Disambiguation of Kanji
Okurigana are also used as phonetic complements to disambiguate kanji that have multiple readings. Since kanji, especially the most common ones, can be used for words with many (usually similar) meanings — but different pronunciations — key okurigana placed after the kanji help the reader to know which meaning and reading were intended. Both individual kanji and multi-kanji words may have multiple readings, and okurigana are used in both cases.
Okurigana for disambiguation are a partial gloss, and are required: for example, in 下さる, the stem is 下さ (and does not vary under inflection), and is pronounced くださ (kudasa) – thus 下 corresponds to the reading くだ (kuda), followed by さ (sa), which is written here kuda-sa. Note the okurigana are not considered part of the reading; grammatically the verb is kudasa-ru (verb stem + inflectional suffix), but orthographically the stem itself is analyzed as kuda-sa (kanji reading + okurigana). Compare with furigana, which: specify the complete reading, appear outside the line of the text, and which are omitted if understood.
Disambiguation examples include common verbs which use the characters 上 (up) and 下 (down):
- 上 (read a)
- 上がる (a-garu) "to ascend/to make ready/to complete", and 上げる (a-geru) "to raise, to give (upwards)"
- 上 (read nobo)
- 上る (nobo-ru) "to go up/to climb (a set of stairs)", and 上す (nobo-su) "serve food, raise a matter (uncommon)"
- 下 (read kuda)
- 下さる (kuda-saru) "to give ", and 下る (kuda-ru) "to be handed down "
- 下 (read o)
- 下りる (o-riru) "to get off/to descend" and 下ろす (o-rosu) "to let off (transitive)"
- 下 (read sa)
- 下がる (sa-garu) "to dangle (intransitive)", and 下げる (sa-geru) "to hang, to lower (transitive)"
Observe that many Japanese verbs come in transitive/intransitive pairs, as illustrated above, and that a single kanji reading is shared between the two verbs, with sufficient okurigana written to reflect changed endings. The above okurigana are as short as possible, given this restriction – note for instance that のぼる (noboru) / のぼす (nobosu) are written as 上る / 上す, not as ×上ぼる or ×上ぼす, while あがる must be written as 上がる to share a kanji reading with 上げる.
Another example includes a common verb with different meanings based on the okurigana:
- 話す (hana-su)
- "to speak/to talk". Example: ちゃんと話す方がいい。(chanto hanasu hou ga ii), meaning "It's better if you speak correctly."
- 話し (hana-shi)
- noun form of the verb hanasu, "to speak". Example: 話し言葉と書き言葉 (hanashi kotoba to kaki kotoba), meaning "spoken words and written words".
- 話 (hanashi)
- noun, meaning "a story" or "a talk". Example: 話はいかが？ (hanashi wa ikaga?), meaning "How about a story?"
Okurigana are not always sufficient to specify the reading. For example, 怒る (to become angry) can be read as いかる (ika-ru) or おこる (oko-ru) – ×怒かる and ×怒こる are not used – 開く (to open) may be read either as あく (a-ku) or as ひらく (hira-ku) – ×開らく is not used – and 止める may be read either as とめる (to-meru) or as やめる (ya-meru) – ×止る is not used. In such cases the reading must be deduced from context or via furigana.
Ambiguity may be introduced in inflection – even if okurigana specify the reading in the base (dictionary) form of a verb, the inflected form may obscure it. For example, 行く i-ku "go" and 行う okona-u "perform, carry out" are distinct in dictionary form, but in past ("perfective") form become 行った i-tta "went" and 行った okona-tta "performed, carried out" – which reading to use must be deduced from context or furigana.
Occasionally okurigana coincide with the phonetic (rebus) component of phono-semantic Chinese characters, which reflects that they fill the same role of phonetic complement. For example, in the word 割り算 (wa-ri-zan, division), the phonetic component of 割 is 刂, which is cognate to the okurigana り, which is derived from 利, which also uses 刂.
Read more about this topic: Okurigana