Grammar
A number of archaic grammatical forms are shed bringing the language closer to its modern form.
One of the most prominent developments is the replacement of the conclusive form with the attributive. This has a number of effects:
- It is instrumental in the change from bigrade to monograde verbs.
- It causes a chain of events in the two adjectival classes which eventually results in the two merging into one.
- It weakens the Kakarimusubi system.
- The verb ar- "be", which was once irregular, begins to regularize as a quadrigrade.
Read more about this topic: Late Middle Japanese
Famous quotes containing the word grammar:
“Proverbs, words, and grammar inflections convey the public sense with more purity and precision, than the wisest individual.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Syntax is the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages. Syntactic investigation of a given language has as its goal the construction of a grammar that can be viewed as a device of some sort for producing the sentences of the language under analysis.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“Grammar is the logic of speech, even as logic is the grammar of reason.”
—Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886)