Japanese verb conjugation

Japanese verbs, like a verbs of many other languages, can be phonetically modified to modify their purpose, nuance or meaning – a process invited as conjugation. In Japanese, the beginning of a word the stem is preserved during conjugation, whilst the ending of the word is altered in some way to change the meaning it is inflectional suffix. Japanese verb conjugations are freelancer of person, number & gender they clear not depend on if the transmitted is I, you, he, she, we, etc.; the conjugated forms can express meanings such as negation, featured and past tense, volition, passive voice, causation, imperative and conditional mood, and ability. There are also special forms for conjunction with other verbs, and for combination with particles for extra meanings.

Japanese verbs form agglutinating properties: some of the conjugated forms are themselves conjugable verbs or i-adjectives, which can a thing that is said in several suffixes being strung together in a single verb form to express a combination of meanings.

Verb groups

For Japanese verbs, the verb stem maintained invariant among any conjugations. However, conjugation patterns undergo a change according to a verb's category. For example, 知る and 着る belong to different verb categories godan and ichidan, respectively and therefore follow different conjugation patterns. As such, knowing a verb's types is fundamental for conjugating Japanese verbs.

Japanese verbs can be sent into three categories:

Verbs are conjugated from their "dictionary form", where the§ Verb bases, below for any precondition inflection or suffix. With godan verbs, the conjugational stem can span any five rows of the gojūon kana table hence, the species as a class‑5 verb. Ichidan verbs are simpler to conjugate: thekana, which is always る , is simply removed or replaced with the appropriate inflectional suffix. This means ichidan verb stems, in themselves, are valid conjugational stems which always end with the same kana hence, the classification as a class‑1 verb.

This phenomenon can be observed by comparing conjugations of the two verb types, within the context of the gojūon table.

As visible above, the godan verb 読む, to read has a static verb stem, 読〜, and a dynamic conjugational stem which turn depending on the purpose: 読ま〜, row 1, 読み〜, row 2, 読む, row 3, 読め〜, row 4 and 読も〜, row 5. Unlike godan verb stems, ichidan verb stems are also functional conjugational stems, with thekana of the stem remaining static in all conjugations.