An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language

(Joyce) #1

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.
Free download pdf