Editing Japanese language (section)

== Grammar ==
{{Main|Japanese grammar}}
{{no footnotes|section|date=November 2013}}
<!--Please keep in mind that this section is intended to be a summary and should not dominate the article. If you feel like going in-depth about something regarding Japanese grammar, please add it to the main article linked below.-->

===Sentence structure===
Japanese word order is classified as [[Subject–object–verb word order|subject–object–verb]]. Unlike many [[Indo-European languages]], the only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with [[Japanese particles|particles]] that identify their grammatical functions.

The basic sentence structure is [[Topic and comment|topic–comment]]. Once the topic has been stated using the particle {{Nihongo||は|wa}}, it is normally omitted in subsequent sentences, and the next use of ''wa'' will change the topic. For instance, someone may begin a conversation with a sentence that includes {{Nihongo3|"As for Mx. Tanaka, ..."|田中さんは...|Tanaka-san wa...}}. Each person may say a number of comments regarding Tanaka as the topic, and someone could change the topic to Naoko with a sentence including {{Nihongo3|"As for Mx. Naoko, ..."|直子さんは...|Naoko-san wa...}}.

As these example translations illustrate, a sentence may include a topic, but the topic is not part of sentence's core statement. Japanese is often called a [[topic-prominent language]] because of its strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and the two do not always coincide. That is, a sentence might not involve the topic directly at all. To replicate this effect in English, consider "As for Naoko, people are rude." The topic, "Naoko," provides context to the comment about the subject, "people," and the sentence as a whole indicates that "people are rude" is a statement relevant to Naoko. However, the sentence's comment does not describe Naoko directly at all, and whatever the sentence indicates about Naoko is an inference. The topic is not the core of the sentence; the core of the sentence is always the comment.

In a basic comment, the subject is marked with the particle {{Nihongo||が|ga}}, and the rest of the comment describes the subject. For example, in {{Nihongo||象が動物だ|Zou ga doubutsu da}}, ''ga'' indicates that "elephant" is the subject of the sentence. Context determines whether the speaker means a single elephant or elephants plural. The [[Copula (linguistics)|copula]] {{Nihongo3|the verb "is"|だ|da}} ends the sentence, indicating that the subject is equivalent to the rest of the comment. Here, ''doubutsu'' means ''animal''. Therefore, the sentence means "[The] elephant is [an] animal" or "Elephants are animals." A basic comment can end in three ways: with the copula ''da'', with a different verb, or with an adjective ending in the kana {{Nihongo||い|i}}. A sentence ending might also be decorated with particles that alter the way the sentence is meant to be interpreted, as in {{Nihongo3|"Elephants are animals, you know."|象が動物だよ|Zou ga doubutsu da yo}}. This is also why ''da'' is replaced with {{Nihongo||です|desu}} when the speaker is talking to someone they do not know well: it makes the sentence more polite.

Often, ''ga'' implies distinction of the subject within the topic, so the previous example comment would make the most sense within a topic where not all of the relevant subjects were animals. For example, in {{Nihongo||この贋物は象が動物だ|Kono ganbutsu wa zou ga doubutsu da}}, the particle ''wa'' indicates the topic is ''kono ganbutsu'' ("this toy" or "these toys"). In English, if there are many toys and one is an elephant, this could mean "Among these toys, [the] elephant is [an] animal." That said, if the subject is clearly a subtopic, this differentiation effect may or may not be relevant, such as in {{Nihongo||日本語は文法が優しい|nihongo wa bunpo ga yasashii}}. The equivalent sentence, "As for the Japanese language, grammar is easy," might be a general statement that Japanese grammar is easy or a statement that grammar is an especially easy feature of the Japanese language. Context should reveal which.

Because ''ga'' marks the subject of the sentence but the sentence overall is intended to be relevant to the topic indicated by ''wa'', translations of Japanese into English often elide the difference between these particles. For example, the phrase ''watashi wa zou ga suki da'' literally means "As for myself, elephants are likeable." The sentence about myself describes elephants as having a likeable quality. From this, it is clear that I like elephants, and this sentence is often translated into English as "I like elephants." However, to do so changes the subject of the sentence (from "Elephant" to "I") and the verb (from "is" to "like"); it does not reflect Japanese grammar.

Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated and [[pronoun]]s may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, ''zou ga doubutsu da'' would mean "[the] elephant is [an] animal", while ''doubutsu da'' by itself would mean "[they] are animals." In especially casual speech, many speakers would omit the copula, leaving the noun ''doubutsu'' to mean "[they are] animals." A single verb can be a complete sentence: {{Nihongo3|"[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!"|やった!|Yatta!}}. In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below), a single adjective can be a complete sentence: {{Nihongo3|"[I'm] jealous [about it]!"|羨ましい!|Urayamashii!}}).

Nevertheless, unlike the topic, the subject is always implied: all sentences which omit a ''ga'' particle must have an implied subject that could be specified with a ''ga'' particle. For example, {{Nihongo||この猫はロキだ|Kono neko wa Loki da}} means "As for this cat, [it] is Loki." An equivalent sentence might read {{Nihongo||この猫はこれがロキだ|kono neko wa kore ga Loki da}}, meaning "As for this cat, this is Loki." However, in the same way it is unusual to state the subject twice in the English sentence, it is unusual to specify that redundant subject in Japanese. Rather than replace the redundant subject with a word like "it," the redundant subject is omitted from the Japanese sentence. It is obvious from the context that the first sentence refers to the cat by the name "Loki," and the explicit subject of the second sentence contributes no information.

While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate the out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, {{Nihongo||教えてもらった|oshiete moratta|literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group}} means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, {{Nihongo||教えてあげた|oshiete ageta|literally, "explaining gave" with a benefit from the in-group to the out-group}} means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action.

[[Japanese pronouns|Japanese "pronouns"]] also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English:

<blockquote>The amazed he ran down the street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun)</blockquote>

But one ''can'' grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese:

<blockquote><poem>{{Nihongo2|驚いた彼は道を走っていった。}}
Transliteration: {{tlit|ja|Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta.}} (grammatically correct)</poem></blockquote>

This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as {{tlit|ja|kimi}} "you" ({{Nihongo2|君}} "lord"), {{tlit|ja|anata}} "you" ({{Nihongo2|あなた}} "that side, yonder"), and {{tlit|ja|boku}} "I" ({{Nihongo2|僕}} "servant"). This is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish {{lang|es|usted}} (contracted from {{lang|es|vuestra merced}}, "your ([[Royal we|majestic plural]]) grace") or Portuguese {{lang|pt|você}} (from {{lang|pt|vossa mercê}}). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom.

The choice of words used as pronouns is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as {{Nihongo||私|watashi|literally "private"}} or {{tlit|ja|watakushi}} (also {{Nihongo2|私}}, hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word {{Nihongo3|"oneself", "myself"|俺|ore}} or ''boku''. Similarly, different words such as ''anata'', ''kimi'', and {{tlit|ja|omae}} ({{Nihongo2|お前}}, more formally {{Nihongo2|御前}} "the one before me") may refer to a listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations.

Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use {{Nihongo3|"teacher"|先生|sensei}}, but inappropriate to use ''anata''. This is because ''anata'' is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status.

===Inflection and conjugation===
Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun {{Nihongo||本|hon}} may refer to a single book or several books; {{Nihongo||人|hito}} can mean "person" or "people", and {{Nihongo||木|ki}} can be "tree" or "trees". Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a [[Japanese counter word|counter word]]) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, <!--example? meaning "hito-tachi" and "mono-domo"?--> or sometimes by duplication (e.g. {{Nihongo2|人人}}, {{tlit|ja|hitobito}}, usually written with an iteration mark as {{Nihongo2|人々}}). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus ''Tanaka-san'' usually means ''Mx Tanaka''. Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through the addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as ''-tachi'', but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as ''Tanaka-san-tachi'' may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as ''hitobito'' "people" and ''wareware'' "we/us", while the word ''tomodachi'' "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form.

