2.1. INFLECTING 51
inflection rule example
causative imperfect base + → +
progressive continuative base + → +
polite continuative form + → +
past tense continuative form + → +All complex verb constructions can be described in this way, being
a series of fixed-order simple rules being applied. What’s more, because
the two different verb classes in Japanese mostly differ in what their base
forms look like, inflecting verbs in Japanese is mostly a maĴer of picking
the right base form, and then applying the same rules for both verb classes,
making most inflections the same for the two. Verbal adjectives also rely
on this concept of ”base form” + ”helper”, and as will become apparent
when looking at the rules of grammar for verbal words, some inflections
are formed by adding verbal adjectives to verbs, while others are formed
by adding verbs to verbal adjectives.
Without geĴing ahead of the material, let us first examine which
base forms are used by verbs and verbal adjectives, and what they look
like for each of the verbal word classes.
2.1.1 Inflection bases
Traditionally, there used to be six ”base forms” in Japanese, but only five
are used in modern Japanese. This traditional scheme is called
, lit-
erary style, and is associated with classical Japanese, while the modern
scheme is called
, colloquial style, and is associated with normal mod-
ern Japanese. Because it is always a good idea to look at where a language
has come from, in order to understand why it does what it does in its cur-
rent form, the relation between classical and modern Japanese will be men-
tioned wherever possible.
First, let’s look at the base forms in classical and modern Japanese: