A Description of the Grammatical Features of Japanese with Comparisons to Korean
Introduction
The Japanese language is spoken natively by about 128 million people (CIA factbook, 2022). The overwhelming majority of these speakers reside in the Japanese Archipelago, roughly analogous to the Japanese state, where the language is the de jure official language of the country, but not de facto legislated to the position (House of Councilors, 2022). The language is spoken among some members of the older generations of Korea, Taiwan, and other areas occupied by Imperial Japan during the 20th century, where all education was mandated to take place in Japanese (Peng, 2017). The only other place the language has official status is in the island nation of Palau (Long, 2013), where an oldest generation was educated in the language as part of the South Seas Mandate in the years following the defeat of the Central Powers of the first world war and the defeat of the fascism in the second, resulting in the renouncement of colonial possessions by Japan (Dulles, 1952). This population of speakers is primarily relegated to the oldest residents. The Japanese language is in no danger of being vulnerable to extinction in the near future.
The genetic characteristics of the Japanese language, along with the neighboring Korean and Ryukyuan languages, are rife with debate and controversy (Shibatani, 2002 P.128). While there does seem to be a lot in common with the Korean language, no theory has been put forward as of yet that conclusively answers the questions regarding the origins of Japanese, and for that matter, the same can be said for Korean (Kim, 2002).
The Japonic Language Family
The Japonic family seems to take two different approaches that I will refer to as the unitary model and the plurality model. The unity model, most often endorsed by the Japanese government, states that Japanese is a language isolate within a language family consisting solely of itself (Peng, 2017). The language is seen as consisting of a spectrum of different dialects, with the Kanto dialect of the greater Tokyo region seen as being standard Japanese (Tsujimura, P. 425). The plurality model argues that Japanese is one member of the larger Japanese-Ryukyuan language family, which consists of the Japanese language, The Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands which stretch from southern Japan to east of Taiwan, and the Hachijo language, spoken on a string of islands stretching into the Pacific ocean (Kupchick, 2017). According to the Atlas of World Languages in Danger, all non-Japanese languages indigenous to the archipelago are on course for extinction by the year 2050 (UNESCO 2010, Kupchick 2017 ), largely due to the efforts of the central government to enforce a standardized language and cultural paradigm (Tanaka, 2000), I tend to follow the plurality model due to the mutual unintelligibility between monolingual speakers of Japanese and any of the Ryukyu languages (Michinori, 2010). This aligns with Payne’s (1997, P.18) definition of dialect vs language. I see the unitary model as being an artifact remaining from late 19th and early 20th century Japan’s nation building policies.
The Japanese language is also defined by its intra-lingual diversity of dialects. These dialects are reflective of the geographical and political isolation much of the country experienced before the late 19th century and are divided into two large branches, eastern and western, and are further divided into a myriad of different sub dialects (Tsujimura, 2007 P. 422).
Phonetically, Japanese is characterized by a rigid system of consonant-vowel phonemes known as kana in Japanese (Shibatani, 2002 P.136 ). As a language with fairly strict consonant-vowel phonology, Japanese words are usually restricted to a combination of 15 consonants and 5 vowels (Shibatani, M. 1990 P.137) with the exception of the nasal “ん-n” consonant, each is required to end in one of the 5 vowels. Tsujimura (2007, P.58-61) explores the debate surrounding whether Japanese is a morae or syllabic based phonology, but this debate is a bit outside the scope of this paper. In addition, while there is a system of pitch accentuation in Japanese, Tsujimura (2007, P.68-69) notes that “the location of the accent is not predictable” and “pitch does not necessarily contrast words”. We can be assured that pitch in Japanese is more in the domain of phonology rather than syntax.
Orthographically, Japanese uses four separate systems of writing (Shibatani, 2002 P.129). These are the logographic characters imported from China known locally as Kanji, two separate syllabic writing systems known as hiragana and katakana, and Romaji, a transliteration of Japanese phonology that uses the latin alphabet. Kanji are primarily used for content words such as nouns, adjectives, and verbs, with each kanji having at least two readings based on a Sino-Japanese and native reading. Hiragana is used to write grammatical features of the language, including tense, mood, and aspect. Katakana is used almost exclusively for the transliteration of foreign words of non-chinese origin in order to fit the rules of Japanese phonology. Finally Romaji is mainly used in international contexts such as diplomacy, or for the aid of learners of the Japanese language.
