Re: Verbal Inflection for Formality

On 6/22/06, Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...> wrote:
> These were the bits I was looking for really, mostly the third (verbal
> inflection) rather than stem suppletive ways of marking politeness. I
> was looking for a description of the morphology involved..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugations is a start.

To simplify matters, casual speech can use the dictionary/plain form
of a verb (shuushikei; ending in -u) as a positive non-past, while
more polite speech uses the ren'youkei (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugations#i_form ; often
ending in -i instead of -u) + -masu. For example, yomu vs yomimasu (to
read), taberu vs tabemasu (to eat).

The negative non-past uses the mizenkei + -nai (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugations#Negative ;
often -anai instead of -u) for the plain form, and ren'youkei + -masen
for the polite form.

Positive past uses ren'youkei (though with regular sound changes) +
-ta / ren'youkei + -mashita; negative past uses mizenkei + -nakatta /
ren'youkei + -masen deshita.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_grammar#Conjugable_words
for more details, including the sound changes ("Euphonic changes /
Onbin") of the ren'youkei or continuative form when adding -ta (e.g.
to form the past) or -te.

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>