An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language

(Joyce) #1

106 CHAPTER 3. MORE GRAMMAR


adjectives, ending on , and simply use ’s form:


”(It)’s a not big, not red, heavy book.”

Of course, since they’re both just forms, we can even mix the two:

”(It) was a big, not red, heavy box.”

This ”placing in form” to form the negative form for ver-
bal adjectives also applies to verbs, by first placing them in plain negative
form, + , and then turning this negative into a form:


”(I) didn’t eat, and went home.”

For nouns, which rely on copulae for inflections, we do not use the
for , but instead rely on the for , which is :


”A tidy, bright room.”

As with the verbal form, tense and polarity are expressed by the
final verbal (either verb or verbal adjective), so that if we want to place the










previous sentence in past tense, we need only change the tense for

”(It) was a tidy, bright room.”

The negative form for this continuative uses (or ),
which due to it ending on uses adjectival form. So far so good, but
this is where things get a liĴle complicated: because is a verbal ad-
jective, and verbal adjectives can be pair with , we can actually choose
between two ” ” forms. One is the regular form, ; the other is



  • of , giving us instead. Both are used, but depending
    on the speaker’s intention one of them is preferred. For regular chaining,

Free download pdf