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Japanese language is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ma ...
has two main types of verbs which are referred to as and .


Verb groups

Categories are important when conjugating Japanese verbs, since conjugation patterns vary according to the verb's category. For example, and belong to different verb categories (godan and ichidan, respectively) and therefore follow different conjugation patterns. Most Japanese verbs are allocated into two categories: # # Statistically, there are far more godan verbs than ichidan verbs. Sometimes categorization is expanded to include a third category of
irregular verbs A regular verb is any verb whose conjugation follows the typical pattern, or one of the typical patterns, of the language to which it belongs. A verb whose conjugation follows a different pattern is called an irregular verb. This is one instance ...
—which most notably include the verbs and .
Classical Japanese The classical Japanese language ( ''bungo'', "literary language"), also called "old writing" ( ''kobun''), sometimes simply called "Medieval Japanese" is the literary form of the Japanese language that was the standard until the early Shōwa pe ...
had more verb groups, such as and , which are archaic in
Modern Japanese Modern may refer to: History *Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosoph ...
.


Terminology

Within the terms and , the numbers and correspond with the number of rows that a verb stem (or inflectional suffix) can span in the gojūon kana table. This is best visualized by comparing various verb conjugations to an extracted column of the gojūon table: In the table above, the verb uses kana from all 5 rows of the gojūon table in its inflectional suffix—, , , and —amongst its conjugations. Thus, it is classified as a "class-5" (or more formally "''pentagrade''") verb. Meanwhile, the verbs and each use kana from only 1 row of the gojūon table in their verb-stem's suffix— and respectively. Thus, they are classified as a "class-1" (or more formally "''monograde''") verbs.


Advanced terminology

As ichidan verbs only fall into the or rows, they can be further classified into the and subgroups respectively. This is due to being above in the vowel ordering. In full terminology, the
gojūon In the Japanese language, the is a traditional system ordering kana characters by their component phonemes, roughly analogous to alphabetical order. The "fifty" (''gojū'') in its name refers to the 5×10 grid in which the characters are disp ...
column name of the verb stem's suffix becomes a prefix of these subgroups. For example, the ichidan verb has its verb stem in the upper row of the and is formally classified as a verb; meanwhile, the ichidan verb has its verb stem in the lower row of the 'ma' column and is formally classified as a verb. Godan verbs are also formally classified into subgroups, but instead use the column name of the verb's inflectional suffix. For example, the godan verb is in the 'ma' column, so it is formally classified as a verb.


Japanese language education

Within
Japanese language education Japanese language education is available in Japan and worldwide. Many major universities throughout the world provide Japanese language courses, and a number of secondary and even primary schools worldwide offer courses in the language. History P ...
, various terminologies are used in lieu of the Japanese nomenclature for "godan" and "ichidan" verbs. In literature adopting the "Group I / II / III" terminology, the terms (I), (II) or (III) may be notated beside verbs. Similarly, (う) or (る) may be notated beside verbs in literature adopting the " / " terminology.


Consonant and vowel nomenclature

The terms "consonant stem verbs" and "vowel stem verbs" come from a pattern that emerges after transliterating verbs into
rōmaji The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as . Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Ch ...
. When considering the invariant part of the verb (the
verb stem In linguistics, a word stem is a part of a word responsible for its lexical meaning. The term is used with slightly different meanings depending on the morphology of the language in question. In Athabaskan linguistics, for example, a verb stem is ...
), the final letter determines the classification of the verb group. If the verb stem's final letter: * is a consonant, then it is a consonant stem verb (godan verb) * is a vowel, then it is a vowel stem verb (ichidan verb) There are several flaws with the consonant and vowel nomenclature: # When godan verbs end with , the verb's invariant stem always ends with a vowel, yet is still classified as having a consonant stem. For example, has the vowel "a" as the invariant suffix, yet it is still categorized as a "consonant stem verb".
In these cases, this contradiction is resolved by a technicality where the verb's invariant stem is considered to end in the consonant ''w''. The ''w'' is normally suppressed, but surfaces in the negative form, as seen in . Traditionally these verbs ended in ''-hu,'' which is still seen on occasion in
historical kana usage The , or , refers to the in general use until orthographic reforms after World War II; the current orthography was adopted by Cabinet order in 1946. By that point the historical orthography was no longer in accord with Japanese pronunciation ...
, and thus unambiguously ended in ''h''.

# When godan verbs end with , the verb's invariant stem always ends with an "s" rather than a "t". Since the consonant stem terminology focuses on rōmaji, this could lead to conjugation errors. For example, in its negative conjugation does not become as the consonant stem system might have one believe; the correct conjugation is .

# In the case of the past-tense and ''te'' forms of conjugation, the 'invariant' stem changes such that the consonant is removed from all godan verbs (except verbs ending in or ). This means the defining characteristic of consonant stem verbs cannot be used to define consonant stem verbs for the past-tense or ''te'' forms. The true "invariant stem", which is consistent amongst all conjugations, precedes the so-called "invariant consonant".

# This nomenclature is an abstract perspective, since a consonant stem itself never occurs independently; Japanese words are concretely formed with
morae A mora (plural ''morae'' or ''moras''; often symbolized μ) is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable. For example, a short syllable such as ''ba'' consists of one mora (''monomoraic''), ...
, where pairs of consonant and vowel
phonemes In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...
are indivisible. Therefore, while the stem of is "", the bare ' is not an independent word and is impossible to write in
kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most p ...
.
This means, ironically, that the concepts of "consonant stems" and "vowel stems" are difficult to express in Japanese and seem unnatural to native speakers.

