An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language

2.4. PRONOUNS: 77

tense for , , at the end: (
).

”This was a book.”

”This was not a book.”

”This was not a book.”

While, again, this derivation is rather complicated, the important

bit is that you remember the copula inflection table.

In summary

The best way to reiterate the different inflections for the copulae is in the

form of a table:

affirmative negative

plain present noun + noun +

(noun + )

polite present noun + noun +

(noun + )

plain past noun + noun +

(noun + )

polite past noun + noun +

(noun + )

2.4 Pronouns:

In addition to regular nouns, Japanese has a set of words which are often

(but mistakenly) labelled pronouns. These are colloquially known as the

, and they’re called this because they come as series of four, starting

with -, -, - and -, to refer to (conceptually or physically) close to

the speaker, close to the listener, close to neither, and as question word.

To properly understand this, the concept of apersonal zoneis im-

portant: the Japanese do not separate locations in just ”here” and ”there”,

but actually use three levels of ”somewhereness”. Words starting with