Chapter 3. Verbal adjective conjugation
Table of Contents
There are two things to notice in regards to verbal adjectives that makes them very different from verbs. The first is that some conjugations for which verbs use the 連用形, requiring the stem for adjectives instead. The second is that a lot of conjugations for verbal adjectives rely heavily on the verb ある (to be, for inanimate things). The following section will outline how various inflections, conjugations and constructions are made using verbal adjectives. Some of these are the same as for verbs, but some aren't.
Unlike verbs, verbal adjectives also have several constructions that make use of the word stem, or 語幹 (ごかん) rather than an inflectional base. For verbal adjective this is the part that's left when the い at the end of the adjective is dropped:
| adjective | stem |
| 高い, high | 高 |
| 細かい, small | 細か |
| 楽しい, enjoyable | 楽し |
This lets us turn two separate adjectives into a single adjective that encompasses the aspects of both. For instance, something that is thin, 細い, as well as long, 長い, can also be described as being 細長い. Had we used the 連用形 like we would for verbs, this would have read 細く長い, which isn't grammatical Japanese.
Other examples of this construction are:
- 青白い meaning pale (blueish white), from 青い meaning blue and 白い meaning white.
- 甘辛い meaning bittersweet from 甘い meaning sweet and 辛い meaning spicy.
- 悪賢い meaning cunning from 悪い meaning bad and 賢い meaning clever.
- 堅苦しい meaning formal/strict from 堅い meaning hard/strict and 苦しい meaning hard to bear.
You may have noticed some of the readings on the second kanji have been voiced. As mentioned in the outline on Japanese, there are no set rules for when this will, or should, happen.
This conjunction creates a noun that carries a description of itself in the word. Examples of this are:
| 長靴 meaning boots, from 長い meaning long and 靴 meaning shoes. |
| 安物 meaning cheap/crummy goods, from 安い meaning cheap, and 物 meaning thing. |
This combination is subtly different from the normal adjective + noun combination; if we look at the adjective/noun compound and the adjective + noun combination for 黒), meaning black, and ペン, meaning pen, we see the following:
| 黒ペン means a black pen, in the sense that it's a pen that writes in black. |
| 黒いペン means a black pen. However, it doesn't have to write in black, it's just the pen itself that's black. |
Another thing for which verbal adjectives use the stem instead of the 連用形 is the -そう impression:
| adjective | stem |
| 高い | 高 + そう |
| 細かい | 細か + そう |
| 楽しい | 楽し + そう |
There are two exceptions to this construction, being the adjectives 無い, used for negation, and いい/良い, meaning 'good'. Instead of being appended with そう, their stem is appended with さそう instead:
| 無い → なさそう |
| 良い → よさそう |
Because these are two frequently used adjectives, it's important to remember these exceptions. Whenever you wish to use the adjective 良い, meaning good, in any inflection, the pronunciation よ is used for the kanji part of the adjective instead of the pronunciation い. So, something that is いい will seem よさそう.
Aside from being able to turn adjectives into nouns using the 連用形 like verbs (explained in the 連用形 section), there are also three special noun forms that can be created from verbal adjectives by adding any of three particles to the adjectival stem.
Quantifying nouns are such measurable things as "depth", "length", and in Japanese also things such as "cold-th" and "hot-th", which don't exist in English:
| adjective | meaning | quantifying noun | meaning |
| 深い | deep | 深さ | depth |
| 長い | long | 長さ | length |
| 速い | fast, quick | 速さ | speed |
| 寒い | cold | 寒さ | cold-th |
These quantifying nouns are called quantifying because they stand for some measurable quantity, unlike the nouns formed with the next particle.
Qualifying nouns are nouns that describe a quality of an abstract, such as the depth of a painting, the loneliness of a story, etc.
| adjective | meaning | qualifying noun | meaning |
| 深い | deep | 深み | depth |
| 悲しい | sad | 悲しみ | sadness |
There is one final way to turn verbal adjectives into nuanced nouns, and that's by turning them into a subject noun as "the feeling of ...", using 気 pronounced げ:
| adjectivee | meaning | subjective noun | meaning |
| 若い | young | 若気 | the feeling / impression of youth, vitality |
| 危ない | dangerous | 危な気 | the feeling / impression of danger |
| 寒い | cold | 寒気 | the feeling / impression of cold |
The verbal adjective 未然形 is only used to create the plain negative form of adjectives, using the helper adjective of negation ない:
| adjective | plain negation |
| 高い | 高く + ない |
| 細かい | 細く + ない |
| 楽しい | 楽しく + ない |
It is technically possible to use -ずに with adjectives, in which case the stem is used instead of the 未然形, but this is very rare, and hardly falls under basic Japanese. You should remember that it is possible, but you really shouldn't try to use it until you've become fluent in Japanese.