Although sadly outside the scope of this paper, it is worth noting that there is lively debate with regards to the nature of the Japonic language family. In particular, the relationship between the Japonic, Koreanic, Altaic, Austronesian, and the Ainu language families (Vovin, 2009, 1994, Shibatani, 2002 P. 128). Although the main scope of this paper is on Japanese, I am also interested in the Korean and Chinese languages. As a result, I will keep the main focus of my paper on Japanese, but will note any interesting areas where Korean or Chinese syntax diverges from Japanese.
Finally, I will follow the Hepburn method of transliteration for Japanese, and the revised Romanization system for Korean. For one example on an interesting connection between clausal negation in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese, I will use hanyu pinyin to transliterate Chinese into the Latin alphabet. For my own benefit, I will be retaining the original orthographic representations of the sentences in order to ensure maximum accuracy during the course of this paper. Unless otherwise noted, all examples in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese were provided by me. I will be attempting to answer all but question 4 directly, while I will try to address question four in the context of the other 8 questions.
1: Constituent order
Constituent order in Japanese is characterized by both its rigidity in its overarching formation and its flexibility. Broadly speaking, Japanese is a SOV language which has a flexible ordering of its arguments, complements, and adjuncts due to a predominance of case marking over word order, a system similar to Latin. However unlike Latin, Japanese case markings are often able to be dropped in everyday conversation, as long as the context of the conversation allows the presence of ambiguity (Tsujimura 2007, Page 407). A sentence with fairly standard and neutral word order would look like the following. We can see the constituent order clearer by looking at this tree.
NP + VP
私が行った
Watashi-ga i-tta
I-nom go-past
I went
We can further explore constituent order by adding new phrase types into the mix.
NP + VP modified by PP
私が学校に行った
Watashi-ga gakko-ni i-tta
I-nom school-to go-past
I went to school
We can also determine the position of AP by further increasing the semantic complexity of this sentence
私が大きい学校に行った
Watashi-ga ooki-i gakko-ni i-tta
I-nom big-adj school-to go-past
I went to a big school
From these three examples, we can confer a basic constituent structure of NP + VP. VPs have the ability to be modified by NPs and PPs, while NPs can be modified by APs. Particle case marking clearly mark the A, S, and O through nominative/accusative alignment
Q2: Word classes in Japanese
Japanese has a wide variety of distinct word classes. There are several different characteristics of these classes which we must be aware of in order to identify them. Here are a series of tests.
Nouns
2.1: Can the word in question be linked with the determiners この-kono-this, その-sono-that, あの-ano-that over there?
These three determiners function similarly to their English counterparts, in that they can only be used to specify a noun. Therefore we can use them to see if a word is a noun.
このコントラバス *あの走る
Kono kontorabasu ano hashi.-ru
This-det double bass this-det run.-nonpast
This double bass *This run
As we can see, any attempt to use a determiner to specify anything but a noun results in an ungrammatical sentence.
2.2 Can the word in question take the genitive (Payne, 1997 P.35) particle “の-no”?
Is “イギリス-igirusu-English” a noun?
イギリスの船が来た！(Richards,Gilhooly, Kurose, 2022, P112)
Igirisu-no fune-ga ki-ta
English-gen boat-Nom come-past
The English boat came
From this test, we can conclude that “イギリス-igirusu-English” is indeed a noun due to fact that it can take の-no.
2.3 As Payne (1997 P.34) notes, nouns can act as the subjects and objects of clauses.
As Japanese has a class of particles which delineate grammatical case, if the word can be marked by a nominative or accusative particle, then it is likely to be a noun. This is also the case in Korean (Kim, 2004)
2.4 Can the word be modified by an adjective(Payne 1997 P.34)?
Is “家-ie-home” a noun?
