Japanese particles - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Japanese particles, or , are suffixes or short words in Japanese grammar

Japanese grammar

The Japanese language has a regular agglutinative verb morphology, with both productive and fixed elements. In language typology, it has many features divergent from most European languages. Its phrases are exclusively head-final and compound sentences are exclusively left-branching. There are many...

that immediately follow the modified noun, verb, adjective, or sentence. Their grammatical range

Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....

can indicate various meanings and functions, such as speaker affect

Affect (linguistics)

In linguistics, speaker affect is attitude or emotion that a speaker brings to an utterance. Affects such as sarcasm, contempt, dismissal, distaste, disgust, disbelief, exasperation, boredom, anger, joy, respect or disrespect, sympathy, pity, gratitude, wonder, admiration, humility, and awe are...

and assertiveness.

Orthography and diction

Japanese particles are written in hiragana

Hiragana

is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...

in modern Japanese, though some of them also have kanji

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

forms. Particles follow the same rules of phonetic transcription as all Japanese words, with the exception of は (written ha, pronounced wa), へ (written he, pronounced e) and を (written using a hiragana character with no other use in modern Japanese, originally assigned as wo, now usually pronounced o, though some speakers render it as wo). These exceptions are a relic of historical kana usage

Historical kana usage

The , or , refers to the in general use until orthographic reforms after World War II; the current orthography was adopted by Cabinet order in 1946. By that point the historical orthography was no longer in accord with Japanese pronunciation...

Types of particles

There are eight types of particles, depending on what function they serve.

が、の、を、に、へ、と、で、から、より
か、の、や、に、と、やら、なり、だの
か、の、や、な、わ、とも、かしら
さ、よ、ね
ばかり、まで、だけ、ほど、くらい、など、なり、やら
は、も、こそ、でも、しか、さえ、だに
や、が、て、のに、ので、から、ところが、けれども
の、から

Note that some particles appear in two types. For example, "kara" is a case marker where it describes where something is from or what happens after something; when it describes a cause it is a conjunctive particle.

List of particles

bakari
bakari ka
bakashi
dake
da no
darake
de
de mo
ni te
dokoro ka
e
ga
hodo
ka
kai
ka na

kara
ka shira
kedo
kiri
koro/goro
koso
kurai/gurai
made
made ni
me
mo
mono/mon
mono de
mono ka/mon-ka
mononara
mono o

na and naa
nado
nanka/nante
nara
ne
ni
ni wa
no
no de
nomi
no ni
o
sa/saa
sae
de sae
sae...ba/ra

shi
shika
sura
to
to ka
to mo
tte
tteba
wa
ya
yara
yo
yori
ze
zo
zutsu

ni and de

Ni and de can both be used to show location
Inessive case
Inessive case is a locative grammatical case. This case carries the basic meaning of "in": for example, "in the house" is "talo·ssa" in Finnish, "maja·s" in Estonian, "etxea·n" in Basque, "nam·e" in Lithuanian and "ház·ban" in Hungarian.In Finnish the inessive case is typically formed by adding...

, corresponding to the prepositions "in" or "at" in English. Their uses are mutually exclusive.

Ni, when used to show location, is used only with stative verb

Stative verb

A stative verb is one that asserts that one of its arguments has a particular property . Statives differ from other aspectual classes of verbs in that they are static; that is, they have undefined duration...

s such as iru, "to be, exist;" aru, "to be, exist, have;" and sumu, "to live, inhabit."

Nihon-ni sundeiru. "I live in Japan."

Gakkō-ni iru. "I am in school."

De is used with action verbs

Dynamic verb

A dynamic or finitive verb is a verb that shows continued or progressive action on the part of the subject. This is the opposite of a stative verb....

to convey the place of action, as opposed to location of being.

Gakkō-de neru. "I sleep in school."

*Gakkō-ni neru. *"I sleep to school," is not usually used.

ni and e

Ni and e can both indicate direction of motion
Lative case
Lative is a case which indicates motion to a location. It corresponds to the English prepositions "to" and "into". The lative case belongs to the group of the general local cases together with the locative and separative case...

, meaning "to" or "at" in English. In this sense, e is perhaps closer to English "towards" in terms of use (see example below). As long as ni is used directionally, it is possible to substitute e in its place. Ni used in other senses cannot be replaced by e:

Gakkō ni iku. "I'm going to school," where gakkō, "school," is the destination

Lative case

Lative is a case which indicates motion to a location. It corresponds to the English prepositions "to" and "into". The lative case belongs to the group of the general local cases together with the locative and separative case...

of iku, "go."

Gakkō e iku. "I'm going to school," where gakkō, "school," is the destination of iku, "go."

Gakkō ni iru. "I'm at school," where gakkō, "school," is the location

Inessive case

Inessive case is a locative grammatical case. This case carries the basic meaning of "in": for example, "in the house" is "talo·ssa" in Finnish, "maja·s" in Estonian, "etxea·n" in Basque, "nam·e" in Lithuanian and "ház·ban" in Hungarian.In Finnish the inessive case is typically formed by adding...

of iru, "be;" not a destination.

*Gakkō e iru. *"I'm to school," is not a possible construction since "be" is not a verb of motion.

Tomodachi ni au "I'll meet my friends," where tomodachi, "friends," is the indirect object of au, "meet;" not a destination.

*Tomodachi e au *"I'll meet to my friends," which is impossible because "meet" is not a verb of motion.

Hon o kai ni itta "I went to buy a book," where kai ni, "to buy," shows purpose or intent, and is a verbal adverb; not destination.

*Hon o kai e itta *"I went towards buying a book," is not possible because kai, "buying," cannot be a destination.

Indicating direction, using e instead of ni is preferred when ni is used non-directionally in proximity:

Tomodachi ni ai ni Kyōto e itta. "I went to Kyoto to meet my friends."

ga and o

In some cases, ga and o are interchangeable. For example, with the tai form, meaning "want to", it is possible to say either of the following:

Gohan ga tabetai. "I want to eat rice."

Gohan o tabetai. "I want to eat rice."

Similarly, suki, a na adjective

Japanese adjectives

According to many analyses, the Japanese language does not have words that function as adjectives in a syntactic sense, i.e. tree diagrams of Japanese sentences can be constructed without employing adjective phrases. However, there are words that function as adjectives in a semantic sense...

meaning "liked", can take either ga or o:

Kimi ga suki da "I like you"

Kimi o suki de yokatta "I'm glad I like you" (words from a popular song)

ni and to

Ni and to are sometimes interchangeable in forms like ni naru and to naru. The to naru form suggests a natural change, whereas ni naru suggests some indirect agent.

ya and to

Ya is used for incomplete lists, whereas to is used for complete ones.

Differences from English prepositions

Many Japanese particles fill the role of prepositions in English, but they are unlike prepositions in many ways. Japanese does not have equivalents of prepositions like "on", and often uses particles along with verbs and nouns to modify another word where English might use prepositions. For example, ue is a noun meaning "top/up"; and ni tsuite is a fixed verbal expression meaning "concerning", and when used as postpositions:

Tēburu-no　　-ue-ni　　　aru.

Table-OF　　top/up-AT　exists.

"It's on the table."

Ano　　hito-wa, 　　　gitaa-ni 　　tsuite　　nandemo　wakaru.

That　person-TOPIC　guitar-TO　concerning　anything　　knows.

"That person knows everything about guitars."