As a note, the polite negation for verbal adjectives uses the 連用形 instead. While this would seem arbitrary given that the 未然形 and 連用形 are written the same, the difference is one of grammatical consistency.
The 連用形 is used for quite a few constructions that verbs use the 連用形 for too. However, some forms rely on the verb ある to contract into the adjectives, as we will see in for instance polite negative and past tense.
The polite negative of verbal adjectives technically uses three helper verbs: ある, ます and ぬ. The polite negative of a verbal adjective is a truly funky construction placing the adjective in 連用形 + ある in 連用形 + ます in 未然形 + ぬ in 連体形:
| adjective | polite negative |
| 高い | 高く+あり+ませ+ん |
| 細かい | 細かく+あり+ませ+ん |
| 楽しい | 楽しく+あり+ませ+ん |
| ない | なく+あり+ませ+ん |
| よい/いい | よく+あり+ませ+ん |
Technically this is an example of verbal adjectives becoming an adverb to ある, and then conjugating ある to reflect inflection. For instance:
| そのパンはそれほど高くありません。 |
| The bread is not that expensive. |
This sentence could literally be considered to read "That bread is not so [being expensive]."
The verbal adjectival past tense also uses ある, but this time ある contracts into the adjective, where the く from the adjective and the ・ from the plain past tense of ある, あった, to form かった instead:
| adjective | past tense | polite past tense | |
| 高い | 高[く+あ → か]った | 高かった | 高かった + です |
| 細かい | 細か[く+あ → か]った | 細かかった | 細かかった + です |
| 楽しい | 楽し[く+あ → か]った | 楽しかった | 楽しかった + です |
| ない | な[く+あ → か]った | なかった | なかった + です |
| よい/いい | よ[く+あ → か]った | よかった | よかった + です |
There's something very important to notice here. If we look at the following sentence, we see that the adjective is in past tense, and is followed by です in present tense:
| 本当に安かったですね。 |
| It was really cheap, wasn't it? |
The translation is past tense, because even if the copula is present tense, the adjective is in past tense. This is something that doesn't exist in many western languages and will confuse a lot of people learning Japanese at first. It's one of the things that people keep doing wrong for quite a while unless corrected at every mistake. Remember that the polite past tense is the adjective in past tense + the copula verb in present tense. Never, ever, do the following:
高いでした, meaning "I want to say that it was expensive, but I am someone who is making mistakes at Japanese and people will look at me as if I'm someone deserving pity for my failings. If I'm lucky they'll tell me I made a mistake, but they're Japanese so they probably won't..."
Getting back to conjugations, the really polite past negative is even funkier than the polite past negative you saw just a bit up. Again ある is used, but this time it is placed in polite past tense, rather than relying on です:
| adjective | very polite past tense |
| 高い | 高く+ あり + ませ + ん + でし + た |
| 細かい | 細かく+ あり + ませ + ん + でし + た |
| 楽しい | 楽しく+ あり + ませ + ん + でし + た |
| ない | なく+ あり + ませ + ん + でし + た |
| よい/いい | よく+ あり + ませ + ん + でし + た |
This is technically the adjective in 連用形 + ある in 連用形 + ます in 未然形 + ぬ in 連体形 + です in 連用形 + た in 連体形. Again we see some more proof of the fact that the longer something is to write, the more polite it is.
