Japanese equivalents of adjectives


This article deals with Japanese equivalents of English adjectives.

Types of adjective

In Japanese, nouns and verbs can modify nouns, with nouns taking the 〜の particles when functioning attributively, and verbs in the attributive form. These are considered separate classes of words, however.
Most of the words that can be considered to be adjectives in Japanese fall into one of two categories – variants of verbs, and nouns:
Both the predicative forms and attributive forms of adjectival verbs and adjectival nouns can be analyzed as verb phrases, making the attributive forms of adjectival verbs and adjectival nouns relative clauses, rather than adjectives. According to this analysis, Japanese has no syntactic adjectives.
Japanese adjectives that do not fall into either of these categories are usually grouped into a grab-bag category:
A couple of small sub-categories can be distinguished in these categories, reflecting former grammatical distinctions or constructions which no longer exist:

''i''-adjectives

end with い i in base form. They may predicate sentences and inflect for past, negative, etc. As they head verb phrases, they can be considered a type of verbal and inflect in an identical manner as the negative form of verbs. Their inflections are different and not so numerous as full verbs.
The stem of i-adjectives can combine, similar to the stem form of verbs, though this is less common than for verbs. Conversely, nouns or verb stems can sometimes prepend i-adjectives, or two i-adjectives can combine, forming compound modifiers; these are much less common than Japanese compound verbs. Common examples include and , while shows an adjective stem joining to form a noun.

''shii''-adjectives

A number of i-adjectives end in . These are overwhelmingly words for feelings, like or. These were originally a separate class of adjectives, dating at least to Old Japanese, where the two classes are known as and, corresponding to -i and -shii; see Old Japanese: Adjectives. However, they merged over the course of Late Middle Japanese, and now shii-adjectives are simply a form of i-adjectives; see Late Middle Japanese: Adjectives. The distinction, although no longer meaningful in pronunciation, is still reflected by the writing system, where -し- is still written out in hiragana, as in.

''na''-adjectives

s always occur with a form of the copula, traditionally considered part of the adjectival noun itself. The only difference between nouns and adjectival nouns is in the attributive form, where nouns take no and adjectives take na. This has led many linguists to consider them a type of nominal. Together with this form of the copula they may also predicate sentences and inflect for past, negative, etc.

''-yaka'' ''na'' adjectives

There are a number of na adjectives ending in 〜やか -yaka, particularly for subjective words. This is believed to be a combination of two suffixes 〜や -ya and 〜か -ka, where -ya mean "softness" and -ka meant "apparent, visible", hence the combination -ya-ka meant "appears somewhat..., looks slightly...". This was believed to have been used in the Nara era, and have become particularly popular in the Heian period, but is no longer productive. In some cases the original word is now only used in the -yaka form, such as 鮮やか aza-yaka "vivid, brilliant", 穏やか oda-yaka "calm, gentle", and 爽やか sawa-yaka "fresh, clear", while in other cases the word is used in isolation, such as 雅 miyabi "elegant, graceful", which is used alongside 雅やか miyabi-yaka "elegant, graceful", and in other cases a related word also exists, such as 賑やか nigi-yaka "bustling, busy" and the verb 賑わう nigi-wau "be bustling, be busy". The most basic of these is 賑やか nigi-yaka "bustling, busy", but many of these are everyday words. Due to the -yaka being originally a suffix, it is written as okurigana, even though the compound word may now be a fixed unit.

''-raka'' ''na'' adjectives

Similarly, there are also a few na adjectives ending in 〜らか -raka, of similar origin. These are generally less subjective, but declined in popularity relative to the -yaka construction in the Heian period Notable examples include 明らか aki-raka "clear, obvious" and 柔らか／軟らか yawa-raka "soft, gentle". As with -yaka words, the 〜らか is written out as okurigana.

''taru''-adjectives

A variant of na adjectives exist, which take 〜たる -taru when functioning attributively, and 〜と -to when functioning adverbally, instead of the 〜な -na and 〜に -ni which are mostly used with na adjectives. taru adjectives do not predicate a sentence or take the copula, but must modify a noun or verb. Note that sometimes na adjectives take a 〜と, and Japanese sound symbolisms generally take a 〜と, though these are different word classes.
There are very few of these words, and they usually are considered somewhat stiff or archaic; this word class is generally not covered in textbooks for foreign language learners of Japanese. One of the most common is 堂々 dōdō "magnificent, stately". These are referred to in Japanese as ト・タル形容動詞 or タルト型活用.
See :ja:形容動詞#「タルト」型活用|形容動詞#「タルト」型活用 for discussion in Japanese. Historically, these developed in Late Old Japanese as a variant of na adjectives, but the form mostly died out; the remaining taru adjectives are fossils.