静香は、古い家に歩いて戻った (Richards,Gilhooly, Kurose, 2022, P.49)
Shizuka-wa furu-i ie ni arui-te modo-tta
Shizuka-Top old-pres home-to walk-conj back-past
Shizuka walked back to the old home
In this example, we can see that the word “家-ie-home” displays noun-like properties due to its ability to be modified by the adjective “古い-furui-old”.
2.5 Can the word be pluralized?
Although Japanese lacks a universal pluralizer, it does have a specific morpheme which can be used to pluralize animate nouns. Though inconclusive, we can use it to see if a word is a specific kind of noun.
僕はただ時計屋だぞ (Richards,Gilhooly, Kurose, 2022)
Boku-wa tada tokei-ya dazo
I-Top just watch-store.clerk am-assertive
I am just a watch store clerk!
僕たちは何が起こるのかわからない (Richards,Gilhooly, Kurose, 2022)
Boku-tachi-wa nani-ga okoru-noka wakaranai
I-Pl.an-Top what-nom occur-conj know-neg.nonpast
We don't know what will occur
Verbs and Honorifics in Japanese and Korean
To start, I find it pragmatically sound to address the role of honorifics in Japanese morphosyntax directly. Like its neighbor Korean, Japanese inflects verbs and adjectives to reflect a level of social formality that is rare in other languages (Brown, 2008). They are therefore critical to understand in order to get a well rounded view on Japanese morphosyntax.
Verb endings in Japanese
Modern Japanese has a division between polite and informal verb endings. In addition to inflecting for formality, these endings can also inflect for verb tense. Like English, Japanese lacks a true future inflection, and relies on the presence of adverbs, context, and auxiliary verbs to form sentences regarding future matters.
Here is an example for the verb ”見る-miru-see”
Non-past polite
Non-past informal
Past polite
Past informal
見ます
Mi-masu
See-polite.nonpas
see
見る
Mi-ru
See-nonpast
see
見ました
Mi-mashi-ta
See-pol.past
saw
見た
Mi-ta
See-past
saw
.
Modern Korean exhibits a similar system of honorific inflection, but shows a larger degree of diversity due to 4 levels of honorific speech as well as the ability to inflect for the future tense. I will use the verb “가다-gada-to go” to demonstrate an example of this inflection.
past
present
future
Informal low
저는 갔어
Jeo-nun gass-eo
I-Top go-.past
I went
저는 가
Jeo-nun Ga
I-Top go.pres
I go
저는 갈 거야
Jeo-nun gal geoya
I-Top go fut
I will go
Informal high
저는 갔다
Jeo-nun gass-da
I-Top go-past-dec
I went
저는 간다
Jeo-nun gan-da
I-top go.pres-dec
I go
저는 갈 거다
Jeo-nun gal geo-da
I-top go-fut-dec
I will go
Formal low
저는 갔어요
Jeo-nun gass-eoyo
I-Top go.past-pol
I went
저는 가요
Jeo-nun ga-yo
I-top go.pres-pol
I go
저는 갈 거예요
Jeo-nun gal geoye-yo
I-top go fut-pol
I will go
Formal high
저는 갔습니다
Jeo-nun gass-seubnida
I-top go.past-hon
I went
저는 갑니다
Jeo-nun gab-ni-da
I-top go-.hon-pres
I go
저는 갈 겁니다
Jeo-nun Gal geob-nida
I-top go fut-hon
I will go
It is important to note that many verbs in both Japanese and Korean have honorific forms that show little resemblance to their plain speech form. Verbs in Japanese are broadly divisible into three types based on their morphosyntactic potential. Godan verbs (type 1), ichidan verbs (type 2), and irregular verbs. Godan verbs are categorized based on their ability or inability to inflect using single morpheme kana characters to display nuances in meaning. A full analysis of Japanese verbal inflections could easily take up this entire paper, so for brevity’s sake, I will try my best to give as brief and precise an account of this class of words as possible.