The て form for verbal adjectives is used to chain multiple adjectives together, when you want to say something like "This is a big, red, heavy book". Unlike the て form for verbs, the く from the adjectival 連用形 does not contract with て to form いて:
| adjective | て form |
| 高い | 高く+ て |
| 細かい | 細かく+ て |
| 楽しい | 楽しく+ て |
| ない | なく+ て |
| よい/いい | よく+ て |
This lets us write the previous "book" sentence in the following manner, using the adjectives 大きい, big, 赤 い, red and 重い, heavy.:
| これは大きくて赤くて重い本です。 |
| This is a big, red, heavy book. |
Just like with verbs, the actual inflection of the adjectives in て is determined by the final adjective. For instance:
| 大きくて赤くて重かった箱です。 |
| It was a big, red, heavy box. |
The negative form of て chaining uses the plain negative form of adjectives, with ない put into て form:
| 大きくなくて赤くなて重い本です。 |
| It's a not big, not red, heavy book. |
Verbal adjectives can also be used for a negative imperative, where it must be noted that 'imperative' here doesn't mean command but should be thought of as meaning 'very important', such as "It is imperative that we find the culprit". Just like for verbs, this form is created by adding は to the -て form:
| 形はどうでもいいけど、高くてはいけない。 |
| [I] do not care about the shape, but it cannot be[too] expensive. |
There is one adjective that is special in its て form, and that's ない, the helper adjective of negation. The normal て form for this adjective is, like for all others, 連用形 + て, but there's a special て form for ない which is used for negative requests and is constructed using the 連体形 + で. The reason it's located in the 連用形 section is because it's a special exception, and as such has no real place in the 連体形 section. This conjugation is important when using ない in verbal conjugations:
| 行かない。 |
| [I] won't go. |
| 行かないで。 |
| (Please) don't go. |
The "please" is implied, and this form is very much like begging someone to not do something. The more polite way, using an explicit 'please' uses this "て" form + 下(くだ)さる:
| 行かないで下さい。 |
| Please don't go. |
While still technically a form of begging someone to not do something, this is considered the polite negative counterpart to the normal special verb て form て+ください.
This form can also be used for regular て chaining:
| 食べないで学校へ行った。 |
| [I] went to school without eating. |
which is the same as the phrase:
| 食べなくて学校へ行った。 |
| [I] went to school without eating. |
Just like verbs, verbal adjectives can be turned into nouns simply by placing them in 連用形. This is the simplest way to turn adjectives into nouns, and is less complex (and of course less nuanced) than the noun forms that can be made with the stem + -さ, -み or -気:
| 遠く meaning "distance" comes from 遠い meaning 'distant'. |
| 近く meaning "vicinity" comes from 近い meaning 'close by'. |
An important role that adjectives play has to do with acting adverbially. For instance, the adjective "fast" acts as adverb in "fast moving car", and the adjective quick acts as adverb in "to quickly finish up". In Japanese this is done by placing the verbal adjective in its 連用形 and pairing it with a verb:
| 楽しい means 'enjoyable' as adjective, 楽しく means 'enjoyably': |
| 楽しい本です。 |
| It's an enjoyable book. |
| 楽しく読みます。 |
| [I] enjoyably read it. |
This last sentence may not make too much sense in English, until we remember that an adverb specifies a way in which a verb action is performed. 楽しく読む means that the reading is performed in a way that is enjoyable, leading to a more natural translation "I enjoy reading it" (This seeing an adjectival adverb in Japanese where verbs are used in western languages is one of the intrinstic differences between the two, and is one of those things that can trip up students trying to translate sentences to Japanese).
| 速く走って、勝つんだ。 |
| Run fast and win. |
This sentence uses 速い, meaning fast, as adverb for 走る meaning to run, in て form.
When adjectives get turned into adverbs to be used with classical verbs such as ござる, the classical verb for ある, and 出でる, the classical verb for くる, the く in the 連用形 base is replaced with an う sound and contracts to a long vowel sound with whatever syllable precedes it. This leads to the following changes:
・ If the syllable preceding く is an あ row syllable, the adverb gets an おう sound instead:
| 早い becomes はや[く→う], which contracts to 早う. As you can see, the phonetic change is in the kanji here. |
| 有難い becomes ありがた[く→う], which contracts to有難う. |
・ If the syllable preceding く is an い row syllable, the adverb gets an う-glide instead:
| 大きい becomes 大き[く→う], which contracts to 大きゅう |
| 美味しい becomes 美味し[く→う], which contacts to 美味しゅう |
・ If the syllable preceding く is an う row syllable, the adverb gets a long う:
| 安い becomes 安[く→う], which does not contract and thus stays 安う |
・ If the syllable preceding く is an お row syllable, the adverb gets a long お by virtue of the お-row syllable + う long お sound:
| 面白い becomes 面白[く→う], which does not contract and thus stays 面白う |
There is no modifying rule for verbal adjectives with an え-row syllable preceding the final い, because these don't exist (which is another reason why the adjective きれい, the much loved adjective to show not every adjective ending on い is a verbal adjective, cannot actually be a verbal adjective).
