Japanese consonant and vowel verbs

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The Japanese language has two types of regular verbs that involve the stem, and can be referred to as Japanese consonant and vowel verbs.

Video Japanese consonant and vowel verbs

Verb groups

The two groups of verbs are:

1. consonant-stem, godan-katsuy? (????, "5-class conjugation"), Group I, or -u verbs; and
2. vowel-stem, ichidan-katsuy? (????, "1-class conjugation"), Group II, or -ru verbs.

Most verbs are consonant-stem, but vowel-stem verbs are also common, hence the numbering "Group I" (consonant-stem, more common) and "Group II" (vowel-stem, less common). Sometimes categorization is expanded to include "Group III" (special cases) for the irregular verbs ?? suru and ?? kuru; note however that there are other Japanese irregular verbs, though they are generally only slightly irregular.

Consonant-stem verbs end in -u (-au, -iu, -uu, -ou), -ku, -gu, -su, -tsu, -nu, -bu, -mu or -ru, but not -eu, -zu, -dzu, -fu, -pu, or the defective columns -yu or -wu.

All vowel-stem verbs end in either -iru or -eru. However, not all verbs ending in -iru or -eru are vowel-stem verbs; for example, hashiru, "run", is a consonant-stem verb. Verbs ending in -aru, -uru and -oru also exist, and are all consonant-stem.

The Japanese names ("5-class" and "1-class") are based on the number of vowel suffixes used to form verb roots for conjugations. Classical Japanese had more verb groups (such as 2-class and 4-class) which are archaic in Modern Japanese.

Maps Japanese consonant and vowel verbs

Conjugation

Consonant-stem verbs conjugate differently from the vowel-stem verbs. Consonant-stem verbs conjugate after a consonant, and vowel-stem verbs conjugate after a vowel, as can be seen in the following examples:

1. Note that colloquially the ? ra is dropped meaning these two become ??? mireru and ???? tabereru.
   
2. Can also be written as mi.eru. The difference is like the difference between "can see" and "can be seen." Two consonant-stems that have also irregular potential forms are ik.eru/ik.areru ("can go") and kik.eru/kik.oeru ("can hear"). Other irregular potential forms are suru->dekiru ("can do") and kuru->korareru ("can come").

Consonant-stem verbs ending in -u (-au, -iu and -ou) may not appear to conjugate "after a consonant"; for example, the polite form of kau (??, "buy") is kaimasu (ka.u -> ka.imasu). However, the stem is in these cases technically considered to end in the consonant w. The w is normally suppressed, but surfaces in the negative form, as in kaw.anai ("does not buy"). Traditionally these verbs ended in -hu, which is still seen on occasion in historical kana usage, and thus unambiguously ended in h.

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Terminology

The terms "consonant-stem" and "vowel-stem" come from considering the invariant part of the verb (the verb stem) on the basis of phonemes - concretely, by writing in r?maji. This is an abstract perspective, as the consonant stem itself never occurs independently, but only with a following vowel, as Japanese words are formed of morae - concretely, writing in kana. For example, while the stem of yomu is yom-, the bare *yom is not an independent word.

The standard Japanese terms, ichidan and godan, literally "one row" and "five rows", more formally monograde and pentagrade, correspond to the number of different morae (kana) that appear in the stem forms of the verb, which are then optionally combined with a suffix to form a conjugated word. Formally, verbs are classified by which column of the goj?on their stem ends in, with vowel stem verbs further distinguished into i and e type. For example, ?? yomu is of ?????? ma-gy? go-dan katsuy? "ma-column five-row conjugation" type, as its stem form end in each of the five rows of the ? column, namely ?????:

• ?? ?? yoma- as in yomanai (negative, irrealis),
• ?? ?? yomi- as in yomimasu (polite non-past),
• ?? ?? yomu- as in yomu (plain non-past; dictionary form),
• ?? ?? yome- as in yomeba (conditional),
• ?? ?? yomo- as in yom? (yomou) (hortative/volitional).

Note that the volitional o stem is historically the negative a stem with euphonic sound change - and the o stem is only used for the volitional form - so these verbs were traditionally called ?? yodan "four-row, tetragrade", omitting the o form.

While the above uses are the most common uses of the respective stems, they are used in various other ways, particularly the i stem - for example ??? yomi-mono "reading material"; compare ??? tabe-mono "food" for vowel stem.

By contrast, vowel stem verbs have a single stem form, ending either in i or e, accordingly as -iru or -eru. These are referred to respectively as ??? kami ichi-dan "upper one-row" and ??? shimo ichi-dan "lower one-row", due to i being above e in the aiueo vowel ordering. In full terminology, the column of the final kana is also listed. For ?? ?? miru is of ??????? ma-gy? kami ichidan katsuy? "ma-column upper one-row conjugation" type and has stem:

• ? ? mi-

while ??? ??? taberu is of ??????? ba-gy? shimo ichidan katsuy? "ba-column lower one-row conjugation" and has stem:

• ?? ?? tabe-

In Japanese dictionaries, in the readings of conjugable words the stem and the inflectional suffix are separated by a dot (?), as in ?? ???? aka.i "red". This is used to distinguish verb type, with consonant stem verbs having only the last kana treated as suffix, while in vowel stem verbs the last two kana are treated as suffix. The column ? of the conjugation form corresponds to the kana immediately after the dot. For example:

• ?? ???? kae.ru "return" - consonant stem ????
• ??? ???? ka.eru "change" - vowel stem ?????