2.3 Does the verb stem consist of a hiragana る-ru / う-u ending which can inflect? Does the word come at the end of the sentence?
As stated earlier in the section on constituents, Japanese sentences typically end in a verb. When honorifics are absent, a verb will always end in either of the two hiragana characters noted above.
2.4 Can the word take a known auxiliary verb?
Japanese has a class of auxiliary verbs which can alter the modality and tense of a given sentence. These auxiliaries attach themselves to the non-past form of verbs, and then can inflect for tense. A typical example of this is the auxiliary form for potentiality “出来る-dekiru-can”. As we can see, verbs, but not any other grammatical category, can take these auxiliaries.
パイル先生がコントラバスを引くできます
Pairu-sensei-ga kontorabasu-wo hiku deki-masu
Pyle teacher-Nom contrabass-Acc pull can-dist
Professor Pyle can play the double bass
*私の部屋が寒い出来る
Watashi-no heya-ga samui-dekiru
I-gen room-Nom cold-can
*My room can cold
Adjectives
As pointed out by Payne (2006, P.117), not all languages use verbs in an adjective clause in the same manner English does. Japanese complicates this understanding by having two distinct classes of adjectives. い-i adjectives are very verb-like in their functionality in Japanese sentences. They are identifiable by their ending hiragana ”い-i” in the non-past form. They can inflect for tense, levels of formality, and negate clauses (dealt with in the section on negation).
Informal non-past
Informal past
そのコントラバスが新しい
Sono kontorabasu-nom atarashi-i
That contrabass-nom new-nonpast
That contrabass is new
このコントラバスが新しかった
Sono kontorabasu-ga atarashi-katta
That contrabass-nom new-past
That contrabass was new.
In order to account for situations requiring formality, these adjectives can take the similar but distinct endings as their polite verbal counterparts.
polite non-past
Polite past
そのコントラバスが新しいです
Sono kontorabasu-nom atarashi-i desu
That contrabass-nom new-nonpast-pol
That contrabass is new
このコントラバスが新しかったです
Sono kontorabasu-ga atarashi-katta-desu
That contrabass-nom new-past-pol
That contrabass was new.
The second class of adjective-like words in Japanese are called “な-na adjectives'' due to the presence of the final phoneme “な-na”. I have also seen this class of nouns called adjectival nouns (Tsujimura, 2007 P. 125), which gives us some hint to their construction. Na-adjectives show a great deal of flexibility in how they may be conjugated. If the na-adjective is making a statement about an attribute of the noun which it is modifying, then the なーna phoneme may be dropped as long as the copula is also present. However, this phoneme can’t be dropped if it is the case that the adjective is specifying that the main noun is a certain type of noun. We will examine the construction of this form with the adjective “有名な- yuume-na - famous”
Na-adjective in an attributive clause
彼女が有名だ
Kanojo-nom yuume da
She-nom famous be.nonpast
She is famous
Na-adjectives as a classifier of a type of noun
彼女が有名な人だ
Kanojo-nom yuume-na hito da
she - nom famous-adj person be.nonpast
She is a famous person
However, the use of the adjectival classifier な-na without a classified noun results in an ungrammatical sentence.
*彼女が有名なだ
Kanojo-nom yuume-na da
she - nom famous-adj be.nonpast
*She is a famous
Like い-i adjectives, な-na adjectives adhere to the rules of formality through the conjugation of the coupla.
Adverbs
As Givón (1984, P. 77) notes,`adverbs are the unrestricted grammatical category, which syncs well with Payne (1997, P.69) who calls adverbs a “catch-all”. He lists several types of adverbial subclasses to look out for.
Is the word related to the concept of manner, time, direction, or epistemology?
One of the best, but not conclusive, ways to syntactically test for adverbs is by looking at the morphosyntax of the word in question. I-adjectives have the ability to drop the final い-i from their normal inflection and take the morpheme く-ku. This allows them to attach to a verb by acting as a sort of prefix, which also serves for further evidence of Japanese being a head final language. For example:
彼がドアを強く押す
Kare-ga doa-wo tsuyoku osu
He-nom door-acc strong-adv push.nonpast
He strongly pushes the door
We can be sure that this is indeed an adverbial form by the ungrammatical nature of trying to use this as an adjective
*彼が強く
Karare-ga tsuyo-ku
He-nom strong-adv
*He strongly
Question 4- How does Japanese express casual negation?
