For example, every adjective in the continuative form can be
used as an adverb; thus, yowai 'weak' (adj) yowaku 'weakly' (adv). The primary distinguishing characteristic of adverbs
is that they cannot occur in a predicate position, just as it is in English. The following classification of adverbs is not intended to be
authoritative or exhaustive.
Verbal adverbs
are verbs in the continuative form with the particle ni. E.g. miru 'to see' mi ni 'for
the purpose of seeing', used for instance as: mi ni iku, go to see (something).
Adjectival adverbs
are adjectives in the continuative form, as mentioned above.
Nominal adverbs
are grammatical nouns that function as adverbs. Example: ichiban 'most highly'.
Sound symbolism
are words that mimic sounds or concepts. Examples: kirakira 'sparklingly',
pokkuri 'suddenly', surusuru 'smoothly (sliding)', etc.

Often, especially for sound symbolism, the particleto "as if" is used. See the article onJapanese sound symbolism.

Conjunctions and interjections

Examples of conjunctions: soshite 'and then', mata 'and then/again', etc. Although called "conjunctions", these words
are, as English translations show, actually a kind of adverbs.

Examples of interjections: (hai, yes/OK/uh), (hee, wow!), (iie, no/no way), (oi, hey!), etc. This part of
speech is not very different from that of English.

Ancillary words

Particles

Particles in Japanese are postpositional, as they immediately follow the modified component. A full listing of particles is beyond the
scope of this article, so only a few prominent particles are listed here. Keep in mind that the pronunciation and spelling differ for the
particles wa (), e () and o (): This article follows the Hepburn-style of romanizing them according to the pronunciation rather
than spelling.

Topic, theme, and subject: wa and ga

The complex distinction between the so-called topic ( wa) and subject ( ga) particles has been the theme of many doctoral
dissertations and scholarly disputes. The clause z-wa hana-ga nagai 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 z-no hana-wa nagai.
Rather, a more literal translation would be "(speaking of) the elephant, its nose is long".

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

As an abstract and rough approximation, the difference between wa and ga is a matter of focus: wa gives focus to the action of the
sentence, i.e., to the verb or adjective, whereas ga gives focus to the subject of the action. However, a more useful description must
proceed by enumerating uses of these particles.

However, when first being introduced to the topic and subject markers wa and ga most are told that the difference between the two is
simpler. The topic marker, wa, is used to declare or to make a statement. The subject marker, ga, is used for new information, or
asking for new information.

See Topic marker: Japanese:.

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

JON wa gakusei desu
(On the topic of) John, (he) is a student.

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

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

...
ame wa futte imasu ga...
The rain is falling, but...

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

*
*dareka wa hon o yonde iru
*Someone is reading the book.

In this use, ga is required.

In practice, the distinction between thematic and contrastive wa is not that useful. Suffice it to say that there can be at most one
thematic wa in a sentence, and it has to be the first wa if one exists, and the remaining was are contrastive. For completeness, the
following sentence (due to Kuno) illustrates the dif
ference.

boku ga shitte iru hito wa daremo konakatta
(1) Of all the people I know, none came.
(2) (People came but), there weren't any of the people I know.

The first interpretation is the thematic wa, treating "the people I know" (boku ga shitte iru hito) as the theme of the predicate "none
came" (dare mo konakatta). That is, if I know A, B, ..., Z, then none of the people who came were A, B, ..., Z. The second
interpretation is the contrastive wa. If the likely attendees were A, B, ..., Z, and of them I know 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 I know, but none of whom were likely to
come. (In practice the first interpretation is the likely one.)

Exhaustive ga
Unlike wa, the subject particle ga nominates its referent as the sole satisfier of the predicate. This distinction is famously illustrated
by the following pair of sentences.

Jon-san wa gakusei desu
John is a student. (There may be other students among the people we're talking about.)
()
(Kono gurpu no naka de) Jon ga gakusei desu
(Of all the people we are talking about) it is John who is the student.

It may be useful to think of the distinction in terms of the question each statement could answer
, e.g.:

Jon-san no shigoto wa nan desu ka
What is John's occupation?

for the first statement, versus

Dochira no kata ga gakusei desu ka
Which one (of them) is the student?

for the second.