''naru''-adjectives

There are also a few naru adjectives such as 単なる tannaru "mere, simple" or 聖なる seinaru "holy", which developed similarly to taru-adjectives. As with taru adjectives, these cannot predicate or take the copula, but must modify a noun, and often occur in set phrases, such as Mother Nature. In Late Old Japanese, tari adjectives developed as a variant of nari adjectives. Most nari adjectives became na adjectives in Modern Japanese, while tari adjectives either died out or survived as taru adjective fossils, but a few nari adjectives followed a similar path to the tari adjectives and became naru adjective fossils. They are generally classed into rentaishi.

Attributives

Attributives are few in number, and unlike the other words, are strictly limited to modifying nouns. Rentaishi never predicate sentences. They derive from other word classes, and so are not always given the same treatment syntactically. For example, ano can be analysed as a noun or pronoun a plus the genitive ending no; aru, saru, and iwayuru can be analysed as verbs ; and ōkina can be analysed as the one remaining form of the obsolete adjectival noun ōki nari. Attributive onaji is sometimes considered to be a rentaishi, but it is usually analysed as simply an irregular adjectival verb. The final form onaji, which occurs with the copula, is usually considered to be a noun, albeit one derived from the adjectival verb.
It can be seen that attributives are analysed variously as nouns, verbs, or adjectival nouns.

Archaic forms

Various archaic forms from Middle Japanese remain as fossils, primarily uses of or forms that in Modern Japanese would usually be. Everyday examples notably include and – in modern grammar and, respectively. Similarly, uses archaic forms of and.

Inflection

''i''-adjective

Adjectival verbs are inflected by dropping the -i from the end and replacing it with the appropriate ending. Adjectival verbs are made more polite by the use of です desu. です desu is added directly after the inflected plain form and has no syntactic function; its only purpose is to make the utterance more polite.
presentpastpresent neg.past neg.
i adjectiveあつい atsuiあつかった atsukattaあつくない atsuku naiあつくなかった atsuku nakatta
polite i adj.あついです atsui desuあつかったです atsukatta desuあつくないです atsuku nai desu
あつくありません atsuku arimasen		あつくなかったです atsuku nakatta desu
あつくありませんでした atsuku arimasen deshita

いい ii "good" is a special case because it comes from the kanji 良い yoi. In present tense it is read as いい ii but since it derives from よい yoi all the inflections use that instead. For example, 良いですね ii desu ne " is good" becomes 良かったですね yokatta desu ne " was good". かっこいい kakkoi "cool" also fits the same category because it is a mash-up of 格好 kakkou and いい ii.
い i adjectives like 安い yasui have the い i changed to ければ kereba to change them to conditional form, e.g. 安ければ yasukereba; 安くなければ yasukunakereba.

''na''-adjective

Adjectival nouns are inflected by dropping the -na and replacing it with the appropriate form of the verb da, the copula. As with adjectival verbs, adjectival nouns are also made more polite by the use of です desu. です desu is used in its role as the polite form of the copula, therefore replacing da in the plain form of these adjectives.
presentpastpresent neg.past neg.
na adjectiveへんだ hen daへんだった hen dattaへんではない hen dewa naiへんではなかった hen dewa nakatta
polite na adj.へんです hen desuへんでした hen deshitaへんではありません hen dewa arimasenへんではありませんでした hen dewa arimasen deshita

な na adjectives have なら nara added to them to change to conditional form, and just like all other ない nai form inflections, behave like an い i adjective when in negative form, e.g. 簡単じゃなければ kantan ja nakereba.

Adverb forms

Both adjectival verbs and adjectival nouns can form adverbs. In the case of adjectival verbs, い i changes to く ku:
and in the case of adjectival nouns, な na changes to に ni:
There are also some words like たくさん takusan and 全然 zenzen that are adverbs in their root form:
adverb
i adjectiveはやく hayaku "quickly"
na adjectiveしずかに shizuka ni "quietly"

In a few cases, a 〜に form of a word is common while a 〜な form is rare or non-existent, as in – is common, but is generally not used.

Terminology

The Japanese word keiyōshi is used to denote an English adjective.
Because the widespread study of Japanese is still relatively new in the Western world, there are no generally accepted English translations for the above parts of speech, with varying texts adopting different sets, and others extant not listed above.