Negation is expressed through morphosyntactic conjugation through a verbal suffix (Nyberg, 2012). This results in a wide variety of different conjugations of the same verb when we account for tense and the honorific system. As discussed above, Japanese verbs are classified according to several different types. Since it is the case that ru-verbs are the most regular of Japanese verbs, and the pattern is generally the same across all verb types, they will serve as the clearest of examples.
寝る ne-ru sleep
Polite non-past
Polite past
Informal non-past
Informal past
私は寝ません
watashi-wa ne-masen
I-Top sleep-neg.pol
I don’t sleep
私は寝ませんでした
watashi-wa ne-masen-deshi-ta
I-Top sleep-neg-past-pol
I don’t sleep
私は寝ない
watashi-wa ne-nai
I-Top sleep-neg.nonpast
I don't sleep
私は寝なかった
Watashi-wa ne-na-katta
I-Top sleep-neg-past
I don’t sleep
This pattern of morphosyntactic inflections is also applicable to when an adjective clause is negated, with a slight alteration to the informal non-past form. For example:
新しい atrashii new
Polite non-past
Polite past
Informal non-past
Informal past
これは新しいません
Kore-wa atarashii masen
this-Top new be-neg
This is not new
これは新しいませんでした
Kore-wa atarashii masen-deshita
This-top new not-past.pol
This was not new
これは新しいじゃない
Kore-wa atarashii jyanai
this-top new be.neg
This is not new
これは新しいなかった
kore-wa atarashii na-katta
this-top new neg.past
This was not new
Negating inflections of the copula
Polite non-past
Polite past
Informal non-past
Informal past
これはギターじゃないです
Kore-wa gitaa jyanai desu
this-top guitar be.neg pol
This is not a guitar
これはギターませんでした
Kore-wa gitaa masen deshita
this-top guitar be.not pol
This was not a guitar
これはギターじゃない
kore-wa gitaa jyanai
this-top guitar be-neg
This is not a guitar
これはギターじゃなかった
kore-wa gitaa jyana-katta
this-top guitar be-past
This was not a guitar
From this we can conclude that Japanese clausal negation is quite complex, in that it involves a large range of inflections across a wide array of grammatical categories. Much of this has to do with the honorific system, which requires speakers to inflect along 2 different levels of formality. It is interesting to note that despite having a more complex system of honorific inflections, Korean clausal negation is far more simple than Japanese. Korean can use a simple lexical negation strategy to negate nouns(않-anh-not ), adjectives (안-an-not), and verbs (안-an-not) across its honorific system. A quick example before moving on
저는 안 가요 저는 한국사람 않아요 저는 안 바빠요
Jeo-nun an ga-yo jeo-nun hangook salam anh-a-yo jeo-nun an ba-ppa-yo
I-top neg go-pol I-top Korea person neg be-pol I-top neg busy-pol
I don’t go I am not Korean I am not busy
Finally one last point of clausal negation. Japanese retains one character (不-fu/bu) from Chinese (不-bú) which functions as method of clausal negation in Chinese, but acts as a kind semantic method of negation in Japanese. For example
我不知道 *私は不知る
Wǒ bù zhīdào watashi-wa fu shiru
I neg know I-top neg know
I don’t know I don’t know
Examples of lexical negation using “不-fu” in Japanese.
意味-imi-meaning
不意味-fuimi-nonsense
幸-sachi-good luck
不幸-fukou-bad luck
Q5: Interesting aspects of clause combining: relative clauses, and serial verbs
Following Payne’s description of the relative clause (1997, P.326), Japanese can be described as exhibiting the signs of a prenominal relative clause. In addition, Japanese lacks any kind of relativizer or relative pronouns. The relative clause simply attaches itself, prenominally, to the head of the noun phrase that it modifies.
