attributive farms explained above may be termed its present tense, while the indefinite form is of no tense in particular, serving as it does to suspend the meaning until the end of the sentence be reached.

102. The memory will be assisted by noting that most of the tenses of the affirmative voice and all the tenses of the negative are formed by agglutinating the various inflections of the verb aru, "to be," to the indefinite form (hayaku), the vowel u of the latter being dropped, and the vowel a of the former being in some tenses changed into e; furthermore, that beku, beki, beshi, the suffix forming the potential mood (§ 119), is itself an adjective regularly conjugated through most of the tenses.

COMPARISON OF ADJECTIVES

103. Comparison in Japanese is more often implicit than explicit. Thus, when referring to the relative height of Fujiyama and Asamayama, a Japanese will not say, "Fujiyama is the higher," but simply, "Mount Fuji is high" (Fuji wa takashi), that is, in comparison with the other mountain mentioned. Indeed, even in English the so-called positive is often a comparative by implication; for when we say, for instance, that "Such and such a person is old," we mean that he is older than most other people. Comparison may, however, be made explicit in Japanese by using the postposition yori, "than" (properly "from"). Thus: Fuji wa Asama yori takashi, lit., "As for Fuji, than Asama, it is high," i.e., "Fuji is high as considered from the standpoint of Asama." Again: Asama wa Fuji yori takakarazu, “As for Asama, it is not high as considered from the standpoint of Fuji," i.e., "Asama is less high than Fuji." If three or more mountains were spoken of, we should have what in English is termed the superlative; the Japanese idiom remains the same. Here is another example: Tenka no yama kore yori takaki wa nashi, "There is no higher mountain than this" (lit., "world's mountains, this than, high is-not").

104. When not simply implied, or expressed by yori, the comparative and superlative may be indicated by prefixing to the positive some such word as nao, "still more"; itatte, "extremely"; oi ni, "greatly"; sukoburu, "very"; kiwamete, "extremely." The superlative form is also sometimes indicated by suffixing the word sem-ban, "a thousand myriads," thus: kinodoku semban, "inexpressibly sorry."

105. Excess of a quality is, like the comparative and superlative, generally denoted by the adjective in its simple form; thus: "This is too high" will be in Japanese simply "This is high" (Kore wa takashi), viz.: by implication, higher than it ought to be. The expression may be rendered more explicit by suffixing the verb suguru to the adjective stem, as taka-suguru, lit., "to go past in height." The word amari, "excessive" may also be used, prefixed to the simple adjective; thus: Amari takashi, "altogether too high," but this is rare.

PARADIGM OF ADJECTIVES

106. Hayaki, "early" (stem haya), affirmative voice.

j) Gerund..

. having been early (by) being early

PARADIGM OF ADJECTIVES

107. Hayaki, "early" (stem haya), negative voice.

h) Hypothetical Concessive hayakarazaru mo ........ though (I, etc.) should not

j) Present: Conclusive....hayakaru-bekarazu.......(I, etc.) will, shall, would,

Attributive..

.hayakaru-bekalazaru

should, may, might, can,

could, ought to, not be early

k) Past: Conclusive.......hayakaru-bekarazariki . . . . (I, etc.) should, etc., not

Attributive.

Oblique

1) Conditional.

m) Hypothetical

n) Concessive.

hayakaru-bekarazareba...as or since (I, etc.) should,

etc., not be early

hayakaru-bekarazu(m)ba..if, (I, etc.) should, etc., not

be early

hayakaru

bekarazaredomo*......though (I, etc.) should, etc.,

not be early

............ (I, etc.) cause (someone) not CHAPTER VIII

THE VERB

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

108. The functions of the Japanese verb differ in some important respects from those of the verbs of European languages. Distinctions of person and number are utterly foreign to it. On the other hand, many of the tenses have two forms-an attributive and a conclusive-while there is a general indefinite form which does duty for all the tenses. The verb and adjective thus closely resemble each other; and it is impossible to understand the grammar of the verb, unless the considerations advanced in the chapter on adjectives have been thoroughly mastered.

To recapitulate briefly what has there been set forth: 109. The indefinite form stands at the end of each member of a set of clauses excepting the final member; and the tense or mood by which it should be rendered can only be known when the verb or adjective of that final clause is reached; thus: Natsu kitari, haru yuku, "Summer comes and spring goes." Here the indefinite form kitari must be rendered by the present, because the final verb yuku is in the present. (See first conjugation, § 118.) The indefinite form of verbs is likewise used to form compounds (in adjectives it is the stem that performs this function), as kitari-tou, "to come and ask," and tsuge-tamau, "to deign to inform" (tsuge being indefinite form of tsuguru, second conjugation, § 134).

110. The conclusive forms stand only at the end of a sentence. Thus: Hito kitareri, "The people have come" (first conjugation, § 118c).

111. The attributive forms serve to qualify nouns, herein resembling the participles of European languages. Thus: Kitareru hito, lit., "the have-come people," i.e., "the people who