Verb Conjugation

[Nate]

Okay, I am confused about something. I have to admit to being overwhelmed, wrongfully so likely, about verb conjugation. I have been scrounging around on the web and in various books to find some kind of consistency in verb conjugation. The reason I say consistency is that some websites talk about various tenses like Conditional, Presumptive, Volitional, Passive, Causative, and Potential. Then there are the polite and informal as well as the postivie and negative forms in each of these. This info comes from the following website:

http://kimallen.sheepdogdesign.net/Japanese/verbs1.html

Wikipedia mentions these same tenses as well.

Another website:

http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa031101b.htm

Mentions just the following tenses Present, Past, Present Negative, Past Negative, and the ~te form with polite and informal tenses included. There was no mention of the conditional, volitional, or other tenses.

I do have some books on order that I hope will help get this straightened out. My brain is spinning.

Any help would be appreciated.

Mata ashita!

Nate

[Jason]

Ok, first we need to get some terms straight. All Japanese verbs convey 3 basic meanings: tense, affirmation/negation, and politeness level.

"Tense" refers ONLY to when the action takes place. In Japanese there are only 2 tenses*: past and non-past. Things like actions taking place continually over a period of time ("I studied Japanese for 3 years") are expressed with other constructions (namely, the ている form), but those are not considered different tenses, though you may hear them called the "progressive tense."

"Affirmation/negation" is self-explanitory.

Most people will probably initially tell you there are 2 politeness levels in Japanese, but there's actually 4: plain, standard polite (what the beginner lessons here use), humble, and honorific. The last 2 only come up when you study keigo, or respectful language that goes beyond standard polite form.

A verb always expresses some combination of these 3 basic meanings. Ex) Non-past/affirm/plain, past/neg/polite, past/affirm/polite, etc.

However, in addition to these basic meanings, most verbs also have several other forms, each of which expresses these same 3 basic meanings. Let's see if I can remember them all. X is the subject, Y is the verb.

-Potential = "X is able to do Y"
-Volitional = "let's do Y". In a question "shall we/I do Y?"
-Causitive = "X is made/caused to do Y" Also "X is allowed to do Y"
-Passive = "Y was done to X"
-Causitive-Passive = "X was made/caused to do Y"
-Imperative = command
-Conditional = "If Y then..." There are actually several conditional forms.
-Te-form = doesn't really have a meaning by itself. Combined with other stuff to express different shades of meaning. Very useful.
-Conjunctive form = also doesn't have a meaning by itself. Combined with other stuff to express different shades of meanings. Also sometimes called the "masu stem" because you get it by forming the non-past/affirm/polite version of the verb, or the "masu form", and drop "masu."

Note that not all verbs can take all the forms listed above. Some just don't make sense in certain forms. More in the next part.

In addition (yes, there's more), a verb may be transitive or intransitive. Transitive means the verb takes an object. Ex) クラスを始める/KURASU o hajimeru/"I'm starting class." Intransitive means the verb cannot take an object. Ex) 日は始まる/Hi wa hajimaru/"The day began" (no one can actually start the day themselves). Intransitive verbs tend to be more limited in the forms they can take. Like 始まる/hajimaru doesn't have a potential or volitional form because that just doesn't make much sense.

What the first site lists as "Presumptive form" is really more of a sentence structure where you take the verb + the volitional form of the coppula だ/です. It's not really an independent form of the verb. But that's nitpicky.

*actually, Japanese doesn't have "tense" but "aspect." But that's a difference that probably would only confuse matters if I tried to explain it here. So we'll just call it tense for now.

[Nate]

Jason-san,

Thanks. This does help put things into some kind of perspective.

I will keep this in mind as I continue to study Japanese.

Mata ashita.

ネイト

[kinoko]

Gah, Jason, did you seriously type all that!?
Haha...

I have some advice to give about transitive/intransitive stuff... Don't bother trying to find out patterns, because there are no set ones... and it's easier to use in/transitive counterparts when you think of them as two different words.

Good luck remembering all that!

[Jason]

Gah, Jason, did you seriously type all that!?
Haha...

Why, yes. Yes, I did.

I have some advice to give about transitive/intransitive stuff... Don't bother trying to find out patterns, because there are no set ones... and it's easier to use in/transitive counterparts when you think of them as two different words.

Yes. Actually, I always thought they really were different words just with the same meaning but different "trasitivity". Like 壊す (to break) and 壊れる (to be broken).

[Bueller_007]

I have some advice to give about transitive/intransitive stuff... Don't bother trying to find out patterns, because there are no set ones... and it's easier to use in/transitive counterparts when you think of them as two different words.

There are patterns. The best one to remember is, that if it ends in す then it is most likely a transitive verb.
I.e. 落ちる (fall) vs. 落とす (drop)
This comes use of the causative form.

But there are exceptions, yes.