パイル先生はコントラバスを知ります
Pairu sensei-wa kontorabasu-wo shirimasu
Pyle teacher-top double bass-acc know-nonpast.pol
Professor Pyle knows the double bass
コントラバスを知る先生はパイル先生です
Kontorabasu-wo shi-ru sensei wa pairu sensei desu
Double bass-ACC knows-nonpast teacher-TOP Pyle teacher be.pol
The professor who knows the double bass is Professor Pyle.
This shows prenominal behavior due to the fact that the information that modifies the noun “Professor Pyle” appears before it in the clause.
Prior to this paper, I was under the impression that Japanese could only form the relative clause by way described above. I have since come across the work of Kuroda (1992) by means of Tsujimura (2007) that shows that while internally headed relative clauses are possible, the use of them leads to some comical cases of ambiguity which made it easy to understand why I have never come across them before. From a linguistic perspective, it raises interesting questions about why this phenomena exists. For consistency, I have modified the original transliteration to fit the Hepburn style.
そのお巡りは学生たちがCIAのスパイを組み伏せたのを撃ち殺した
Sono owamari-wa gakkusei-tachi-ga CIA-no supai-wo kumifuseta-no-wo uchikoroshita
That cop-Top student-pl-Nom CIA-Gen spy-Acc hold down-one-acc shot and killed
“The cop shot and killed the students who held down the CIA spy” OR “The cop shot and killed the CIA spy who the students held down”
(Kuroda 1992: 153 via (Tsujimura 2007 P.306))
As Tsujimura explains “the internally headed relative clause is thus ambiguous between the two interpretations given. Since internally headed relative clauses do not have a specific position internal to the relative clause that the head noun is supposed to occupy, either NP can be construed as its head so far as no semantic or pragmatic oddity arises, and consequently, two interpretations are possible.” What is interesting about this to me is how Payne notes that plenty of OV languages make use of internally headed relative clauses with no issues of ambiguity (Payne 1997 P.328). His one example gloss from Bambara shows a language without a case marking system like Japanese, but there is not enough information to make an informed guess why internally headed relative clauses in Japanese have this issue
Serial Verbs
Serial verbs are widespread in Japanese and can be used to create new meanings in a clause related to but distinct from their independent use in a clause. For example:
私はダブリンで歩く
Watashi-wa daburin-de aruku
I-Top dublin-in walk-nonpast
I walk in Dublin
私はダブリンで飲む
Watashi-wa daburin-de nomu
I-Top dublin-in drink-nonpast
I drink in Dublin
私はダブリンで飲んで歩く
Watashi-wa daburin-de nonde aruku
I-Top dublin-in drink-conj walk-nonpast
I drink and walk in Dublin
However, when the first first inflects with an i, we get a new word via changes in morphology
飲み歩く
nomiaru-ku
Drink.walk-nonpast
Bar hopping (N.A English) / Pub crawl (Hiberno-English)
(Jisho.org 2022)
Q6: Grammatical relations
Japanese labels its grammatical functions through a system of postpositional case marking. Due to the presence of clear nominative and accusative particles, it is safe to say the Japanese (and Korean as we will see) is not an ergative aligned language.
Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Genitive
Topic
が-ga
を-wo
に-ni
の-no
は-wa
This is very similar to the Korean system for marking case, but Korean differs in an interesting way in that the case markings inflect based on whether the final letter to which it attaches is a consonant or a vowel, with the exception of the dative case, which marks only for level of formality in the Korean honorifics system (Lee, 1997) and the genitive (Ryu, 2013)
V-attaches to vowel ending nouns C-attaches to consonant ending nouns.
Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Genitive
Topic
가 -ga-V / 이-i-C
를-lul-V / 을-ul-C
에게-e-ge / 께-kke-hon
의 V&c+C
는-nun-V / 은-un-C
Japanese marks the dependents of a noun phrase with different particles which label grammatical function in a clause. Using a simple example, we can see how Japanese marks its dependents. The verb “買う-kau-buy” in Japanese is a transitive verb which requires two arguments.