Similarly, in a restaurant, if the waitress asks who has ordered the eels, the customer who ordered it can say

Boku ga unagi da
The eels are for me (not these other people).

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

Jon-san wa furansu-go ga dekiru
John knows French.

These verbs, e.g. (to be able to), (to want), (to like), (to dislike), etc., are in fact simply adjectives
and intransitive verbs whose subject is what would be a direct object in the English translation. The equivalent of the English subject
is instead the topic in Japanese and thus marked bywa, reflecting the topic-prominent nature of Japanese grammar.

Objects, locatives, instrumentals: o, de, ni, e

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

Jon-san wa aoi st o kite iru
John is wearing a blue sweater.

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

MEARI ga hosoi michi o aruite ita
Mary was walking along a narrow road.

kokky no nagai TONNERU o nukeru to yukiguni de atta
The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country.
The general instrumental particle is de, which can be translated as "using" or "by":

niku wa NAIFU de kiru koto
Meat must be cut with a knife.

densha de ikimash
Let's go by train.

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

machikado de sensei ni atta
(I) met my teacher at the street corner.

"In":

umi de oyogu no wa muzukashii
Swimming in the sea is hard.

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

geki wa shujink no shi de owaru
The play ends with the protagonist's death.

ore wa niby de katsu
I'll win in two seconds.

The general locative particle is ni.

Tky ni ikimash
Let's go to Tokyo

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

99
watashi wa temachi itchme 99 banchi ni sunde imasu
I live at temachi ichme 99 banchi.

"On":

kri wa mizu ni uku
Ice floats on water.

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

......
haru no ygure ni...
On a spring eve...

Quantity and extents: to, mo, ka, ya, kara, made

To conjoin nouns, to is used.

Kaban ni wa kykasho san-satsu to manga-bon go-satsu o irete imasu
I have three textbooks and five comic books in the bag.

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

YOHAN wa DOITSU-jin da. BURIGETTA mo DOITSU-jin da
Johan is a German. Brigette is a German too.

kare wa eiga SUT de ari, seijika de mo aru
He is a movie star and also a politician.

For an incomplete list of conjuncts, ya is used.

BORISU ya IBAN o yobe
Call Boris, Ivan, etc.

, the disjunctive particle ka is used.

When only one of the conjuncts is necessary

sushi ka sashimi ka, nanika chmon shite ne
Please order sushi or sashimi or something.

Quantities are listed between kara 'from' and made 'to'.

9296
Kashi 92 do kara 96 do made no netsu wa shinpai suru mono de wa nai
A temperature between 92 Fahrenheit and 96 is not worrisome.

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

9(9)11
asa ku-ji kara jichi-ji made jugy ga aru n da
You see, I have classes between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.

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

SUMISU-san wa totemo sekkyokuteki na hito desu kara, itsumo zenbu tanomarete iru no
kamoshiremasen
Mr. Smith, because you're so assertive, you may always be asked to do everything.

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

7
Watashitachi no mise wa shichi-ji yori eigy shite orimasu
Our shop is open for business from 7 onwards.

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

!
 omae wa n-chan yori urusai n da
You are louder/more talkative than my elder sister!

Coordinating: to, ni, yo

The particle to is used to set off quotations.

...
"koroshite... koroshite" to ano ko wa itteita
The girl was saying, "Kill me... kill me."

neko ga NY NY to naku
The cat says meow, meow.

It is also used to indicate a manner of similarity

, "as if", "like" or "the way".

kare wa "aishiteru yo" to itte, pokkuri to shinda
He said "I love you," and dropped dead.

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

ame ga agaru to, kodomo-tachi wa jugyou wo wasurete, hi no atatteiru mizutamari no
ywaku ni much ni naru
Rain stops and then: children, forgetting their lessons, give in to the temptation of sun-faced
puddles.

kokky no nagai TONNERU wo nukeru to, yukiguni de atta
The train came out of the long tunnel (and then) into the snow country.

Finally it is used with verbs liketo meet (with) ( au) or to speak (with) ( hanasu).

