未然形

Japanese
Kanji in this term
未 然 形
み
Grade: 4		 ぜん
Grade: 4		 けい
Grade: 2
goon kan’on

Etymology

Compound of 未然 (mizen, literally “not yet occurred”) +‎ 形 (kei, “form”). Historically called 将然言(しょうぜんげん) (shōzengen), 未然段(みぜんだん) (mizendan).[1]

Pronunciation

Noun

未(み)然(ぜん)形(けい) • (mizenkei) 

  1. (grammar) a Japanese verbal inflectional category: the irrealis form
    Indicates that something has not yet happened, or not yet begun.

Usage notes

This term is used in the traditional description of Japanese grammar. In Japanese Educational Grammar (日本語教育文法), this is called the ない形 (-nai kei, “-nai form”) as it is used before the suffix ない (-nai). In the western analysis of Japanese grammar, it is not an inflected form but a derived stem, called for example the "a- stem" in Bjarke Frellesvig's works. Some analyses such as John R. Bentley's A Descriptive Grammar Of Early Old Japanese Prose even do not posit such a stem at all, instead analyzing the a as part of the suffix (e.g. yuk-azu instead of yuka-zu).

See also
  • Appendix:Japanese verbs

References
  1. Shōgaku Tosho (1988) 国語大辞典（新装版） [Unabridged Dictionary of Japanese (Revised Edition)] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan, →ISBN
  2. Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 [Daijirin] (in Japanese), Third edition, Tōkyō: Sanseidō, →ISBN
  3. NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, editor (1998), NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 [NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: NHK Publishing, →ISBN
  4. Kindaichi, Kyōsuke et al., editors (1997), 新明解国語辞典 [Shin Meikai Kokugo Jiten] (in Japanese), Fifth edition, Tōkyō: Sanseidō, →ISBN
  • Shibatani, Masayoshi (1990) The languages of Japan, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 221-224
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.