Japanese potential form conjugation (mizenkei base)

This section is an excerpt from Japanese conjugation (mizenkei base).[edit]

Japanese conjugation, like the conjugation of verbs of many other languages, allows verbs to be morphologically modified to change their meaning or grammatical function. In Japanese, the beginning of a word (the stem) is preserved during conjugation, while the ending of the word is altered in some way to change the meaning (this is the inflectional suffix). Japanese verb conjugations are independent of person, number and gender (they do not depend on whether the subject is I, you, he, she, we, etc.); the conjugated forms can express meanings such as negation, present 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 additional meanings.

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

Conjugable words (verbs, i‑adjectives, and na‑adjectives) are traditionally considered to have six possible conjugational stems or bases (活用形, katsuyōkei; literally "conjugation forms"). This article lists those from the negative base (未然形, mizenkei), as well as the tentative base (推量形/意思形, suiryōkei/ishikei) that was split off during the post‑WWII spelling reforms.

Potentiality (可能, kanō) describes the possibility for an action to happen, whether it involves an intentional acting agent or not:

• With a capable agent: Kare wa yakyū ga dekiru (彼は野球ができる; lit. 'Him? Baseball is possible', transl. He can play baseball)
• Without a capable agent:
  • Kosame nara undōkai ga dekiru (小雨なら運動会ができる; lit. 'Provided that it drizzles, the sports day is possible', transl. The sports day can still happen if it only drizzles)
  • Kono sake wa nakanaka ikeru (この酒はなかなかいける; lit. 'This liquor? It can go very much', transl. This liquor is very good)

Potential

The patient of an action is customarily marked with the nominative particle ga (rather than the accusative o), which has the same appearance as the passive voice:

• Active: A ga P o taberu (AがPを食べる; 'A eats P')
  • Pure passive: A ni P ga taberareru (AにPが食べられる; 'P is eaten by A')
  • Passive potential: A ni/ga P ga/o taberareru (Aに・がPが・を食べられる; 'P can be eaten by A → A can eat P')

It is not impossible to use A ga P o taberareru (AがPを食べられる; ni and o do not occur together for the potential) instead in the passive potential above, but it is less preferable in this case. However, o is more preferable to ga in the presence of a motion verb (whose pure passive does not naturally occur):

• Active: A ga koko o tōru (Aがここを通る; 'A passes this place')
  • Pure passive: A ni B ga tōrareru (Aにここが通られる; 'this place is passed by A')
  • Potential: A ga B o tōreru (Aがここを通れる; 'A can pass this place')

The rise of the particle ga as a marker of the patient of the action can be attributed to the "spontaneous (or natural) passive (or potential)" (自発, jihatsu), whereby the patient or the action simply comes about, seemingly in a vacuum, without a voluntary or intentional agent acting on it. This may also relate to the verb dekiru (出来る) (see the phrase koto ga dekiru mentioned below) which means "come about; come into existence; materialize; form; take shape; be done/made/born/produced → be doable/feasible/possible", as in kome ga dekita (米ができた; transl. the rice was produced), kutsu ga dekita (靴ができた; transl. the shoes were made), kodomo ga dekita (子供ができた; transl. a child was born), etc. Thus, such phrase as shōsetsu ga kaketa (小説が書けた), spoken in the past tense by an author who does not want to mention themself as an agent, can be translated as "the novel wrote itself" (= the novel came about in written form), rather than "I was able to write the novel". Other examples without voluntary agents include shizen ni waraete kita (自然に笑えてきた; transl. I was seized by laughter = laughter spontaneously occurred to me), hontō no yō ni omoete kita (本当のように思えてきた; transl. it began to appear true = the thought of it being true occurred to me), nakete kichatta (泣けてきちゃった; transl. I couldn't help crying = crying unfortunately occurred to me), tsureta (釣れた; transl. I've got one = a fish's caught itself on my line), etc.