1942
JON ga MEARI to hajimete atta no wa, 1942 nen no haru no yguredoki no koto datta
John met Mary for the first time on a dusky afternoon of spring in 1942.

This last use is also a function of the particle ni, but to indicates reciprocation whichni does not.

(usually say )
JON wa MEARI[] to ren'ai shite iru (JON wa MEARI[] to tsukiatte iru)
John and Mary are in love.
(usually say )
JON wa MEARI[] ni ren'ai shite iru (JON wa MEARI[] ni koi shite iru)
John loves Mary (but Mary might not love John back).

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

kawaii musume yo, watashi ni kao wo shikameruna
Oh my beloved daughter, don't frown at me so!

Final: ka, ne, yo and related

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

?
sochira wa amerika-jin desh ka?
Are you perchance an American?

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.

kare ni denwa shinakatta no ne
You didn't call him up, did you?

chikajika rondon ni hikkosareru sou desu ne.
I hear you're moving to London soon. Is that true?

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

uso nanka tsuite nai yo!
I'm not lying!

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

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

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

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

sono ken ni kan-shite shitte-iru kagiri no koto o oshiete moraitai
Kindly tell me everything you know concerning that case. (particle + verb in cont.)

gaikokugo o gakush suru ue de taisetsu na koto wa mainichi no doryoku ga mono o iu to iu
koto de aru
In studying a foreign language, daily effort gives the most rewards. (noun + particle)

ani wa ryshin no shinpai o yoso ni, daigaku o yamete shimatta
Ignoring my parents' worries, my brother dropped out of college. (particle + noun + particle)

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

Pure auxiliaries ( jodshi)

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

Some pure auxiliary verbs

auxiliary group attaches to meaning modification example

makes the sentence

irregular1 continuative kaku 'to write' kakimasu
masu polite

miru 'to see' mirareru 'to be

irrealis of makes V able to see'
rareru2 grp. 2 passive/honorific/potential taberu 'to eat' taberareru
'to be able to eat'
2b nomu 'to drink/swallow'
irrealis of makes V
grp. 1 passive/honorific nomareru 'to be drunk' (Passive form ofdrink, not
reru
a synonym for intoxicated.)

hyp. of nomu 'to drink/swallow' nomeru

ru3 makes V potential
grp. 1 'to be able to drink'

irrealis of kangaeru 'to think'

saseru4 grp. 2 kangaesaseru 'to cause to think'
2b makes V causative
omoishiru 'to realize'
irrealis of
grp. 1 omoishiraseru 'to cause to realize/to teach a
seru
lesson'

1 masu has stem forms: irrealis and , continuative , terminal ,

attributive , hypothetical , imperative .
2 rareru in potential usage is sometimes shortened to reru (grp. 2); thus

tabereru 'to be able to eat' instead of taberareru. But it is considered non-

standard.
3 Technically, such an auxiliary verb , ru, denoting the potential form, does not exist, as for

example nomeru is thought to actually come from the contraction of ,

nomieru (see below). However, textbooks tend to teach it this way. ( in old texts would
have been the attributive past tense form of instead of the potential meaning.)
4 saseru is sometimes shortened to sasu (grp. 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 an abundant store of such auxiliary verbs.
 Some helper auxiliary verbs
meaning
auxiliary group attaches to example
modification
-te form
aru 'to be indicates state hiraku 'to open' hiraite-
1 only for
(inanimate)' modification aru 'opened and is still open'
trans.

-te form progressive neru 'to sleep' nete-iru 'is

2a
for trans. aspect sleeping'
iru 'to be
(animate)' -te form indicates state shimaru 'to close (intransitive)'
2a
for intrans. modification shimatte-iru 'is closed'

"do something in taberu 'to eat' tabete-

advance" oku 'eat in advance'
oku 'to put/place' 1 -te form
akeru 'to open' akete-
"keep"
oku 'keep it open'

aruku 'to walk' aruite-iku

iku 'to go' 1 -te form "goes on V-ing"
'keep walking'

inception, "start furu 'fall' futte-kuru 'start

to V" to fall'
perfection, "have
ikiru 'live' ikite-kita
kuru 'to come' ka -te form V-ed" (only past-
tense) 'have lived'

conclusion, kotonaru 'differ'