Note that for one-row verbs with only two kana, the entire verb is treated as a suffix, and no dot is displayed, as it would appear before the word. For example:

• ?? ??? i.ru "need" - consonant stem ????
• ?? ?? iru "be (animate)" - vowel stem ?????

The terms "Group I", "Group II", and "Group III" are primarily used in Japanese language education, and may be notated as (I), (II), (III) next to a verb. Similarly, the terms "u verb" (? verb) and "ru verb" (? verb) are educational terms, and may be notated as (?) or (?).

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Verbs ending in -iru and -eru

General

Vowel-stem verbs, such as ?? miru "to see" and ??? taberu "to eat," end either in -iru or -eru (there are no other basic-form endings for this group), but some consonant-stem verbs have these endings, too (e.g. ?? chiru "to scatter," ??? tsumeru "to pinch"), and there are also "homophone verbs" that have either a vowel stem or a consonant stem (e.g. ikiru vowel ??? "to live, to stay alive," consonant ?? "to become sultry"; shimeru vowel ??? "to close [something]," consonant ?? "to be damp").

Rules of thumb

• There are more consonant verbs than vowel verbs.
• All verbs not ending in -iru/-eru are consonant-stem verbs; this includes -aru/-uru/-oru verbs and verbs with a vowel ending in the basic form, such as ?? kau "to buy" and ?? iu "to say."
• Over half of verbs ending in -iru has a consonant stem (e.g., of the 419 -iru verbs listed in EDICT, 248 [ca. 60%] have a consonant stem), and the majority of verbs ending in -eru has a vowel stem (e.g., of the 3013 -eru verbs listed in EDICT, 2886 [ca. 95%] have a vowel stem).
• If the vowel i/e of the ending -iru/-eru is part of a kanji (as in ?? chigi-ru "to pledge" and ?? azake-ru "to ridicule"), as opposed to being part of an okurigana, chances are high that the verb has a consonant stem.
  • However, this rule is not applicable for two-syllable verbs (?? mi-ru, for example, has a vowel stem) and verbs written only in hiragana (for example, ??? bibiru "to be surprised" and ??? nomeru "to fall forward" have consonant stems). Some consonant-stem verbs also have the syllable with the ending vowel written in hiragana, e.g. ??? ma-jiru "to mingle" and the mentioned-above verb ??? tsu-meru "to pinch."
  • -eru verbs having the e sound written in hiragana listed in EDICT: 2934 (ca. 97% of -eru verbs listed there, of them 2901 vowel verbs and 33 consonant verbs)
  • -eru verbs having the e sound in a kanji listed in EDICT: 139 (of them 39 vowel verbs and 100 consonant verbs).

Examples of conjugation

The "homophone verbs" iru (vowel: ?? to be [animated] ; consonant: ?? to boil down, to roast, ?? to go in, ?? to need) and eru (vowel: ? ? to get, to obtain; consonant: ?? to carve, ?? to choose, ?? to ridicule):

¹ Potential forms of consonant verbs are conjugated like vowel verbs: ireru / ereru -> iremasu / eremasu, etc. The same is true for passive forms (irareru / erareru -> iraremasu / eraremasu, etc.). In vowel verbs, potential and passive forms are identical (irareru / erareru).

Rule of thumb: In vowel verbs, the basic-ending -ru is completely replaced by the new ending (e.g. iru / eru -> inai / enai), while in consonant verbs, the -r sound is kept and followed by another vowel, to which the new ending is added (e.g. iru / eru -> iranai / eranai). However, in the -te/-ta forms, consonant verbs drop the -r sound and replace it by -tte/-tta (e.g. itte, itta / ette, etta), while vowel verbs have -te/-ta (e.g. ite, ita / ete, eta).

Lists of verbs (examples)

The following lists are not complete; feel free to add other verbs.

Homophone vowel-stem and consonant-stem verbs ending in -iru

Homophone vowel-stem and consonant-stem verbs ending in -eru

Consonant-stem verbs ending in -iru

Note: Homophone verbs listed above are not repeated here.

Consonant-stem verbs ending in -eru

Note: Homophone verbs listed above are not repeated here.

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External links

• sci.lang.japan FAQ's list of iru and eru consonant-stem verbs.
• Aeron Buchanan's Japanese Verb Chart, a concise summary of all Japanese verbs conjugations on one sheet of A4

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References

• Seiichi Makino and Michio Tsutsui, A dictionary of intermediate Japanese grammar, published by The Japan Times, ISBN 4-7890-0775-8.

Source of the article : Wikipedia