私がそのコントラバスを買った
Watashi-ga sono kontorabasu-wo ka-tta
I-Nom that contrabass-Acc buy-past
I bought that contrabass
Japanese marks the grammatical subject with the post-positional nominative particle が-ga and follows a similar pattern in order to mark the grammatical object, this time with the post-positional accusative particle を-wo. As a strongly dependent marking language, this sentence can have its grammatical categories rearranged in multiple different ways, depending on the relative complexity of the information present.
そのコントラバスを私が買った
sono kontorabasu-wo Watashi-ga ka-tta
that contrabass-Acc I-Nom buy-past
I bought that contrabass
This functions similar to the role of stress in the English language, where which word is stressed provides clues to nuance of meaning, or to dispel ambiguity. However, as a head final language with a strong OV constituent order, the verb must remain as the last appearing grammatical category. Therefore the following would be incorrect.
*そのコントラバスを買った私が
sono kontorabasu-wo ka-tta Watashi-ga
that contrabass-Acc buy-past I-Nom
I bought that contrabass
Q7: Valency changing processes
Several different methods for changing valency are identifiable in Japanese. I will examine the passive and causative voices in particular below.
Passive voice
Japanese exhibits two types of passive sentences, a direct passive and an adversarial passive. Like its equivalent in English, the direct passive is used to promote the direct object in an active voice sentence to the grammatical subject in a passive voice sentence, resulting in the demotion of the active voice subject to the passive voice direct object. A number of syntactic changes must occur, specifically in the use of particles and postpositions, in order to construct the direct passive.
Step one: The active voice subject, marked by が-ga unless omitted, is demoted and takes the postposition に-ni while the active voice object is prompted by dropping the accusative marker を-wo and taking the nomitive marker “が-ga”. Constituent order mandates that the verb must appear at the end of the sentence, but does not mandate the order of the marked subject and object. However nouns marked with the subject particle appear before those that are marked by に-ni by convention
Step two: The verb must inflect by adding the suffix あれ are or られ rare, depending on the verb class as described above. Below we can see an example that illustrates this change.
安倍晋三元総理が7月8日11時半ごろ, 奈良市内で参議院選挙の応援演説中に銃撃された。(Friday Digital 2022)
Abe shinzo motosori-ga nana-getsu you-ka juichiji-han goro, Narashi-naide sangiinsenkyo no ouen enzetsu-chuni juugeki-sare-ta
Abe shinzo former.prime.minister-nom July 8th 11:30AM around, Nara city-in House of Councilors election speech-during shoot-pass-past
Former prime minister Shinzo Abe was shot on July 8th around 11:30 AM in the city of Nara during a House of Councilors election speech.
As we can see from this news paper story, the only verb 銃撃された jyuugeki-sare-ta shows symptoms of the passive voice. While any mention of the grammatical object (the shooter) has been dropped from the quote, we can see that what would be marked by the accusative case in the active voice (prime minister Shinzo Abe), has been promoted to the grammatical subject due to the attachment of the nominative suffix particle が-ga.
A second form of the passive voice that Japanese exhibits is known as an adversative passive. In addition to a different syntactic form, the adversative passive also has a different semantic function, as it adds an implication that someone was negatively affected by an action. This is done by the addition of a new subject (the one being adversely affected) and a requirement that the particle に-by must mark what is the cause of the new subject’s adversity. Tsujimura (2007, P.278) illustrates this with the following example
華子がとなりの学生にピアノを朝まで引かれた
Hanako-ga tonari-no gakkusei-ni piano-wo asa-made hik-are-ta
Hanako-nom neighboring-gen student-acc morning-until play-passive-past
Hanako was adversely affected by the neighboring student’s playing.
Comparing this example with the direct passive above, we can see that the addition of these extra two arguments (the adversely affected subject and its cause) have a more than nuanced effect on the semantics of the passive.
