Японские прилагательные: типы и формы

Adjectives in Japanese

This article deals with Japanese equivalents of English adjectives.

i adjectives end with い (i) (but never えい, ei) in base form. They may predicate sentences and inflect for past, negative, etc. As they head verb phrases, they can be considered a type of verbal (verb like part of speech) and inflect in an identical manner as the negative form of verbs. Their inflections are different and not so numerous as full verbs. i adjectives are considered verbs because they inflect with the same bases as verbs and their respective usages: irrealis (未然形 mizenkei), continuative (連用形 renyōkei), terminal (終止形 shuushikei), attributive (連体形 rentaikei), hypothetical (仮定形 kateikei), and imperative (命令形 meireikei). Among the six bases of verbs for i adjectives, there exist two sets of inflection paradigms: a "plain" or "true" conjugation, and what is known as a kari conjugation (カリ活用 kari katsuyō), which is the result of the contraction between the "plain" continuative form 〜く (ku) and the verb あり (有り, 在り) ari, meaning "to exist", "to have", or "to be". Due to this, the kari conjugation paradigm resembles that of the r irregular conjugation paradigm (ラ行変格活用 ra gyō henkaku katsuyō) of あり ari, however the hypothetical (historically the 已然形 izenkei) is 〜けれ kere instead of 〜かれ kare (used historically, and also the imperative base). The stem of i adjectives can combine (prepend on the left), similar to the continuative form of verbs, though this is less common than for verbs. Conversely, nouns or verb stems can sometimes prepend i adjectives, or two i adjectives can combine, forming compound modifiers; these are much less common than Japanese compound verbs. Common examples include (面白い) (noun + i adjective), and (狡賢い) (i adjective stem + i adjective); while (早とちり) (i adjective stem + verb stem) shows an adjective stem joining to form a noun.

A number of i adjectives end in (〜しい) (sometimes written sii). These are overwhelmingly words for feelings, like (悲しい) or (嬉しい). These were originally a separate class of adjectives, dating at least to Old Japanese (see Old Japanese adjectives), where the two classes are known as (〜く) and (〜しく), corresponding to i and shii. However, they merged over the course of Late Middle Japanese (see Late Middle Japanese adjectives), and now shii adjectives are simply a form of i adjectives. The distinction, although no longer meaningful in pronunciation, is still reflected by the writing system, where し is still written out in hiragana, as in (新しい). Adjectives that end in jii (〜じい) are also considered shii adjectives, such as (凄まじい), and historically (同じ), which was initially a shii adjective, and the classical negative volitional auxiliary (まじ).

na adjectives always occur with a form of the copula, traditionally considered part of the na adjective itself. The only syntactical difference between nouns and na adjective is in the attributive form, where nouns take の (no) and adjectives take な (na). This has led many linguists to consider them a type of nominal (noun like part of speech). Through use of inflected forms of the copula, these words can also predicate sentences and inflect for past, negative, etc. Notably, na adjective are distinct from regular nouns, in that they cannot be used as the topic, subject, or object. To function in these roles, the na adjectives must include the nominalizing suffix [[:wikt:さ, broadly similar to the English suffix ness that is used to create nouns from adjectives.

There are a number of na adjectives ending in 〜やか ( yaka), particularly for subjective words (compare i adjectives ending in shii). This is believed to be a combination of the two suffixes 〜や ( ya) and 〜か ( ka), where 〜や meant "softness" and 〜か meant "apparent, visible" (similar to modern 〜そう, sō, which is also followed by 〜な), hence the combination 〜やか meant "appears somewhat , looks slightly ". This was believed to have been used in the Nara era, and have become particularly popular in the Heian period, but is no longer productive. In some cases the original word is now only used (or almost always used) in the 〜やか form, such as 鮮やか (aza yaka, "vivid, brilliant"), 穏やか (oda yaka, "calm, gentle"), and 爽やか (sawa yaka, "fresh, clear"), while in other cases the word is used in isolation, such as 雅 (miyabi, "elegant, graceful"), which is used alongside 雅やか (miyabi yaka, "elegant, graceful"), and in other cases a related word also exists, such as 賑やか (nigi yaka, "bustling, busy") and the verb 賑わう (nigi wau, "be bustling, be busy"). The most basic of these is 賑やか (nigi yaka, "bustling, busy"), but many of these are everyday words. Due to the 〜やか being originally a suffix, it is written as okurigana, even though the compound word may now be a fixed unit.

Similarly, there are also a few na adjectives ending in 〜らか ( raka), of similar origin. These are generally less subjective, but declined in popularity relative to the 〜やか construction in the Heian period instead of the 〜な ( na) and 〜に ( ni) which are mostly used with na adjectives. taru adjectives do not predicate a sentence (they cannot end a sentence, as verbs and i adjectives can) or take the copula (as na adjectives and nouns can), but must modify a noun or verb. Note that sometimes na adjectives take a 〜と, and Japanese sound symbolisms generally take a (sometimes optional) 〜と, though these are different word classes. There are very few of these words, and they usually are considered somewhat stiff or archaic; this word class is generally not covered in textbooks for foreign language learners of Japanese. One of the most common is 堂々 (dōdō, "magnificent, stately"). These are referred to in Japanese as ト・タル形容動詞 (to, taru keiyōdōshi) or タルト型活用 (taruto kata katsuyō – “taru, to form conjugation”). See 形容動詞#「タルト」型活用 for discussion in Japanese. Historically, these developed in Late Old Japanese as a variant of na adjectives,Unreliable source: date=April 2021 but the form mostly died out; the remaining taru adjectives are fossils, and conjugationally defective, having formerly held the pattern of the r irregular class, like its component あり.