Verbs are [[Japanese conjugation|conjugated]] to show tenses, of which there are two: past and non-past, which is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the ''-te iru'' form indicates a continuous (or progressive) [[grammatical aspect|aspect]], similar to the suffix ''ing'' in English. For others that represent a change of state, the ''-te iru'' form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, ''kite iru'' means "They have come (and are still here)", but ''tabete iru'' means "They are eating".

Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have the same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle ''-ka'' is added. For example, {{Nihongo3|"It is OK"|いいです|ii desu}} becomes {{Nihongo3|"Is it OK?"|いいですか。|ii desu-ka}}. In a more informal tone sometimes the particle {{Nihongo||の|-no}} is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: ''Dōshite konai-no?'' "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning the topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: ''Kore wa?'' "(What about) this?"; {{tlit|ja|O-namae wa?}} ({{Nihongo2|お名前は？}}) "(What's your) name?".

Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, {{Nihongo3|"I will eat bread" or "I eat bread"|パンを食べる。|Pan o taberu}} becomes {{Nihongo3|"I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread"|パンを食べない。|Pan o tabenai}}. Plain negative forms are ''i''-adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. {{Nihongo3|"I did not eat bread"|パンを食べなかった。|Pan o tabenakatta}}.

The so-called ''-te'' verb form is used for a variety of purposes: either progressive or perfect aspect (see above); combining verbs in a temporal sequence (''Asagohan o tabete sugu dekakeru'' "I'll eat breakfast and leave at once"), simple commands, conditional statements and permissions (''Dekakete-mo ii?'' "May I go out?"), etc.

The word ''da'' (plain), ''desu'' (polite) is the [[Copula (linguistics)#Japanese|copula]] verb. It corresponds to the English verb ''is'' and marks tense when the verb is conjugated into its past form ''datta'' (plain), ''deshita'' (polite). This comes into use because only ''i''-adjectives and verbs can carry tense in Japanese. Two additional common verbs are used to indicate existence ("there is") or, in some contexts, property: ''aru'' (negative ''nai'') and ''iru'' (negative ''inai''), for inanimate and animate things, respectively. For example, ''Neko ga iru'' "There's a cat", ''Ii kangae-ga nai'' "[I] haven't got a good idea".

The verb "to do" (''suru'', polite form ''shimasu'') is often used to make verbs from nouns (''ryōri suru'' "to cook", ''benkyō suru'' "to study", etc.) and has been productive in creating modern slang words. Japanese also has a huge number of compound verbs to express concepts that are described in English using a verb and an adverbial particle (e.g. ''tobidasu'' "to fly out, to flee", from ''tobu'' "to fly, to jump" + ''dasu'' "to put out, to emit").

There are three types of adjectives (see [[Japanese adjectives]]):
# {{Nihongo2|形容詞}} {{tlit|ja|keiyōshi}}, or ''i'' adjectives, which have a [[Japanese conjugation|conjugating]] ending {{Nihongo||い|i}}. An example of this is {{Nihongo krt|"to be hot"|暑い|atsui}}, which can become past ({{Nihongo2|暑かった}} {{tlit|ja|atsukatta}} "it was hot"), or negative ({{Nihongo2|暑くない}} {{tlit|ja|atsuku nai}} "it is not hot"). ''nai'' is also an ''i'' adjective, which can become past (i.e., {{Nihongo2|暑くなかった}} {{tlit|ja|atsuku nakatta}} "it was not hot").
#: {{Nihongo2|暑い日}} {{tlit|ja|atsui hi}} "a hot day".
# {{Nihongo2|形容動詞}} {{tlit|ja|keiyōdōshi}}, or ''na'' adjectives, which are followed by a form of the [[Copula (linguistics)|copula]], usually ''na''. For example, ''hen'' (strange)
#: {{Nihongo2|変な人}} {{tlit|ja|hen na hito}} "a strange person".
# {{Nihongo2|連体詞}} {{tlit|ja|rentaishi}}, also called true adjectives, such as ''ano'' "that"
#: {{Nihongo2|あの山}} {{tlit|ja|ano yama}} "that mountain".