"come to V" kotonatte-kuru 'come to differ'
continuative
kaku 'to write' kaki-
non-
punctual hajimeru 'start to write'
hajimeru 'to "V begins",
2b continuative
begin' "begin to V"
punctual & tsuku 'to arrive' tsuki-
subj. must hajimeru 'have all started to arrive'
be plural

kagayaku 'to shine'

dasu 'to emit' 1 continuative "start to V"
kagayaki-dasu 'to start shining'

suru 'do' shite-miru 'try to

miru 'to see' 1 -te form "try to V"
do'
"do V again,
naosu 'to kaku 'to write' kaki-
1 continuative correcting
correct/heal' mistakes" naosu 'rewrite'

tatsu 'to stand' tachi-

"do V thoroughly" agaru 'stand up'
agaru 'to rise' 1 continuative / "V happens dekiru 'to come out'
upwards"
deki-agaru 'be completed'

(see
eru/uru 'to be indicates aru 'to be' ariuru 'is
note at continuative
able' potential possible'
bottom)
continuative
/ "about to V",
only for oboreru 'drown'
kakaru/kakeru 'to 1 "almost V",
intrans., obore-kakeru 'about to drown'
hang/catch/obtain' "to start to V"
non-volit.

taberu 'to eat' tabe-kiru

kiru 'to cut' 1 continuative "do V completely"
'to eat it all'
 kesu 'to erase' 1 continuative "cancel by V" momu 'to rub' momi-kesu
"deny with V" 'to rub out, to extinguish'

komu 'to enter "V deep in", "V hanasu 'to speak' hanashi-
1 continuative
deeply/plunge' into" komu 'to be deep in conversation'

sageru 'to hiku 'to pull' hiki-sageru

2b continuative "V down"
lower' 'to pull down'

sugiru 'to iu 'to say' ii-sugiru 'to

2a continuative "overdo V"
exceed' say too much, to overstate'

tsukeru 'to "become iku 'to go' iki-tsukeru 'be

2b continuative
attach' accustomed to V" used to (going)'

tsuzukeru 'to furu 'to fall' (e.g. rain)

2b continuative "keep on V"
continue' furi-tsuzukeru 'to keep falling'

tsu 'to yomu 'to read' yomi-tsu

1 continuative "finish V-ing"
show/thread/lead' 'to finish reading'
continuative
nukeru 'to hashiru 'to run' hashiri-
2b only for "V through"
shed/spill/desert' intrans. nukeru 'to run through (swh)'

omou 'to think' omoi-

nokosu 'to leave by doing V, leave
1 continuative nokosu 'to regret' (lit: to have something left
behind' something behind
to think about)
continuative
nokoru 'to be left be left behind, ikiru 'live' iki-nokoru 'to
1 only for
behind' doing V survive' (lit: to be left alive)
intrans.

wakeru 'to the proper way to tsukau 'use' tsukai-

2b continuative
divide/split/classify' V wakeru 'to indicate the proper way to use'

wasureru 'to kiku 'to ask' kiki-

2b continuative to forget to V
forget' wasureru 'to forget to ask'

