Japanese godan and ichidan verbs explained

The Japanese language has two main types of verbs which are referred to as and .

Verb groups

Categories are important when conjugating Japanese verbs, since conjugation patterns vary according to the verb's category. For example, and belong to different verb categories (pentagrade and monograde, respectively) and therefore follow different conjugation patterns. Most Japanese verbs are allocated into two categories:[1]

Statistically, there are far more pentagrade verbs[2] than monograde verbs.[3]

Sometimes categorization is expanded to include a third category of irregular verbs—which most notably include the verbs and . Classical Japanese had more verb groups, such as [4] and,[5] [6] which are archaic in Modern Japanese.

Terminology

Within the terms and, the numbers and correspond with the number of rows that a verb stem (or inflectional suffix) can span in the gojūon kana table. This is best visualized by comparing various verb conjugations to an extracted column of the gojūon table:

Pentagrade FormPentagrade Verb
Gojūon table
'ma' column
Monograde Form
NegativePoliteDictionaryPotentialVolitional
NegativeJapanese: 読'''ま'''ない
PoliteJapanese: 読'''み'''ます
Japanese: '''み'''ない
Japanese: '''み'''ます
Japanese: '''み'''る
Japanese: '''み'''られる
Japanese: '''み'''よう
Monograde Verb
Dictionary
(no conjugation)
Japanese: 読'''む'''
PotentialJapanese: 読'''め'''る
Japanese: 止'''め'''ない
Japanese: 止'''め'''ます
Japanese: 止'''め'''る
Japanese: 止'''め'''られる
Japanese: 止'''め'''よう
Monograde Verb
VolitionalJapanese: 読'''も'''う

In the table above, the verb uses kana from all 5 rows of the gojūon table in its inflectional suffix—,,, and —amongst its conjugations. Thus, it is classified as a "class-5" (or more formally "pentagrade") verb. Meanwhile, the verbs and each use kana from only 1 row of the gojūon table in their verb-stem's suffix— and respectively. Thus, they are classified as a "class-1" (or more formally "monograde") verbs.

Advanced terminology

As monograde verbs only fall into the or rows, they can be further classified into the and subgroups respectively. This is due to being above in the vowel ordering.In full terminology, the gojūon column name of the verb stem's suffix becomes a prefix of these subgroups. For example, the monograde verb has its verb stem in the upper row of the and is formally classified as a verb; meanwhile, the monograde verb has its verb stem in the lower row of the 'ma' column and is formally classified as a verb.Pentagrade verbs are also formally classified into subgroups, but instead use the column name of the verb's inflectional suffix. For example, the pentagrade verb is in the 'ma' column, so it is formally classified as a verb.

Japanese language education

Within Japanese language education, various terminologies are used in lieu of the Japanese nomenclature for "pentagrade" and "monograde" verbs.

Pentagrade verbs Monograde verbs Example literature
Common terminologyGroup 1 Group 2 Group 3A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar
Group I Group II Group III
Uncommon terminologyIrregular verbsGENKI
Rare terminologyConsonant stem verbals Vowel stem verbals -

In literature adopting the "Group I / II / III" terminology, the terms (I), (II) or (III) may be notated beside verbs.Similarly, (う) or (る) may be notated beside verbs in literature adopting the " / " terminology.

Consonant and vowel nomenclature

See also: Japanese verb conjugations.

The terms "consonant stem verbs" and "vowel stem verbs" come from a pattern that emerges from studying the actual structure of the words rather than the written representation. When considering the invariant part of the verb (the verb stem), the final phoneme determines the classification of the verb group. If the verb stem's final phoneme:

Negative



Polite form



Plain form



Potential form



Volitional form



Invariant rōmaji
Final letterm → consonantr → consonanti → vowele → vowel
ClassificationConsonant stemConsonant stemVowel stemVowel stem

There are criticisms of the consonant and vowel nomenclature:

  1. When pentagrade verbs end with, the verb's invariant stem always ends with a vowel, yet is still classified as having a consonant stem. For example, has the vowel "a" as the invariant suffix, yet it is still categorized as a "consonant stem verb".
    In these cases, this apparent contradiction is resolved by realizing that the verb's invariant stem ends in the consonant w. The w is normally suppressed, but surfaces in the negative form, as seen in . Traditionally these verbs ended in -hu, which is still seen on occasion in historical kana usage, and thus unambiguously ended in h.

  2. When godan verbs end with, the verb's invariant stem always ends with an "s" rather than a "t". Since the consonant stem terminology focuses on rōmaji, this could lead to conjugation errors. For example, in its negative conjugation does not become as the consonant stem system might have one believe; the correct conjugation is . The matter is resolved when phonemic notation of "tu" used by Kunrei-shiki romanization is applied instead.