Potential form example sentences

Potential: Conjugation table

Potential verbs are unique to godan‑based passive potential verbs, which have been said to have been shortened by removing ar from areru: yomareru (読まれる; 'be read; can read') → yomeru (読める; 'can read'); kakareru (書かれる; 'be written; can write') → kakeru (書ける; 'can write'). Other hypotheses of derivation include contractions from infinitives followed by eru (得る; 'get', see Japanese conjugation (ren'yōkei base)#Infinitive: Grammatical compatibility), presumably as in kakieru (書きえる; 'can write') → kakeru; or conversions of nidan attributives into ichidan potentials, such as kiruru → kireru (切るる→切れる), shiruru → shireru (知るる→知れる). Short potential verbs of this type are conventional in Tokyo Japanese, while long verbs have become largely obsolescent, elevated or non‑Tokyo.

The hypothetical short potential verb *wakareru (分かれる; 'can make sense') is not used. However, the non‑potential intransitive wakareru (分かれる; 'branch off'), the adversative passive wakarareru (分かられる; 'suffer because it makes sense') and causative wakaraseru (分からせる; 'cause it to make sense') are acceptable.

Non‑godan‑based verbs such as taberareru (食べられる; 'can eat; be eaten') remain ambiguous. Such ambiguity can be resolved, at least colloquially, by a process dubbed ra‑nuki kotoba (ら抜き言葉; lit. 'ra‑less word'), thus distinguishing the short taberareru → tabereru (食べられる→食べれる; 'can eat') for the potential and the long taberareru (食べられる; 'be eaten') for the passive. This process was originally dialectal, but has been increasingly adopted by Tokyo speakers. Preference polls have shown that even among ra‑nuki kotoba users, the likelihood of usage significantly decreases as the mora count in the verb stem exceeds two; in other words, mi.re.ru (見れる; one-mora stem) and ta.be.re.ru (食べれる; two-mora stem) are highly likely, but shi.n.ji.re.ru (信じれる; three-mora stem), ka.n.ga.e.re.ru (考えれる; four-mora stem), o.to.shi.i.re.re.ru (陥れれる; five-mora stem) are much less likely.

Shortening passive verbs for potential uses is not universal among dialects, some of which may only use long verbs instead.

Apart from the dedicated potential verbs, the less ambiguous but more circumlocutory phrase koto ga dekiru (ことができる) can be used, as in iku koto ga dekiru (行くことができる; 'can go'), yameru koto ga dekiru (止めることができる; 'can stop'), etc. Depending on usage, a particle such as wa, mo or no can be used instead of ga. Some potential verbs, such as nomeru (飲める; 'can drink; can be drunk; is drinkable'), kueru (喰える; 'can eat; can be eaten; is eatable'), etc., have meanings similar to those of ‑able adjectives in English, such as drinkable/potable, eatable/edible, etc., which describe the patient's quality to be enjoyed by the agent, not the agent's capability of enjoying the patient; these verbs are not completely interchangeable with koto ga dekiru; compare Kono sake wa dō mo nomenai. (この酒はどうも飲めない。; transl. This liquor is so undrinkable. (=it tastes awful, or is not fit for drinking)) and Kono sake wa dō mo nomu koto ga dekinai. (この酒はどうも飲むことができない。; transl. It seems I can't drink this liquor. (=I'm incapable of drinking, or I can't afford to drink)).