Both ''keiyōshi'' and ''keiyōdōshi'' may [[Predicate (grammar)|predicate]] sentences. For example,

<blockquote><poem>{{Nihongo2|ご飯が熱い。}} {{tlit|ja|Gohan ga atsui.}} "The rice is hot."
{{Nihongo2|彼は変だ。}} {{tlit|ja|Kare wa hen da.}} "He's strange."</poem></blockquote>

Both inflect, though they do not show the full range of conjugation found in true verbs.
The ''rentaishi'' in Modern Japanese are few in number, and unlike the other words, are limited to directly modifying nouns. They never predicate sentences. Examples include ''ookina'' "big", ''kono'' "this", ''iwayuru'' "so-called" and ''taishita'' "amazing".

Both ''keiyōdōshi'' and ''keiyōshi'' form [[adverb]]s, by following with ''ni'' in the case of ''keiyōdōshi'':

<blockquote>{{Nihongo2|変になる}} {{tlit|ja|hen ni naru}} "become strange",</blockquote>

and by changing ''i'' to ''ku'' in the case of ''keiyōshi'':

<blockquote>{{Nihongo2|熱くなる}} {{tlit|ja|atsuku naru}} "become hot".</blockquote>

The grammatical function of nouns is indicated by [[Adposition|postposition]]s, also called [[Japanese particles|particles]]. These include for example:

* '''{{Nihongo2|が}} {{tlit|ja|ga}}''' for the [[nominative case]]. 
: {{Nihongo2|'''彼が'''やった。}} {{tlit|ja|'''Kare ga''' yatta.}} "He did it."
* '''{{Nihongo2|を}} {{tlit|ja|o}}''' for the [[accusative case]]. 
: {{Nihongo2|'''何を'''食べますか。}} {{tlit|ja|'''Nani o''' tabemasu ka?}} "'''What''' will (you) eat?"
* '''{{Nihongo2|に}} {{tlit|ja|ni}}''' for the [[dative case]].
: {{Nihongo2|'''田中さんに'''あげて下さい。}} {{tlit|ja|'''Tanaka-san ni''' agete kudasai}} "Please give it '''to Mx Tanaka'''."
: It is also used for the [[lative case]], indicating a motion to a location.
: {{Nihongo2|'''日本に'''行きたい。}} {{tlit|ja|'''Nihon ni''' ikitai}} "I want to go '''to Japan'''."
* However, '''{{Nihongo2|へ}} {{tlit|ja|e}}''' is more commonly used for the lative case.
: {{Nihongo2|'''パーティーへ'''行かないか。}} {{tlit|ja|'''pātī e''' ikanai ka?}} "Won't you go '''to the party'''?"
* '''{{Nihongo2|の}} {{tlit|ja|no}}''' for the [[genitive case]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Vance |first=Timothy J. |date=April 1993 |title=Are Japanese Particles Clitics? |journal=[[Japanese Language and Literature|Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese]] |volume=27 |pages=3–33 |doi=10.2307/489122 |jstor=489122 |number=1}}</ref> or nominalizing phrases.
: {{Nihongo2|'''私の'''カメラ。}} {{tlit|ja|'''watashi no''' kamera}} "'''my''' camera"
: {{Nihongo2|スキーに行く'''の'''が好きです。}} {{tlit|ja|Sukī-ni iku '''no''' ga suki desu}} "(I) like go'''ing''' skiing."
* '''{{Nihongo2|は}} {{tlit|ja|wa}}''' for the topic. It can co-exist with the case markers listed above, and it overrides ''ga'' and (in most cases) ''o''.
: {{Nihongo2|'''私は'''寿司がいいです。}} {{tlit|ja|'''Watashi wa''' sushi ga ii desu.}} (literally) "'''As for me''', sushi is good." The nominative marker ''ga'' after ''watashi'' is hidden under ''wa''.

