European languages are famous for their irregular verbs. English is certainly no exception. Japanese, on the other hand, has very few irregular verbs. Which I guess is really good, since in many other ways the language is one of the toughest languages for a Westerner to learn.
Japanese verb irregularity can be described as follows. There are two highly irregular verbs, two somewhat irregular verbs, and a family of "pseudo-irregular" verbs which aren't actually irregular, they just make verb classification more annoying. Also, unlike in European languages, the two Japanese copula ("to be" words) are NOT verbs.
The two highly irregular verbs are する (suru) "to do", and くる (kuru) "to come". For these verbs, just about every conjugation must be specially memorized.
The two moderately irregular verbs are 行く (iku) "to go", and ある (aru) "to exist/to have (inanimate)". These are basically irregular in just one conjugation each, although it's hard to count conjugations since they're closely intertwined. In Japanese, conjugations can themselves be conjugated, and the results can be conjugated again, and so one irregularity can propagate into many obscure compound conjugations, but basically these verbs only have one irregular "base" conjugation each.
Next, there are some verbs which are "pseudo-irregular". They're not really irregular at all, it's just that their existence makes it more difficult to classify verbs. Besides the highly irregular する (suru) and くる (kuru) verbs, Japanese verbs are divided into two groups: group 1 (一段 "ichidan") and group 5 (五段 "godan"). Yeah, I know, that's a weird numbering system, it's because Old Japanese had more groups of verbs, but now they've coalesced into just groups 1 and 5. It's ALMOST very easy to see which verbs are which: the general rule is, if a verb ends in "iru" or "eru", then it's group 1, otherwise it's group 5. However, life's not that simple, and a small collection of verbs which end in "iru"/"eru" are in group 5. Not a big deal, and not an actual "irregularity", but still a little annoying when you're first starting the language.
Finally, the Japanese copula is much different than English. In English, the copula is "to be", and it can express either equality ("The animal IS a cat"), or existence ("There IS a cat", "I think, therefore I AM"). In Japanese, equality and existence are handled by different words. Existence is itself split into a verb for animate things which exist-- いる (iru)-- and a verb for inanimate things which exist-- ある (aru).
But equality, is not expressed as a verb at all. When it's included in the sentence at all (it can be omitted if it's clear from context), it's done with either だ (da) or です (desu), depending on the level of formality. (Actually, there are two other copula, でございます (de gozaimasu) and である (de aru), the former is very formal and the latter is mostly only used in writing) Unlike in English, these existence copula are not verbs. It's difficult to even classify them, using the classifications we use for English. They share traits with verbs, but also with prepositions and even interjections. Basically, it's a mistake to try to understand them with the tools of English grammar.
UPDATE: In the comments, Thomas reminded me that some of the very formal Japanese language still uses older conjugations. To be precise, the verbs いらっしゃる ("irassharu") ("to come/go/be (rather formal)"), くださる ("kudasaru") ("to give" (rather formal)), ござる ("gozaru") ("to be" (rather formal)), なさる ("nasaru") ("to do" (rather formal)), and maybe some others. These verbs are seldom used in any except a few select conjugations (which are irregular). They're more like special fixed expressions, though. For example, most students learn the conjugation ください ("kudasai") as simply meaning "please", and don't realize it's a conjugated verb at all. Likewise with the others, for the most part.
This pretty much exhausts Japanese irregular verbs. There are a few other isolated irregularities scattered here and there involving some really obscure conjugations, but they basically never come up in practice. This is in comparison with languages like English, Spanish, or German, where there are almost more irregular verbs than there are regular verbs.
WHY ARE JAPANESE VERBS SO REGULAR?
This is pure conjecture, but I think the high regularity of Japanese verbs might have something to do with the extra structure which they have, thanks to the Chinese characters. Japanese verbs use both the Chinese characters, and a Japanese alphabet (actually a syllabary, but let's not be pedantic). The Chinese characters are called "kanji" and the syllabary is called "hiragana". Basically, by their very nature, Chinese characters can't be conjugated-- if they conjugated, you'd have to have a whole new character for "ran", different than the character for "run". So all the conjugation has to take place in the hiragana part of the verb. In English, a verb, in any conjugated form, is just a homogeneous soup of Roman letters. But in Japanese, verbs have so much more structure, thanks to the kanji-hiragana mingling.
If my theory is right, it shows that contrary to common belief, the Chinese characters don't strictly make a language harder. In many ways, they make the language easier, once you get past the initial intimidation factor of all those characters.
Here are some other articles I've written, inspired by my study of Japanese and more generally my quest to learn every language on Earth.
The Four Conditionals In Japanese
Ergative Verbs
Examples Of Japanese Onomatopoeia
Will The Languages Of The World Ever Merge?
Studying Foreign Language Proper Nouns
Japanese verb irregularity can be described as follows. There are two highly irregular verbs, two somewhat irregular verbs, and a family of "pseudo-irregular" verbs which aren't actually irregular, they just make verb classification more annoying. Also, unlike in European languages, the two Japanese copula ("to be" words) are NOT verbs.