Most contemporary ‑suru verbs do not really have underlying potential verbs and must use suru koto ga dekiru, which can be shortened to dekiru only for Group‑A verbs. Thus, yasuku (suru koto ga) dekiru (安く(することが)できる; 'can make cheap'), benkyō (suru koto ga) dekiru (勉強(することが)できる; 'can study'), onegai (suru koto ga) dekiru (お願い(することが)できる; 'can request'); but nessuru koto ga dekiru (熱することができる; 'can heat'), kyōsuru koto ga dekiru (供することができる; 'can offer'), etc cannot be reduced to *neddekiru, *kyōdekiru, etc, and must be used in full. Treating dekiru as a shortening of koto ga dekiru explains why dekiru can be used with the accusative particle o instead of the nominative ga, as suru is perfectly compatible with o: Tada de Yōroppa o/ga kenbutsu dekiru nante, subarashii ja nai? (ただでヨーロッパを・が見物できるなんて、素晴らしいじゃない？; transl. Isn't it swell to be able to see Europe free?'). Historically, the passive potential sareru, serareru and shirareru were seldom used for Group‑A verbs, but they have been supplanted by (suru koto ga) dekiru, which figured in a trend towards disambiguating the polysemous passive potential during the Meiji era. Non‑Group‑A verbs, which have become more like godan (partially or completely), do have potential verbs, such as aiseru (愛せる; 'can love') (short)/aisareru (愛される; 'can love; be loved') (long), nakuseru (無くせる; 'can lose')/nakusareru (無くされる; 'can lose; be lost'), etc; or more like ichidan, although probably without ra‑nuki kotoba, as in ōjirareru/ōzerareru (応じられる・応ぜられる; 'can respond'), or with it, as in shinjireru (信じれる; 'can believe').

Writers can make use of various ways to convey potentiality, such as how Natsume Sōseki used a short potential verb (aisezu), a long passive potential verb (irarenai), koto + particle + dekiru (hirogete dakishimeru koto no dekinai) and eru/uru (aishiuru) in the same sentence in the novel Kokoro: Ningen o aishiuru hito, aisezu ni wa irarenai hito, sore de ite jibun no futokoro ni irō to suru mono o, te o hirogete dakishimeru koto no dekinai hito,――kore ga sensei de atta. (人間を愛し得る人、愛せずにはゐられない人、それでゐて自分の懷に入らうとするものを、手をひろげて抱き締める事の出來ない人、――是が先生であつた。; transl. A person who could love, a person who could not be without being able to love, yet a person who was incapable of opening his arms and embracing someone trying to get into his heart,――that was Sensei.); or how Miyahara Kōichirō used koto + particle + dekiru (shinu koto no dekinai, nete iru koto no dekinai), and both the long passive potential (shinareru) and short potential (shinenai) of the same verb in his translation of Kierkegaard's Either/Or: Naze ka to ieba, shinenai mono wa saidai fukōmono de, shinareru mono wa kōfukumono de aru kara da. (卽ち、死ぬことの出來ない人、[…]墓に寢てゐることの出來ない人は最大不幸の人であるから。で、話は解決がついて、答へは容易になつた。なぜかと言へば、死ねない者は最大不幸者で、死なれる者は幸福者であるからだ。)|Sunawachi, shinu koto no dekinai hito, […] haka ni nete iru koto no dekinai hito wa saidai fukō no hito de aru kara. De, hanashi wa kaiketsu ga tsuite, kotae wa yōi ni natta. Naze ka to ieba, shinenai mono wa saidai fukōmono de, shinareru mono wa kōfukumono de aru kara da.|transl. To wit, he who could not die, could not lie in a grave, was the unhappiest man. Thus, the case would be settled, the answer simple, for the unhappiest man was he who could not die, and happy he who could.}}

Potential: Grammatical compatibility

A potential verb is an ichidan verb, and can be conjugated further mostly in the same way an ichidan verb can be, although it may resist the imperative due to semantic difficulty.

See also

• Japanese negative form
• Japanese passive form
• Japanese causative form
• Japanese hortative form

References

External links

The Wikibook Japanese has a page on the topic of: Verb conjugation table

• Japanese Verb Conjugator, online tool giving all forms for any verb
• Japanese Verb Conjugator, online tool with romaji, kana, and kanji output
• Japanese Verb Conjugation Practice, online tool for verb conjugation practice
• JLearn.net, an online Japanese dictionary that accepts conjugated terms and returns the root verb
• Guide to conjugation te form of Japanese verbs
• List of Free Online Verb Dictionaries
• Handbook of Japanese Verbs – National Institute of Japanese Language and Linguistics