According to many analyses, the Japanese language does not have words that function as adjectives in a syntactic sense, i.e. tree diagrams of Japanese sentences can be constructed without employing adjective phrases. However, there are words that function as adjectives in a semantic sense. This article deals with these words. Japanese  ) is a language spoken by over 130 million people, in Japan and Japanese emigrant communities around the world. ... In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun (called the adjectives subject), giving more information about what the noun or pronoun refers to. ... For other uses, see Syntax (disambiguation). ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ...

Types of adjective

There are three types of word that can be considered to be adjectives in Japanese: In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun (called the adjectives subject), giving more information about what the noun or pronoun refers to. ...

• adjectival verbs (Japanese: 形容詞, keiyōshi, "adjective"), or i-adjectives

These have a conjugating ending -i which can become, for example, past or negative. For example, atsui (暑い) "hot":

atsui hi ("a hot day")

Kyō wa atsui. ("Today is hot.")

• adjectival nouns (形容動詞, keiyō-dōshi, "adjectival verb"), or na-adjectives

These attach to a form of the copula, which then inflects. For example, hen (変) "strange":

hen na hito ("a strange person")

Kare wa hen da. ("He is strange.")

• attributives (連体詞, rentaishi, "attributive")

These may only occur before nouns, not in a predicative position. They are various in derivation and word class. For example, ōki na (大きな) "big":

ōki na koto "a big thing"

This page is a comprehensive list of Japanese verb and adjective conjugations. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Syntactic analysis of adjectives

Adjectival verbs (keiyōshi) may predicate sentences and inflect for past, negative, etc. As they head verb phrases, they can be considered a type of verbal (verb-like part of speech). Their inflections are different and not so numerous as full verbs. In linguistics and logic, a predicate is an expression that can be true of something. ... linguistics, a verb phrase or VP is a syntactic structure composed of the predicative elements of a sentence and functions in providing information about the subject of the sentence. ... Broadly conceived, linguistics is the study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ...

Adjectival nouns (keiyō-dōshi) 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 (noun-like part of speech). Together with this form of the copula they may also predicate sentences and inflect for past, negative, etc. An adjectival noun (Japanese: 形容動詞, keiyō-dōshi, adjectival verb) or sometimes just adjectival is a noun that functions as an adjective. ... A nominal is a word or a group of words that functions as a noun, i. ...

Attributives (rentaishi) 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 (あの, "that") can be analysed as a noun or pronoun a plus the genitive ending no; aru (ある or 或る, "a certain"), saru (さる, "a certain"), and iwayuru (いわゆる, "so-called") can be analysed as verbs (iwayuru being an obsolete passive form of the verb iu (言う) "to speak"); and ōki na (大きな, "big") can be analysed as the one remaining form of the obsolete adjectival noun ōki nari. Attributive onaji (同じ, "the same") is sometimes considered to be a rentaishi, but it is usually analysed as simply an irregular adjectival verb (note that it has an infinitive onajiku). 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. Both the predicative forms (shūshikei) and attributive forms (rentaikei) of adjectival verbs and adjectival nouns can be analysed as verb phrases, making the attributive forms of adjectival verbs and adjectival nouns relative clauses. According to this analysis, Japanese has no syntactic adjectives.

Inflection

Adjectival verbs (i-adjectives) are inflected by dropping the -i from the end and replacing it with the appropriate ending. Adjectival nouns (na-adjectives) are inflected by dropping the -na and replacing it with the appropriate form of the verb da, the copula.

Adverb forms

Both adjectival verbs and adjectival nouns form adverbs. In the case of adjectival verbs, -i changes to -ku: An adverb is a part of speech. ...

atsuku naru "become hot"

and in the case of adjectival nouns, -na changes to -ni:

hen ni naru "become strange"

Polite forms

Both adjectival verbs and adjectival nouns are made more polite by the use of desu, but the way that desu is used is different. With adjectival verbs, desu is added directly after the inflected plain form and has no syntactic function; its only purpose is to make the utterance more polite (see Japanese honorifics). With adjectival nouns, desu is used in its role as the polite form of the copula, therefore replacing da (the plain form of the copula) in the plain form of these adjectives. For other uses, see Syntax (disambiguation). ... Honorific speech is speech which shows respect. ...

Terminology

The Japanese word keiyōshi is used to denote an English adjective. A stative verb is one which asserts that one of its arguments has a particular property (possibly in relation to its other arguments). ... An adjectival noun (Japanese: 形容動詞, keiyō-dōshi, adjectival verb) or sometimes just adjectival is a noun that functions as an adjective. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

It is worth noting that 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.