Talk:Japanese conjugation

Summary of verb conjugations

I see now someone has (re)added a "Summary" section at the beginning. I have to say, I'm not a fan. There are again lots of apparent contradictions and things that only make sense if you already know them. Some summary of all the main conjugated forms (slightly more than are contained in the table we were discussing above) would certainly be helpful, but it ought to be properly explained, ought to come after the initial explanation of what ichidan and godan verbs are, and ought not to try to duplicate the entire content of the whole article in hard-to-read footnotes. W. P. Uzer (talk) 18:10, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

The following message was left on my talk page, but I'm transferring it here for relevance and closing the discussion on my talk page:

Hey, I just wanted to let you know I added the Summary of verb conjugations back into the Japanese_verb_conjugation Wikipedia page. I know you've recently been a major editor of this page, and I'm sure certain you've worked diligently to make sure that this page was as accurate as possible, but regardless I find the summary to be demonstrably important and useful and I 100% believe it was a mistake to remove it without adding a modified variant back in its place. As such I've added an older version of it back in. Feel free to remove it again if necessary, but I kindly ask that you put something similar back in its place. I am a strong proponent of having the summary of verb conjugations on this page as it's been of great help to me with my previous assignments. Dimanor3 (talk) 02:54, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree with @W. P. Uzer, I think the re-introduction of this section has introduced inconsistency in prose and contradictions, some of which are/have been discussed on this talk page (for example, the use of the term "infinitive"). I also agree that IF a summary is necessary, it should follow the "Verb groups" section, or perhaps follow the "Verb bases" section.

However, I don't believe a summary is necessary at all. Firstly, every conjugation section is a concise summary in of themselves. If anybody comes to this Wikipedia page for quick answers, they could jump to the appropriate conjugation heading with the table that clearly delivers example sentences and example conjugations, complete with the conjugational pattern.

Secondly, the verb groups table, which is the first subheading in the article, is effectively a summary of conjugations.

Thirdly, complex conjugations such as the euphonics-based "-te" and "-ta" forms, require a comprehensive list of verbs to demonstrate. This is in direct contradiction to the notion of "summarising", and certainly verbose to include such a list to demonstrate other conjugations (polite/negative/potential/etc.).

Fourthly, I think it's somewhat challenging to introduce grammatical conjugations which are alien to the English language, front-and-centre in a summary table on English Wikipedia without any sort of detailed explanation. Specifically, the conditional, -te, volitional and causative forms are highly foreign in terms of grammar and would require an explanation if we have a dedicated summary section. To be clear, these functions don't modify the verbs in English and instead use separate words in addition to the regular English verb, whereas Japanese verbs conjugate to form these functions.

Fifthly, Aeron Buchanan's Japanese Verb Chart at the start of the article fulfils exactly what the proposed summary tables seek to convey. So the summary table already exists.

In terms of engineering philosophy, a famous person once discussed how engineers have wasted much time optimising what shouldn't exist. I feel investment in this section offers diminishing returns, even if we optimised it and addressed all of the problems discussed so far. Additionally, as it appears on the page now (which I will revert after I post this comment), it's large, not aesthetic and confusing. @Dimanor3, whilst your intentions were in good faith, in contrast to what you have said, I think re-introducing this section is a mistake. I don't think replacing it with an optimised alternative is a good idea, for it needs not exist in the first place. As for your assignments, I suggest using Aeron Buchanan's Japanese Verb Chart, or putting the section in your personal Wikipedia sandbox page to refer to, if you really do find it useful. — JKVeganAbroad (talk) 04:25, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

What is (-)masu?

Is there a consensus as to the status of the polite/formal -masu? In the section on the conjunctive, masu is described as an (irregular) verb in its own right, and written as a separate word in the romaji. In other places in the article it seems to be treated as a suffix. W. P. Uzer (talk) 10:54, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

masu is an auxiliary verb (and therefore a Japanese suffix). It doesn't change the semantic meaning of the verb at all, it's merely a higher level of politeness. This answer on Stack Exchange is helpful on clarifying this.

However, unlike other auxiliary verbs and suffixes, the masu form has its own unique conjugation/inflection rules. — JKVeganAbroad (talk) 15:00, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I noticed the specific wording in the article to which you referred. The wording was "…an extensive list of auxiliary verbs. One of which, ます (masu), is a highly irregular [auxiliary] verb…". The square-bracketted "auxiliary" wasn't in the original text, but it was implied from being a subset of "auxiliary verbs". This was precarious phrasing, however, because it allowed multiple interpretations (specifically, that "masu" is a valid verb in-of-itself, which it isn't).

I've reworded this to be clearer now, thank you for noticing this problem. Additionally, I've added 3 citations (books) that use the terminologies "auxiliary verb", "suffix", "conjugation" and "inflection" to describe "-masu" specifically. These references also elaborate on the unique conjugation/inflection patterns that -masu has (although, that information is already in this article in the conjugation tables). You can search the web for those resources to read more into it yourself too.

I hope the re-wording and citations help you understand "-masu" more. — JKVeganAbroad (talk) 14:44, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, I think I understand. There is still the inconsistency in the romaji spacing though. We have the example: tegami o kaki masu. Would it also be acceptable (and more consistent with the first section of the article) to write tegami o kakimasu? W. P. Uzer (talk) 10:36, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

In general I think the romanised version of verbs shouldn’t separate conjugations or auxiliaries with spaces. The auxiliary verb section stylised the romaji with a space between auxiliary verbs and their conjunctive form (to emphasise where the exemplary aux. verb was positioned in the sentences). However in hindsight I would agree that this sylisation was a mistake, feel free to remove those spaces! — JKVeganAbroad (talk) 15:46, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I've just done so. W. P. Uzer (talk) 13:08, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Kanōkei "base", redux

@JKVeganAbroad: In our previous discussion (now at Talk:Japanese_verb_conjugation/Archive_3#Kanōkei_base), I'd laid out a case for why the 可能形 (kanōkei) or "potential form" is not a proper verb base -- the crux of this issue is that this verb form only exists for certain verbs, whereas the other verb bases do in fact exist for all verbs. For instance, the table at Japanese_verb_conjugation#Verb_bases incorrectly shows that there is a kanōkei for ichidan and "irregular" verbs, when in fact the kanōkei only exists for a certain subset of godan verbs.