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

References
1. In contrast, Romance languages such as Spanish are strongly right-branching, andGermanic languages such as
English are weakly right-branching
2. Uehara, p. 69
3. Dixon 1977, p. 48.
4. Adam (http://japaneselevelup.com/author/adshap8/)(2011-07-18). "Homage to (ru), The Magical Verbifier" (http://j
apaneselevelup.com/homage-to-ru-the-magical-verbifier/).
5. "70% " (http://nlab.itmedia.co.jp/nl/articl
es/1409/25/news148.html)[70% of Japanese people have never heard of the wordstaku-ru and disu-ru.]. Retrieved
2016-01-20. Cite uses deprecated parameter|trans_title= (help)
6. Languages with different open and closed word classes (http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/9012/langua
ges-with-different-open-and-closed-word-classes)
7. The Typology of Adjectival Predication,Harrie Wetzer, p. 311 (https://books.google.com/books?id=ORUUwhdDPpU
C&pg=PA311)
8. The Art of Grammar: A Practical Guide,Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, p. 96 (https://books.google.com/books?id=XFBVB
QAAQBAJ&pg=PA96)
9. Closed and open classes in Natlangs (Especially Japanese)(http://aveneca.com/cbb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3855)
10. Uehara, chapter 2, especially 2.2.2.2
11. Takahashi, Tarou; et al. (2010). A Japanese Grammar (in Japanese) (4 ed.). Japan: Hitsuji Shobou. p. 27.ISBN 978-
4-89476-244-2.
12. "What are the personal pronouns of Japanese?"(http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/pronoun.html)in sci.lang.japan
Frequently Asked Questions
13. Bart Mathias. Discussion of pronoun reference constraints(http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sci.lang.japan/msg/f
ed63fa6c3614895?dmode=source)on sci.lang.japan.
14. "What's the difference between hajimeru andhajimaru?" (http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/jitadoushi.html)in sci.lang.japan
Frequently Asked Questions
15. Kim Allen (2000) "Japanese verbs, part 2"(http://kimallen.sheepdogdesign.net/Japanese/verbs2.html)in Japanese
for the Western Brain
16. "" (http://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433/87
92/1/gen00006_079.pdf)(PDF). Kyoto University. Retrieved May 18, 2013.

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

Further reading
Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese I: Inflection.Journal of the American Oriental Society, 66, 97
109.
Bloch, Bernard. (1946). Studies in colloquial Japanese II: Syntax.Language, 22, 200248.
Chafe, William L. (1976). Giveness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view
. In C. Li (Ed.),
Subject and topic (pp. 2556). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
Jorden, Eleanor Harz, Noda, Mari. (1987). Japanese: The Spoken Language
Katsuki-Pestemer, Noriko. (2009): A Grammar of Classical Japanese. Mnchen: LINCOM.ISBN 978-3-929075-68-7.
Kiyose, Gisaburo N. (1995).Japanese Grammar: A New Approach. Kyoto: Kyoto University Press.ISBN 4-87698-
016-0.
Kuno, Susumu. (1973).The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.ISBN 0-262-11049-0.
Kuno, Susumu. (1976). Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy: A re-examination of relativization phenomena.
In Charles N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 417444). New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-447350-4.
Makino, Seiichi & Tsutsui, Michio. (1986).A dictionary of basic Japanese grammar. Japan Times. ISBN 4-7890-
0454-6
Makino, Seiichi & Tsutsui, Michio. (1995).A dictionary of intermediate Japanese grammar . Japan Times. ISBN 4-
7890-0775-8
Martin, Samuel E. (1975).A reference grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-
01813-4.
McClain, Yoko Matsuoka. (1981).Handbook of modern Japanese grammar: [Kgo Nihon bunp
benran]. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press.ISBN 4-590-00570-0; ISBN 0-89346-149-0.
Mizutani, Osamu; & Mizutani, Nobuko. (1987).How to be polite in Japanese: [Nihongo no keigo].
Tokyo: Japan Times. ISBN 4-7890-0338-8.
Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). Japanese. In B. Comrie (Ed.),The major languages of east and south-east Asia .
London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04739-0.
Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990).The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN 0-521-
36070-6 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-36918-5 (pbk).
Shibamoto, Janet S. (1985).Japanese women's language. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-640030-X.
Graduate Level
Tsujimura, Natsuko. (1996).An introduction to Japanese linguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.ISBN 0-
631-19855-5 (hbk); ISBN 0-631-19856-3 (pbk). Upper Level Textbooks
Tsujimura, Natsuko. (Ed.) (1999).The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.ISBN 0-
631-20504-7. Readings/Anthologies

External links
FAQ for sci.lang.japan.
 Nihongoresources grammar book
Tae Kim's Guide to Learning JapaneseJapanese grammar guide
Shoko Hamano, Visualizing Japanese Grammar Animated Japanese grammar lessons from George W
ashington
University.
On particles in Japanese

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