Causative
Payne (1997, P177-181) identifies three subclass of causatives widespread throughout world languages. Of these, Japanese exhibits morphological and lexical causatives. Morphological causatives are again formed by verb ending inflection depending on if the verb is a type 1 or 20 verbs. These endings are “させる-saseru”, and “あせる-arseru”. In addition, these verbal inflections may further inflect for tense, or level of formality as seen below.
私は貴方を部屋に行かせる
Watashi-wa anata-wo heya-ni i-kase-ru
I-top you-acc room-to go make-nonpast
I make you go to your room
An interesting feature of the Japanese language is that, as an agglutinative language, it can affix both a valency increasing and valency decreasing morphemes to the same verb stem in the same sentence. Resulting in what Tsujimora calls “causative passives''. An example taken from Tsujimora (2007, P.297)
華子が武郎に笑わせられた
Hanako-ga Taro-ni waraw-ase-rare-ta
Hanako-nom Taro-by laugh-caus.-pass-past
Hanako was made to laugh by Taro
From a comparative linguistics perspective, it is cool to see that according to Aoyagi (2021), Korean and Japanese passive and causative voices function in incredibly similar ways, minus the ability of Korean to form an adversarial passive.
Q8. How are wh- questions formed?
Wh- questions and are straightforward to form in Japanese. Japanese contains lexical entities that are equivalent to the interrogative words found in English. Unlike English, no movement of constituents is needed to form wh-questions. Instead, the grammatical category of the information we want to know is replaced with an interrogative word and marked with the corresponding particle. In addition, the sentence must end with the interrogative phoneme か-ka. For example:
毎日私は友達にりんごをあげる
Mainichi Watashi-wa tomodachi-ni ringo-wo age-ru
Everyday I-top friend-dat apple-acc give-nonpast
Everyday I give an apple to my friend.
If you wanted to clarify what I gave to my friend, you could say
貴方は友達に何をあげるか？
Anata-wa tomodachi-ni nani-wo age-ru-ka?
You-top friend-dat what-acc give-.nonpast-int
What do you give a friend?
If you wanted to know who I give apples to, you replace the noun marked by the dative に-ni with an interrogative word
貴方は誰にりんごをあげるか？
Anata-wa dare-ni apple-wo age-ru-ka?
You-top who-dat apple-acc give-.nonpast-int
Who do you give an apple to?
9. Other interesting features
Denominalization in Japanese.
Denominalizaiton is a process by which a noun is turned into another grammatical category (Payne 1997, P. 94). There are two primary ways to denominalize a noun in Japanese. One is via verbalization, the process by which a noun is turned into a verb, and via adjectivization, the process by which a noun is turned into an adjective. In order to verbalize a noun, the verb "する-suru-to do'' is added as a suffix to the noun.
愛-love (N)
愛する-to love (V)
Nouns that undergo denominalization, though syntactically sound, may appear semantically strange.
大学-daigakku-college (N)
大学する-daigakku suru - to college (V)
Another process of denominalization is adjectivization. This is accomplished in a similar process to verbalization, but instead of attaching the verb "する-suru-to do'' to the end of a noun, one attaches the adjectivizing particle “的な-tekina” to the end of the noun.
私は居酒屋に行きます
Watshi-wa Izakaya-ni iki-masu
I-top to pub go.nonpast-pol
I go to a pub
私はアイルランド的な居酒屋に行きます
Watashi-wa airurando-tekina izakaya-ni iki-masu
I-top Ireland-adj Pub-to go.nonpast-pol
I go to an Irish pub.
Conclusion
This paper has attempted to provide a snapshot of some of the grammatical features of Japanese, along with briefly comparing some of the more interesting alignments and divergence of these grammatical features with their corresponding features in the Korean language. While I make no claim to the relationship between them, I can confirm that these two languages make up one of the most interesting areas of comparative linguistics out there, and the relationship is well worthy of more in depth study.
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突然白い煙が…安倍元総理 衝撃の「発砲瞬間の連続現場写真 Suddenly white smoke... Former Prime Minister Abe shocking ``continuous scene photos of the moment of shooting''. (2022). Friday Digital: Accessed 13/12/2022 (title translation courtesy of google translate)
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