五段活用

Japanese

Kanji in this term
五	段	活	用
ご Grade: 1	だん Grade: 6	かつ Grade: 2	よう Grade: 2
on'yomi	goon	kan'on

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五段活用

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Etymology

Compound of 五段 (godan, “quinti grade, five-grade”) +‎ 活用 (katsuyō, “conjugation”).

Literally, 五段 (godan, “five grades”) refers to how the inflected endings are located in the gojūon table. It means five vowels are involved, since each 段 (dan, “row”) of the table contains one vowel. Thus, this can be understood as "five-voweled conjugation".

Pronunciation

(Tokyo) ごだんかつよー [gòdáń káꜜtsùyòò] (Nakadaka – [4])^[1]
IPA^(key): [ɡo̞dã̠ŋ ka̠t͡sɨᵝjo̞ː]

Noun

五(ご)段(だん)活(かつ)用(よう) • (godan katsuyō) ^{←ごだんくわつよう (godan kwatuyou)^?}

(grammar) a verbal conjugation class consisting of five alternating bases: -a, -i, -u, -e, and -o
An extension of the earlier 四段活用 (yodan katsuyō, “quadri grade conjugation”) class.

The fifth base, -o, is a pseudo-base derived from the suffix う (-u) attaching to the irrealis conjugation stem that ends in -a, resulting in あう (-au), which phonologically regularly elides into [oː].

	未然形 Irrealis	連用形 Adverbial	終止形 Conclusive	連体形 Attributive	仮定形 Conditional	命令形 Imperative
書く (kak-, “to write”)	書か (kaka) 書こ (kako-)	書き (kaki) 書い (kai-)	書く (kaku)	書く (kaku)	書け (kake)	書け (kake)
立つ (tat-, “to stand”)	立た (tata) 立と (tato-)	立ち (tachi) 立っ (ta'-)	立つ (tatsu)	立つ (tatsu)	立て (tate)	立て (tate)
読む (yom-, “to read”)	読ま (yoma) 読も (yomo-)	読み (yomi) 読ん (yon-)	読む (yomu)	読む (yomu)	読め (yome)	読め (yome)

Related terms

References

^ Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 [Daijirin] (in Japanese), Third edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN

[DJR-1] Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 [Daijirin] (in Japanese), Third edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN

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