Note: The subtle difference between '''''wa''''' and '''''ga''''' in Japanese cannot be derived from the English language as such, because the distinction between sentence topic and subject is not made there. While ''wa'' indicates the topic, which the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon, it carries the implication that the subject indicated by ''wa'' is not unique, or may be part of a larger group.

<blockquote>''Ikeda-san '''wa''' yonjū-ni sai da.'' "As for Mx Ikeda, they are forty-two years old." Others in the group may also be of that age.</blockquote>

Absence of ''wa'' often means the subject is the [[focus (linguistics)|focus]] of the sentence.

<blockquote>''Ikeda-san '''ga''' yonjū-ni sai da.'' "It is Mx Ikeda who is forty-two years old." This is a reply to an implicit or explicit question, such as "who in this group is forty-two years old?"</blockquote>

===Politeness===
{{Main|Honorific speech in Japanese}}

Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formality. This reflects the hierarchical nature of Japanese society.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Miyagawa |first=Shigeru |title=The Japanese Language |url=http://web.mit.edu/jpnet/articles/JapaneseLanguage.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090720054510/http://web.mit.edu/jpnet/articles/JapaneseLanguage.html |archive-date=July 20, 2009 |access-date=January 16, 2011 |publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology}}</ref>

The Japanese language can express differing levels of social status. The differences in social position are determined by a variety of factors including job, age, experience, or even psychological state (e.g., a person asking a favour tends to do so politely). The person in the lower position is expected to use a polite form of speech, whereas the other person might use a plainer form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely. Japanese children begin learning and using polite speech in basic forms from an early age, but their use of more formal and sophisticated polite speech becomes more common and expected as they enter their teenage years and start engaging in more adult-like social interactions. See ''[[uchi–soto]]''.

Whereas {{Nihongo3|polite language|丁寧語|teineigo}} is commonly an [[inflection]]al system, {{Nihongo3|respectful language|尊敬語|sonkeigo}} and {{Nihongo3|humble language|謙譲語|kenjōgo}} often employ many special honorific and humble alternate verbs: ''iku'' "go" becomes ''ikimasu'' in polite form, but is replaced by ''irassharu'' in honorific speech and ''ukagau'' or ''mairu'' in humble speech.

The difference between honorific and humble speech is particularly pronounced in the Japanese language. Humble language is used to talk about oneself or one's own group (company, family) whilst honorific language is mostly used when describing the interlocutor and their group. For example, the ''-san'' suffix ("Mr", "Mrs", "Miss", or "Mx") is an example of honorific language. It is not used to talk about oneself or when talking about someone from one's company to an external person, since the company is the speaker's in-group. When speaking directly to one's superior in one's company or when speaking with other employees within one's company about a superior, a Japanese person will use vocabulary and inflections of the honorific register to refer to the in-group superior and their speech and actions. When speaking to a person from another company (i.e., a member of an out-group), however, a Japanese person will use the plain or the humble register to refer to the speech and actions of their in-group superiors. In short, the register used in Japanese to refer to the person, speech, or actions of any particular individual varies depending on the relationship (either in-group or out-group) between the speaker and listener, as well as depending on the relative status of the speaker, listener, and third-person referents.

Most [[noun]]s in the Japanese language may be made polite by the addition of ''o-'' or ''go-'' as a prefix. ''o-'' is generally used for words of native Japanese origin, whereas ''go-'' is affixed to words of Chinese derivation. In some cases, the prefix has become a fixed part of the word, and is included even in regular speech, such as ''gohan'' 'cooked rice; meal.' Such a construction often indicates deference to either the item's owner or to the object itself. For example, the word ''tomodachi'' 'friend,' would become ''o-tomodachi'' when referring to the friend of someone of higher status (though mothers often use this form to refer to their children's friends). On the other hand, a polite speaker may sometimes refer to ''mizu'' 'water' as ''o-mizu'' to show politeness.