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| bio | website | althack.org |
|---|---|---|
| location | Storrs, CT | |
| age | 21 | |
| visits | member for | 5 months |
| seen | 16 hours ago | |
| stats | profile views | 24 |
Native English speaker, beginner in Japanese, but interested in Japanese grammar and historical Japanese linguistics.
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Feb 2 |
reviewed | Close Is Japanese understandable without pitch? |
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Feb 2 |
reviewed | Leave Open Did the Japanese have a word for surrender before WWII? |
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Feb 2 |
reviewed | Leave Open What are the pronunciation differences between speaking and singing Japanese? |
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Feb 1 |
awarded | Critic |
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Feb 1 |
awarded | Custodian |
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Feb 1 |
reviewed | Reviewed Are there any Japanese words as versatile as “fuck” in English? |
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Feb 1 |
comment |
Is Japanese understandable without pitch? You will definitely sound foreign with incorrect pitch accent (though I'd say it's a fairly small set of words which you need to get right to sound pretty much native w.r.t. pitch accent). You will not confuse people with incorrect pitch accent (people from Osaka do just fine in Tokyo despite highly different pitch accent). I defer a real answer to someone who knows more about this than me, though. |
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Feb 1 |
comment |
Where does です come from? @user18597 No problem. I decided it'd be better to at least mention the other theories in the answer (cc @snailplane). |
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Feb 1 |
revised |
Where does です come from? Added a note about competing theories for the etymology of です. |
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Feb 1 |
comment |
What suffix do you add to a verb to make it perfective or imperfective? @Koasamitsu Your welcome. In general, conjugation for -ru verbs is easy while it can be pretty annoying for -u verbs (due to the verb stem needing to change -- these changes are called 音便{おんびん} in Japanese by the way). |
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Feb 1 |
comment |
What suffix do you add to a verb to make it perfective or imperfective? The かく example in my answer is an example of the verb stem changing for the 〜て form and the past tense. The stem is "kak" but it changes to "kai" in those cases (see step 3 in the progressive derivation and step 2 in the past tense derivation) |
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Feb 1 |
comment |
Where does です come from? @user18597 I don't have a reference online, no, but the Japanese linguists I've asked in the past have agreed it's most likely from でございます (or でござります to be more accurate about it). This is the specific historical explanation I've seen: degozarimasu > degozansu > deansu > densu > deisu > desu. Perhaps it's better to make the answer more encyclopedic? I'm not sure. |
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Jan 31 |
awarded | Enlightened |
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Jan 31 |
comment |
Did the Japanese have a word for surrender before WWII? I am somewhat curious what cultural impression you have of Japan that suggests the possibility of no word for "surrender". To me, the culture seems to suggest the exact opposite (and indeed, there are a large number of nouns & verbs for "surrender", all originating before WWII). |
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Jan 31 |
awarded | Nice Answer |
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Jan 31 |
comment |
What suffix do you add to a verb to make it perfective or imperfective? @jogloran I agree, fixed. |
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Jan 31 |
comment |
What suffix do you add to a verb to make it perfective or imperfective? @snailplane Yeah. I was trying to give the full rule and was also trying to avoid mentioning voicing, which resulted in that butchered rule. I've just reduced the scope of the rule now. |
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Jan 31 |
revised |
What suffix do you add to a verb to make it perfective or imperfective? Progressive tense => progressive aspect, and make the イ音便 rule more accurate |
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Jan 31 |
revised |
What suffix do you add to a verb to make it perfective or imperfective? Summary. |
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Jan 31 |
answered | What suffix do you add to a verb to make it perfective or imperfective? |