The two highly irregular verbs are する (suru) "to do", and くる (kuru) "to come". For these verbs, just about every conjugation must be specially memorized.
The two moderately irregular verbs are 行く (iku) "to go", and ある (aru) "to exist/to have (inanimate)". These are basically irregular in just one conjugation each, although it's hard to count conjugations since they're closely intertwined. In Japanese, conjugations can themselves be conjugated, and the results can be conjugated again, and so one irregularity can propagate into many obscure compound conjugations, but basically these verbs only have one irregular "base" conjugation each.
Next, there are some verbs which are "pseudo-irregular". They're not really irregular at all, it's just that their existence makes it more difficult to classify verbs. Besides the highly irregular する (suru) and くる (kuru) verbs, Japanese verbs are divided into two groups: group 1 (一段 "ichidan") and group 5 (五段 "godan"). Yeah, I know, that's a weird numbering system, it's because Old Japanese had more groups of verbs, but now they've coalesced into just groups 1 and 5. It's ALMOST very easy to see which verbs are which: the general rule is, if a verb ends in "iru" or "eru", then it's group 1, otherwise it's group 5. However, life's not that simple, and a small collection of verbs which end in "iru"/"eru" are in group 5. Not a big deal, and not an actual "irregularity", but still a little annoying when you're first starting the language.
Finally, the Japanese copula is much different than English. In English, the copula is "to be", and it can express either equality ("The animal IS a cat"), or existence ("There IS a cat", "I think, therefore I AM"). In Japanese, equality and existence are handled by different words. Existence is itself split into a verb for animate things which exist-- いる (iru)-- and a verb for inanimate things which exist-- ある (aru).
But equality, is not expressed as a verb at all. When it's included in the sentence at all (it can be omitted if it's clear from context), it's done with either だ (da) or です (desu), depending on the level of formality. (Actually, there are two other copula, でございます (de gozaimasu) and である (de aru), the former is very formal and the latter is mostly only used in writing) Unlike in English, these existence copula are not verbs. It's difficult to even classify them, using the classifications we use for English. They share traits with verbs, but also with prepositions and even interjections. Basically, it's a mistake to try to understand them with the tools of English grammar.
UPDATE: In the comments, Thomas reminded me that some of the very formal Japanese language still uses older conjugations. To be precise, the verbs いらっしゃる ("irassharu") ("to come/go/be (rather formal)"), くださる ("kudasaru") ("to give" (rather formal)), ござる ("gozaru") ("to be" (rather formal)), なさる ("nasaru") ("to do" (rather formal)), and maybe some others. These verbs are seldom used in any except a few select conjugations (which are irregular). They're more like special fixed expressions, though. For example, most students learn the conjugation ください ("kudasai") as simply meaning "please", and don't realize it's a conjugated verb at all. Likewise with the others, for the most part.
This pretty much exhausts Japanese irregular verbs. There are a few other isolated irregularities scattered here and there involving some really obscure conjugations, but they basically never come up in practice. This is in comparison with languages like English, Spanish, or German, where there are almost more irregular verbs than there are regular verbs.
WHY ARE JAPANESE VERBS SO REGULAR?
This is pure conjecture, but I think the high regularity of Japanese verbs might have something to do with the extra structure which they have, thanks to the Chinese characters. Japanese verbs use both the Chinese characters, and a Japanese alphabet (actually a syllabary, but let's not be pedantic). The Chinese characters are called "kanji" and the syllabary is called "hiragana". Basically, by their very nature, Chinese characters can't be conjugated-- if they conjugated, you'd have to have a whole new character for "ran", different than the character for "run". So all the conjugation has to take place in the hiragana part of the verb. In English, a verb, in any conjugated form, is just a homogeneous soup of Roman letters. But in Japanese, verbs have so much more structure, thanks to the kanji-hiragana mingling.
If my theory is right, it shows that contrary to common belief, the Chinese characters don't strictly make a language harder. In many ways, they make the language easier, once you get past the initial intimidation factor of all those characters.
Here are some other articles I've written, inspired by my study of Japanese and more generally my quest to learn every language on Earth.
The Four Conditionals In Japanese
Ergative Verbs
Examples Of Japanese Onomatopoeia
Will The Languages Of The World Ever Merge?
Studying Foreign Language Proper Nouns
Posts
4 comments:
Some other irregular verbs:
いらっしゃる, which becomes いらっしゃいます (る->い）
くださる, which becomes くださいます (again, る->い）
言う, which has an irregular pronunciation 「ゆう」, but is spelled いう.
On the whole, your analysis sounds reasonable to me. Just one thing: A copula である is actually very common in the Japanese written language. You can see it everywhere on newspaper, books and magazines.
Thanks thomas and rika for the heads up! I modified the article to include your input!
Regarding the naming of the two groups "ichidan" and "godan" : while it is true that in old japanese their were more than two groups of verbs, the number in the naming doesn't have any relation to it. "ichidan" and "godan" respectively means "one row" and "five rows", and was named after the corresponding number of row used in the kana chart by their conjugation. While every ichidan verb form always ends with the same vowel ("i" or "e"), the modern godan verbs use all five vowel of the kana chart in their conjugation, hence the naming.
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