Verbal adjectives technically don't have their own 命令形. Instead, a 連用形 contraction with ある in 命令形, あれ, is used to create a commanding form with the adjective's attributes:
| adjective | commanding form | commanding form |
| 高い | 高 [く+ あ → か] れ | 高かれ |
| 細かい | 細か [く+ あ → か] れ | 細かかれ |
| 楽しい | 楽し [く+ あ → か] れ | 楽しかれ |
| ない | な [く+ あ → か] れ | なかれ |
| よい/いい | よ [く+ あ → か] れ | よかれ |
This form isn't used a great deal, because one rarely commands something to have a particular attribute. The typical way to use issue a command instead is to use the adverbial form of the adjective paired with the verb なる, to become, in commanding form:
| adjective | adverbial commanding form |
| 高い | 高く + なれ |
| 細かい | 細かく + なれ |
| 楽しい | 楽しく + なれ |
| ない | なく + なれ |
| よい/いい | よく + なれ |
The verbal adjective 連体形 has as fairly obvious role to act as modifier predicate. However, there's something quite special about this form in that it acts both as normal predicate, as well as comparative predicate. Which of these is used usually depends on context.
The modifier form of an adjective is just the normal form that you find adjectives listed under in a dictionary, and is used to "modify" nouns by more narrowly defining the thing they stand for. For instance, a "green apple" is a more narrowly defined object than an "apple", and a "green, blocky apple" is an even more narrowly defined object than just a "green apple."
| 安いお魚 |
| cheap fish |
| 安いうまいお魚 |
| cheap tasty fish |
This second sentence uses multiple adjectives in 連体形 in a pattern similar to て chaining - this is a more colloquial form of chaining adjectives, so if you want to be polite, using the て form is preferred:
| 安くてうまいお魚 |
There is no distinction between an adjective's normal and comparative version. Where in English one can usually make a comparative by adding "-er" as suffix to the adjective, in Japanese one must look at context to tell whether the adjective is used as its normal form or as comparative. While Japanese does have the word もっと that can be used to force a comparative, this word means "even more ...", which means that the adjective's normal meaning needs to have already been established before it can be used. An example of correct use of もっと is illustrated in the following conversation:
| A: あのう、安い傘を探しているんですけど…… |
| B: 安い傘ですね。これがいかがでしょうか。 |
| A: ああ、いい傘ですね。けれど、もっと安いのありましょうか。 |
| B: どうもすみませんが、これより安いのはありません。 |
| A: I am looking for a cheap umbrella. |
| B: A cheap umbrella you said? What about this one? |
| A: Ah, that's a nice umbrella. But I was wondering whether you had an even cheaper one. |
| B: Ah, I am sorry but we do not have any umbrellas cheaper than this. |
In this conversation, only after it has been established that the item in question is cheap, is もっと used to ask for an even more "cheap" item. An example of incorrect use would be:
| A": この傘はちょっと高いですね。もっと安いのがありますか。 |
If we were to translate this sentence, it would say "This umbrella is a bit expensive. Do you have an even cheaper one?" This is clearly incorrect use of language, as we can only ask for an even cheaper item if the present one is already cheap.
The superlative, in English the "most ..." version of an adjective, is formed in Japanese by prefixing the word 一番 to the adjective, which literally means "first", in the context of a ranking.
| 一番速い車はそのMcLarenです。 |
| The fastest car [here] is that McLaren. |
Remember that this is an adjective construction and that 一番 requires an adjective to turn into a superlative. Many people starting with Japanese mistakenly use 一番 without an adjective to say things like 一番先生 or 一番車, which would literally mean "most teacher" and "most car". These sentences are not grammatical in either Japanese or English, since they lack a modifier to explain exactly what these nouns are the most of. Usually when this mistake is made, all that is missing is the adjective いい, meaning good: 一番いい creates the superlative "best".
The verbal adjective 已然形 is used for the conditional, which just like verbs uses the particle ば:
| adjective | hypothetical conditional |
| 高い | 高けれ + ば |
| 細かい | 細かけれ + ば |
| 楽しい | 楽しけれ + ば |
| ない | なけれ + ば |
| よい/いい | よけれ + ば |
This creates a construction that is translatable as "should it be ... , ...", though again (see the verb section) the typical translation in natural English is "if ... , ...":
| 高ければ買いません。 |
| If it's expensive, I won't buy it. |
| 速ければいいんです。 |
| If it's fast, it's good. |