Adjective conjugations
Published
ふりがな:
This page is a hub for the adjective conjugations. This document is a brief explainer for the names I use for verb types. See backlinks at the bottom for notes linking to this one, including links to specific conjugations.
In the linked notes, I use the terminology:
- 形容動詞, also known as な adjectives, and adjectival nouns.
- 形容詞, also known as い adjectives, and adjectival verbs.
Don't look too carefully into the exact translation of the Japanese names into English, because they're the opposite of what you might expect.
形容動詞 are referred to sometimes as adjectival nouns because they behave a lot like nouns. They conjugate via the copula (です and friends) just like nouns do. The one obvious difference between the two is the attributive uses な, whereas nouns use の.
形容詞 are referred to as adjectival verbs for apparently linguistic reasons. Beyond that there doesn't appear to be much useful information to the learner to know why, except to expect them to have their own conjugations (in contrast to 形容動詞, which conjugate via the copula).
- The attributive form, 連体形.
- The hypothetical form, 仮定形.