56 CHAPTER 2. VERB GRAMMAR
flection involving the , or , which cover most verbal
inflections, we can readily tell the difference between a and verb.
The only use cases that can leave us uncertain are the and
forms. In these cases, we’ll just have to resort to checking a dictionary to
be sure of which verb class we’re dealing with.
Lastly, since there is only one class of verbal adjective in modern
Japanese, a list of examples for the verbal adjectives is quite uniform:
adjective ( )( )
( )
( )
( )
( )Of course, the examples of verbal adjectives wouldn’t be complete
without one very curious verbal adjective:
adjective ( )( )Normally, verbal adjectives end on , preceded by either an –,
–, – or –row syllable. However, is the only verbal adjective
in Japanese that ends in an –row syllable +. This is in fact so unusual
that it is virtually never used, and you will likely not find this adjective
in most dictionaries. So, because there’s only the one, we can safely state
that if you find something that ends in but it has an –row syllable
preceding it, it is virtually certain not to be a verbal adjective.
2.1.2 Basic inflections
Throughout the course of this section we will look at basic inflections for
verbs and verbal adjectives, as well as look at a small number of parti-
cles that are intricately intervowen with verb grammar. We shall also look
at the basic use and formation of nouns and adverbs, so that this chapter
in effect covers the basics of basic Japanese. We will start by looking at
which particles are essential to understand basic verb grammar, and will
move from there to simple verb forms: present and past tense, as well as
affirmativeandnegativeforms. In order to get an overview of the basic