What are your reasons for changing your mind, as you stated in your edit on 2021-12-28? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:20, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

The reason, whilst not especially palatable but is the truth, is two-fold. First, after the final comment of that discussion (which was my comment), the discussion remained stone-cold for longer than 5 months with no further comments of agreement. Second, after 5 months had elapsed, I have forgotten most things that I researched on the subject, and so my current knowledge has become insufficient for me—in good conscience—to stand by my previous statement of support.

So rather than naively trusting the opinion of my former, more well researched self... I think it's more conscionable to retract my opinion from the discussion until I re-read the research and confidently arrive at an acceptable conclusion. Essentially (tl;dr), because consensus wasn't properly confirmed in a timely manner by the community, my opinion expired when I forgot the foundations that the opinion was built upon.

I recommend finding another voice of confidence to replace my retracted one. Although I would like to re-research the kanōkei form, and its curious anomaly for not having a base, I'm not in a position to do so at this moment of time (dealing with some lingering issues in real life at the moment). I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I hope you can understand my choice to withdraw my opinion after 5 months of inactivity. — JKVeganAbroad (talk) 16:08, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@JKVeganAbroad: Thank you for the reply. And understood about the thread languishing and forgetting the context!  :) Not an uncommon problem over at Wiktionary too, where I spend more of my time.

After my post above, I had a further look at the verb bases table, and I think there are some other issues as well -- visually confusing things that could potentially be cleared up by some adjustments to the layout. I don't have time today, but hopefully in the near future I can pull together a mock-up of what I'm thinking to better illustrate things.

Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:33, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your understanding. The bases are particularly difficult to convey, so I'm certainly looking forward to your improvements and mock ups. — JKVeganAbroad (talk) 02:28, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Japanese terminology

The use of Japanese terms ("mizenkei base", "ichidan" and so on) makes the article much harder to follow. They don't mean anything to a reader that doesn't already know Japanese and are hence difficult to memorise and follow in the text. Also, the stuff about 'spanning the columns of the kana table' and so on is a very idiosyncratically Japanese traditional/pedagogical description that isn't particularly helpful to a non-Japanese reader, especially to one who doesn't study Japanese. After all, the article is about the language itself, not about Japanese linguistic tradition. I'm sure that one could instead use English-language terms that mean something and describe the essential characteristics of the phenomena in question, making it far easier to use by anyone who knows some international linguistic terminology. In fact, I vaguely remember reading this article some years ago and I think it used English-language terms then instead and described the facts from a much more international linguistic perspective. This would mean that the article has actually been made worse in this respect through some overhaul that has occurred in the meantime. 87.126.21.225 (talk) 21:47, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

I understand that the article is simpler to read if you entirely remove the “bases”, but consider that this is an encyclopaedia. If somebody who understands English encounters the words like “mizenkei“, there are very few resources on the internet available in English that explain what that means. They may be led to believe that “mizenkei” is synonymous with “the negative tense”, which is incorrect as it’s merely a precursor to the negative tense (and the passive and causative forms). With regard to that, this article is comprehensive.

As for using terms like “ichidan”, these are well defined. Anyone, linguist or learner, that needs to read about Japanese verbs cannot ignore this grouping system. Changing the article to use correct, non-arbitrary terminology would mean using the literal translation: “1 Row Verbs”. This adds confusion if the reader has no context of the rows and columns of the kana table. To change “Ichidan” to any other English phrasing would be arbitrary and removing critical information, thus adding genuine confusion. The simplest approach is to use the Japanese word, and define it, since jargon is a necessary part of all academia and research.

The best approach to the problem you describe as confusion, would be to rephrase sections in a way that doesn’t remove correct information, and doesn’t mislead. For example, keeping in mind that the x-y position of a kana on the table of hiragana is crucial to the conjugation of verbs, can you propose a less confusing way to say “spanning the columns of the kana table” (which you mentioned)?

All in all, I’m grateful that you care enough to discuss improving the article. I hope my explanations have been able to give more understanding than discouragement. JKVeganAbroad (talk) 01:54, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Hello again! Thank you for your politeness. On the substance: As for the first question - OK, I can't prove that there are other English names besides Ichidan and so on without looking at some English-language Japanese grammars. As I said, I believe I remember having seen descriptions that do without them and thus presumably use different names, but I need to research this more to specify how they did that; it's possible that I was wrong. As for your assertion that 'the x-y position of a kana on the table of hiragana is crucial to the conjugation of verbs': I'd say it's clear that it isn't really crucial, since Japanese grammar arose and developed quite independently from the Kana writing system, let alone the way it is conventionally represented in tables, and said grammar could and, all other things being equal, certainly would have been the same even if neither Kana nor Kanji existed and if Japanese were spelt in the Latin alphabet, or in the Cyrillic alphabet, or if it had no standard writing system at all. Thus, the fact that it happens to be possible to summarise some morphonological rules using the Kana table is just a coincidence that is pedagogically helpful for people who already know the Kana table, but it certainly can't be necessary to refer to said table; the language can be described objectively in the way in which it would have been described if it had no writing system.--87.126.21.225 (talk) 08:47, 15 July 2023 (UTC)