An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language

104 CHAPTER 3. MORE GRAMMAR

For the verbs, as well as verbal adjectives, no contractions oc-
cur:

continuative

+ :

+ :

+ :

Irregular continuative

+ :

+ :

adjective meaning continuative

high, expensive

fun, enjoyable

big

irregular meaning continuative

good

negation meaning continuative

As we saw earlier, the conjoins sentences, and so it should
be relatively obvious that this construction conjoins sentences too, but in
a slightly different way from the plain. Rather than simply joining
sentences in such a way that there’s no order in which verb actions take
place, the form explicitly preserves the order in which the actions occur.
For instance, the following two sentences say different things, in terms of
which actions follow which other actions:

”(I) had breakfast, went off to school and went to class.”

”(I) went off to school, went to class and had breakfast.”

These are two very different ways of spending one’s morning.