  3. In the case of the past-tense and te forms of conjugation, the 'invariant' stem changes such that the consonant is removed from all godan verbs (except verbs ending in or). This means the defining characteristic of consonant stem verbs cannot be used to define consonant stem verbs for the past-tense or te forms. The true "invariant stem", which is consistent amongst all conjugations, precedes the so-called "invariant consonant".

Verb classification

Classifying verbs is simple in theory:

  1. Take the verb in its plain, negative form. The result will be: verb-stem + {{nihongo krt||ない|nai}}
  2. If the last character of the verb-stem (ignoring the "{{nihongo2|ない}}"):
Negative verb Last character of verb stem Rhymes with Group
Pentagrade verb
Pentagrade verb
Monograde verb
Monograde verb

This classification system works for all Japanese verbs, with three exceptions: is a pentagrade verb, and both and are instead classified as irregular verbs.[7]

Dot notation

In some Japanese dictionaries, the readings of conjugable words may have the stem and the inflectional suffix separated by a dot (・). For example, the adjective may be written as to separate the static prefix from the dynamic suffix.

This system also describes the verb group classification: in pentagrade verbs, the dot is placed before the last kana; in monograde verbs, the dot is placed before the last 2 kana (except for 2-kana monograde verbs, which have no dot).

However, regardless of the dot's position, the inflectional suffix is always the last kana of any monograde verb.

Naive verb classification

A caveat of accurately classifying verb groups is that you must have pre-existing knowledge of the verb's negative form. In practice, people tend to learn the verb's plain form first. As such, Japanese language educators usually teach strategies for naive verb classification. Whilst such strategies are not comprehensive, they generally remain useful in the context of regular daily conversations that language beginners will likely encounter. Here is one such strategy:

Step Verb (Plain Form) If Yes If Not
1 Is the verb one of the most common "exceptions":,,,,,, Pentagrade verb
Group 1
Go to Step 2
2 Does the verb suffix rhyme with or ? Monograde verb
Group 2
Go to Step 3
3 Is the verb or ? Irregular verb
Group 3
Pentagrade verb
Group 1

Naive strategies, such as this one, tend to misidentify pentagrade verbs ending with —specifically, when pentagrade verbs rhyme with or . Therefore, when a monograde verb is concluded from a naive strategy, it is more efficient to confirm the verb's classification in a dictionary. However, there are other rules-of-thumb to more accurately discriminate such verbs.

Rules of thumb

If a dictionary is unavailable, it becomes difficult to discriminate pentagrade verbs from monograde verbs when they rhyme with or . The following heuristics aim to improve the accuracy of naive classification:

This includes verbs that rhyme with, and, which are pentagrade verbs.

248 of the 419 verbs [ca. 60%] listed in JMdict are pentagrade verbs.

2886 of the 3013 verbs [ca. 95%] listed in JMdict are monograde verbs.Kana and kanji based heuristics for and verbs:

Pentagrade verbs resembling monograde verbs

There are many pentagrade verbs which may be mistaken for being monograde verbs in some cases

. On the surface, this may seem like a problem that only affects conjugation patterns, since pentagrade verbs and monograde verbs conjugate differently . However there are many verbs that, despite having the same spelling, have different meanings and belong to different verb groups. For example:

When reading verbs such as these, the correct word meaning can be ascertained through the different kanji or accentuation. However, ambiguity is usually removed if the verbs have been conjugated somehow, because different word groups conjugate with slightly varying pronunciations. For example:

Verb
conjugation
Pentagrade verb
Monograde verb
Pentagrade verb
Monograde verb
Negative



Polite form



Potential form



Volitional form



Since there are so many pentagrade verbs that resemble monograde verbs, it is impractical to create or memorize an exhaustive list of words.

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Banno . Eri . Ikeda . Yoko . Ohno . Yutaka . Shinagawa . Chikako . Tokashiki . Kyoko . GENKI: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese I. 2020 . The Japan Times . Tokyo, Japan . 978-4-7890-1730-5 . 3 . 86–88 . Lesson 3, Grammar 1: Verb Conjugation.
  2. Web site: JMdictDB - Pentagrade Verbs - 7434 Search results. 21 March 2021. www.edrdg.org.
  3. Web site: JMdictDB - Monograde Verbs - 3733 Search results. 21 March 2021. www.edrdg.org.
  4. Web site: JMdictDB - Bigrade Verbs - 61 Search results . www.edrdg.org . 21 March 2021.
  5. Web site: JMdictDB - Quadrigrade Verbs - 62 Search results . www.edrdg.org . 21 March 2021.
  6. Book: Wixted . John Timothy . A Handbook to Classical Japanese . 2006 . Cornell University East Asia Program . Ithaca, New York . 978-1-933947-04-4 . 28–32 . Verb Basics.
  7. Book: Makino . Seiichi . Tsutsui . Michio . A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar . 1989 . The Japan Times . Tokyo, Japan . 978-47-89004-54-1 . 80 . 578.