# Paradoxically, consonant stem verbs conjugate to include all 5 Japanese vowels, whilst the vowel stem verbs are limited to manifesting the same vowel in all conjugates. As such, the consonant stem verb and vowel stem verb terminologies are prone to nomenclature confusion.


Verb classification

Classifying verbs is simple in theory: # Take the verb in its plain, negative form. The result will be: verb-stem + # If the last character of the verb-stem (ignoring the ""): ::* rhymes with , then it is a godan verb ::* rhymes with or , then it is an ichidan verb This classification system works for all Japanese verbs, with three exceptions: is a godan verb, and both and are instead classified as
irregular verbs A regular verb is any verb whose conjugation follows the typical pattern, or one of the typical patterns, of the language to which it belongs. A verb whose conjugation follows a different pattern is called an irregular verb. This is one instance ...
.


Dot notation

In some Japanese dictionaries, the readings of conjugable words may have the stem and the inflectional suffix separated by a dot (・). For example, the adjective may be written as to separate the static prefix from the dynamic suffix. This system also describes the verb group classification: in godan verbs, the dot is placed before the last kana; in ichidan verbs, the dot is placed before the last 2 kana (except for 2-kana ichidan verbs, which have no dot). However, regardless of the dot's position, the inflectional suffix is always the last kana of any ichidan verb.


Naive verb classification

A caveat of accurately classifying verb groups is that you must have pre-existing knowledge of the verb's negative form. In practice, people tend to learn the verb's plain form first. As such, Japanese language educators usually teach strategies for naive verb classification. Whilst such strategies are not comprehensive, they generally remain useful in the context of regular daily conversations that language beginners will likely encounter. Here is one such strategy: Naive strategies, such as this one, tend to misidentify godan verbs ending with —specifically, when godan verbs rhyme with or . Therefore, when an ichidan verb is concluded from a naive strategy, it is more efficient to confirm the verb's classification in a dictionary. However, there are other rules-of-thumb to more accurately discriminate such verbs.


Rules of thumb

If a dictionary is unavailable, it becomes difficult to discriminate godan verbs from ichidan verbs when they rhyme with or . The following heuristics aim to improve the accuracy of naive classification: * There are far more godan verbs than ichidan verbs. * Verbs that do NOT rhyme with or are godan verbs. :This includes verbs that rhyme with , and , which are godan verbs. * The majority of verbs that rhyme with are godan verbs. :248 of the 419 verbs
a. 60% A is the first letter of the Latin and English alphabet. A may also refer to: Science and technology Quantities and units * ''a'', a measure for the attraction between particles in the Van der Waals equation * ''A'' value, a measure of ...
listed in JMdict are godan verbs. *The majority of verbs that rhyme with are ichidan verbs. :2886 of the 3013 verbs
a. 95% A is the first letter of the Latin and English alphabet. A may also refer to: Science and technology Quantities and units * ''a'', a measure for the attraction between particles in the Van der Waals equation * ''A'' value, a measure of ...
listed in JMdict are ichidan verbs. Kana and kanji based heuristics for and verbs: *Verbs written entirely in hiragana are godan verbs. For example, and are godan verbs. *Kanji verbs with 1 okurigana and 3+ syllables are godan verbs. For example, and are godan verbs. *Kanji verbs with 2 okurigana are usually ichidan verbs. For example, and are ichidan verbs. *Kanji verbs with 2 syllables are inconclusive. For example, and are both 2-syllable verbs, yet belong to different categories (godan and ichidan, respectively)


Godan verbs resembling ichidan verbs

There are many godan verbs which may be mistaken for being ichidan verbs in some cases . On the surface, this may seem like a problem that only affects conjugation patterns, since godan verbs and ichidan verbs conjugate differently . However there are many homophone verbs that, despite sharing the same pronunciation, having different meanings and belong to different verb groups. For example: When reading homophone verbs such as these, the correct word meaning can be ascertained through the different kanji or through context. In the case of speech, the correct word meaning can still be ascertained because many homophones have different intonations. However, ambiguity is usually removed if the homophone verbs have been conjugated somehow, because different word groups conjugate with slightly varying pronunciations. For example: Since there are so many godan verbs that resemble ichidan verbs, it is impractical to create or memorize an exhaustive list of words.


See also

*
Japanese verb conjugation Japanese verbs, like the verbs of many other languages, can be phonetically modified to change their purpose, nuance or meaning – a process known as conjugation. In Japanese, the beginning of a word (the ''stem'') is preserved during conjugation, ...
*
Honorific speech in Japanese The Japanese language has a system of honorific speech, referred to as , parts of speech that show respect. Their use is mandatory in many social situations. Honorifics in Japanese may be used to emphasize social distance or disparity in rank, ...
*
Japanese adjectives This article deals with Japanese equivalents of English adjectives. Types of adjective In Japanese, nouns and verbs can modify nouns, with nouns taking the 〜の particles when functioning attributively (in the genitive case), and verbs in the ...
*
Japanese particles Japanese particles, or , are suffixes or short words in Japanese grammar that immediately follow the modified noun, verb, adjective, or sentence. Their grammatical range can indicate various meanings and functions, such as speaker affect and ...
*
Japanese grammar Japanese is an agglutinative, synthetic, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with ...


References


External links


Archive of the Usenet newsgroup sci.lang.japan forums
a non-exhaustive list of ~iru and ~eru godan verbs
Aeron Buchanan's Japanese Verb Chart
a concise summary of all Japanese verbs conjugations on one sheet of A4 {{Japanese language Godan and ichidan verbs Japonic verbs