Japanese nouns are noninflected words that can occur before desu to constitute complete utterances. Hon “book,” eiga “movie,” and gaijin “foreigner,” are nouns.
Na-nouns. Na-nouns are like nouns in that they may occur with desu to form complete sentences. When a na-noun is used to modify a noun, however, na must be inserted in between (e.g., kirei na hana “a beautiful flower”), whereas a genuine noun takes no instead (e.g., Tookyoo no chizu “a map of Tokyo”). Na-nouns are known by different names in different textbooks, e.g., “nominal adjectives,” “na-adjectives,” and “pseudoadjectives.” Examples of na-nouns are kirei “beautiful,” genki “healthy,” and shitsurei “rude.”
Verbs. Japanese verbs are inflected words that take -masu in the formal nonpast and -mashita in the formal past. Iku “to go,” kuru “to come,” and taberu “to eat,” for example, are verbs.
Stative verbs. Verbs that express states rather than actions are stative verbs. They are such verbs as “to be” and “to have” in English and iru “(someone) is (somewhere)” and aru “(something) is (somewhere)” in Japanese.
Punctual verbs. Verbs representing actions or occurrences that take place without duration over time are punctual verbs. Shinu “to die,” tsuku “to arrive,” and kekkon-suru “to get married” are examples of this type.
Potential forms of verbs. Potential forms are forms that mean “can do such and such” or “such and such can be done.” Yomeru, for example, is the potential form of yomu “to read” and means “can read” or “can be read.”
Particles. Japanese particles are uninflected words that occur within or at the end of a sentence. They generally do not begin an utterance. When they occur within a sentence, they relate what precedes (whether a word, a phrase, or a clause) to what follows. (For this reason, particles are sometimes called “relationals” instead.) Examples of this type are wa, ga, o, and to. Particles that occur at the end of a sentence are called sentence particles, and they make the sentence interrogative, exclamatory, emphatic, etc. Examples of this type are ka, nee, and yo.
JAPANESE ACCENT
Accent marks are used in this book. They are, as a rule, used in the entry headings only, e.g.,
Unlike English, which has a stress accent, Japanese has a pitch accent. In Japanese words, each syllable is spoken either high or low. If the first syllable is low, the second is always high, and if the first syllable is high, the second is always low. In this book, the mark ┌ indicates a rise in pitch, and the mark ┐ indicates a fall in pitch. The syllable followed by ┐ is always the accented syllable. For example,
mono wa
ki
Words that end with an accented syllable (e.g.,
biki
jibiki wa → ji wa
mono wa
kimono wa → ki
Note that wa in jibiki wa is low while wa in kimono wa is high.
ROMANIZATION
The system of romanization used in this book is the popular Hepburn system. There are, however, some points that should be mentioned. In this book, ん is always written n, even before m, p, and b; when n should be pronounced independently of a vowel or y that follows it, an apostrophe is inserted in between, as in hon’ya “bookstore”; long vowels are generally indicated by doubling the vowels (e.g., aa and oo) instead of by using macrons. Long vowels are not indicated in the Bibliography; the honorific prefix o- is not set off.
OTHER CONVENTIONS
An asterisk is used in this book to mark ungrammatical or incorrect utterances. A question mark at the beginning of a sentence indicates unnaturalness or awkwardness. Brackets in Japanese sentences indicate optional portions, while in English translations they show implied meaning.
JAPANESE WORDS AND THEIR USES
ABUNAI 危ない dangerous
Abunai most often means “dangerous, risky, hazardous.”
(1) Yopparai-unten wa abunai.
Drunk driving is dangerous.
(2) Kodomo no matchi-asobi wa abunai.
Children’s playing with matches is hazardous.
Abunai! may be used as an exclamation in situations where “Look out!,” or “Watch out!” would be called for in English. For example, if you see someone walking into the path of an oncoming car, you shout out, Abunai! Other examples of adjectives used to give warning are Urusai! and Yakamashii! (lit., “[You are] noisy!”), both meaning “Be quiet!” or “Shut up!” (see urusai).
AGARU 上がる to go up
The basic meaning of agaru is “to go up.”
(1) Mata gasorin no nedan ga agatta.
The price of gasoline has gone up again.
Entering a Japanese-style house as a guest is also agaru because it is an act of “going up.” When you enter a Japanese home, you first step into the genkan, or vestibule. There you take off your shoes and take a step up to the floor level of the house. The act of stepping into the vestibule is hairu “to go in,” but the act of stepping up to the floor level of the house is agaru “to take a step up.” That is why the Japanese host says to a visitor
(2) Doozo oagari kudasai.
Please come in (lit., step up).
Sentence (3) below therefore sounds extremely strange.
(3) *Nihonjin wa uchi ni hairu mae ni kutsu o nugimasu.
The Japanese take off their shoes before going into the house.
Agaru has to be used in this context. Otherwise sentence (3) would describe someone taking off his shoes outside the front door!
