CHAPTER II THE NOUN THE SUBSTANTIVE PROPERLY SO CALLED 14. The substantive is indeclinable, distinctions of number and gender being left to be gathered from the context, and case relations being, as in English, indicated by independent words. Thus, the substantive ushi signifies "bull," "ox," "cow," "bulls," "oxen," "cows," "cattle," according to circumstances. The phrase ushi wo kau signifies "to keep cattle"; ushi ni noru, "to ride on a bull" if one rider is alluded to, and "to ride on bulls" if several persons are spoken of; ushi wo kuu, "to eat beef"; and ushi no chichi, "cow's milk.” 15. In the extremely rare cases in which it is absolutely indispensable to mention the sex of an animal, this can be done by prefixing some independent word, such as o, "male"; me, "female." Thus: o-ushi, "a bull"; me-ushi, "a cow." 16. What we call the singular number is occasionally indicated by the use of the word ichi or hitotsu, "one." Thus: ichi-nen, "one year"; tama hitotsu, "one ball." Plurality is occasionally indicated by doubling the word (the second half of the compound thus obtained usually taking the "nigori" [§§ 7-11]), thus: hōbō, "all sides," "everywhere," from hō, "side"; kuni-guni, "various countries," from kuni, "country." Or by prefixing or suffixing some word conveying the idea of number, thus: ban-koku, "all countries," "international," from ban, "myriad," and koku, "country"; sho-kun, "gentlemen," from sho, "all," and kun, "gentleman"; su-nen, “many years," from sū, "number," and nen, "year"; onna-domo, "women," from onna, "woman," and tomo, "companion." But such locutions are somewhat exceptional, distinctions of number not being dwelt upon at every turn by the Japanese as they are by the Aryan mind. 17. Compounds are very common, and can be formed at will. As in English, the first member of the compound generally defines the second, as will be seen by the numerous examples throughout this grammar. However, occasionally the two members are co-ordinated, as kin-gin, "gold and silver." This coordination sometimes (in imitation of Chinese idiom) assumes a peculiar form, which has been termed the "synthesis of contradictories," e.g., chō-tan, "long or short," i.e., "length"; kan-dan, "hot or cold," i.e., "temperature"; nan-nyo, "man or woman," i.e., "sex"; yoshi-ashi, "good or bad," i.e., "the moral character" of an action; aru-nashi, "there being or not being," i.e., "the question of the existence of a thing." Two contraries thus combined do duty for a single English abstract word, thus: bun no ato-saki, "the context (lit., the after-before) of a passage." When one member of the compound is a verb governing the other, it comes second if the word is of Japanese origin, and first if it is of Chinese origin. Thus funa-oroshi, "a launch," "ship lowered"; kami-hasami, "hair-cutting" (Japanese); but ki-kyō, "returning to the capital"; zō-sen, "building a ship," "shipbuilding" (Chinese). 18. Hyphens are used in Romanized Japanese for the sake of clearness in very long compounds, and in those whose first member ends in n while the second commences with a vowel or with y, as gen-an, "the draft" of a document, not to be confounded with genan, "a common man." In the present work hyphens are used very freely to illustrate the sense and derivation of many words. NOUNS USED AS ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS 19. Japanese has comparatively few true adjectives, and in a great number of cases uses nouns instead, just as in English we say "a gold watch," "a Turkey carpet." A noun may do duty for an adjective in three ways: a) As a member of a compound, thus: Butsu-ji, "Buddhist temple," from Butsu, "Buddha" or "Buddhism," and ji, “a temple"; tei-koku, "an imperial country," "an empire," from tei, "emperor," and koku, "country." b) Followed by the postposition no, "of," thus: gaikoku no kōsai, "foreign intercourse," lit., "intercourse of foreign countries." c) Followed by the attributive form of one of the tenses of the verb naru, "to be," thus: kenso naru michi, "a steep road," lit., "a steepness-being road"; shinsetsu narishi hito, "a kind person," lit., "kindness having-been person." 20. Words of this third class correspond to English adverbs, if the postposition ni (more rarely to) is substituted for the verb naru, thus: kenso ni, "steeply"; shizen to, "naturally." 21. Many words corresponding to English adverbs are formed by reduplicating nouns, as tabi-tabi, "often," from tabi, "a time." Many such reduplicated words are formed to produce the sound made by the thing signified. They are similar to the English "ding-dong," "pell-mell," etc.; thus gasa-gasa or goso-goso, representing a rustling sound; tobo-tobo, descriptive of the tottering steps of an old crone. Occasionally they are derived from adjective stems, as sugo-sugo, descriptive of low spirits, from sugoki, "ill at ease." 22. All Chinese words are treated as nouns by the Japanese, being used either as substantives proper, e.g., kin, "gold"; jitsu, "truth"; adjectively, according to one or other of the three methods mentioned in § 19; adverbially, by suffixing ni or to, e.g., jitsu ni, "truly"; as verbs, by suffixing suru, "to do," e.g., kes-suru, "to decide"; or as in § 21. CHAPTER III THE PRONOUN PERSONAL PRONOUNS 23. The Japanese words corresponding to the personal pronouns of European languages are simply nouns whose original significations are in most cases perfectly clear, and which are indeed still often used with those significations. They answer to such English expressions as "your humble servant" (meaning "I"). Self-depreciatory terms are naturally used to represent what we should call the first person, and complimentary terms to represent the second person, thus: boku, "servant" shō-sei, "small born," "young" yo (etymology uncertain), etc. Hei-ka, "beneath the steps of the throne" (the idea being that a subject does not I dare to address the sovereign directly, Your Majesty but only prostrates his petition at the Imperial Feet) Kak-ka, "beneath the council-chamber" Your Excellency Ki-ka, "beneath augustness" Kimi, "prince" nanji (believed to have originally meant You "renowned") sok-ka, "beneath the feet," etc. NOTE. Some of these are also used as titles suffixed to other nouns; thus: Tennō Heika, "His Majesty the Emperor." 24. Postpositions can be suffixed to the foregoing, as to any other nouns; thus: soregashi no, "of me," "my"; soregashi wo, "me." Instead of ware no, "of me," "my," the form waga (for ware ga) is in common use. 25. The plural suffixes are more often used with the quasipersonal pronouns than with any other class of nouns; thus: ware-ra (or ware-ware), watakushi-domo (sometimes also used for the singular), yo-ra, "we"; kimi-tachi, sokka-tachi, nanji ra, "you." In some cases plurality is otherwise expressed as by the term waga hai, lit., "our company," the usual equivalent for the English editorial "we." 26. The only word closely corresponding to our pronouns of the third person is kare, "that." Paraphrases, such as kano hito, "that person" (i.e., "he" or "she"), are sometimes employed, as are also the honorific designations mentioned above as equivalents for the second person. Very often the word sono, which properly means "that" (French ce), is used to signify "his," "her," "its"; thus: sono haha, "his mother." 27. The word onore (plural onore-ra), "self," may be of any person, but it is most commonly met with in the sense of "I." 28. The quasi-personal pronouns are very little used, the information they might supply being left to be gathered from the context in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred in which personal pronouns would be used by the speakers of European tongues. REFLEXIVE PRONOUNS 29. The nouns corresponding to our reflexive pronouns are jibun, jishin, onore, "self"; ono ga, "own"; waga, properly "my," but also used more generally in the sense of "own," "one's own." They are comparatively little used. DEMONSTRATIVE AND INTERROGATIVE PRONOUNS 30. The words answering to our demonstrative and interrogative pronouns are: kore, "this" (Latin hic, French celui-ci, celle-ci, ceci) |