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What form is あり?
The old 終止形 of ある was あり. That means that you could end sentences with あり.
Nowadays, あり is to be considered as the antonym of なし.
保育園あり -- There is a nursery
保育園なし -- There is no nursery
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Recognizing old Japanese handwriting
It's a famous book called ぎやどぺかどる, a translation of Guía de Pecadores (or "The Sinner's Guide") by Jesuit mission in Japan.
It reads:
きやとへかとる 巻の二 (voicing marks unused)
Guia do Pecador - Book 2 (...
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17
votes
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How do you join たる-adjectives?
Overview: Modern Japanese
There is some brief discussion of these in the English Wikipedia, in the "taru adjectives" section of the "Adjectival noun" article here, and a bit more ...
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14
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What does 「／＼」 mean in this sentence?
This is supposed to be an iteration mark.
This type of iteration mark is usually only used in vertical writing (the traditional layout for Japanese writing). It looks like a big く but is twice as ...
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12
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Verb ending in -ん with positive meaning?
That ん isn't a shortening of ぬ, it's a shortening of the auxiliary む.
According to Classical Japanese rules, the negative ~ぬ is the 連体形 of ~ず. This means it is used to modify nouns. In particular, ...
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What is the meaning of "できたれば"?
This たれ is the realis-form (已然形) of たり, which is an auxiliary in classical/archaic Japanese. This たり is like ている in modern Japanese, and 已然形 + ば means "because". So できたれば translates to ...
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11
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What form is あり?
“あり” is a 終止形 of “ある,” the same as “なし” and “ない” as mentioned by 永劫回帰. It can be compared with the English pair of words “Yes (we have)” and “No (we don’t have)”.
The 漢語 version of “あり・なし” is “有・無”, ...
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邂逅せし瘴炎 what does the せし part mean?
In modern Japanese, 邂逅 is a する-verb (which are also known as サ変), but in classical-esque Japanese the する becomes す (see 愛する vs 愛す etc). The し comes from the 連体形 (form used to connect to nouns such as ...
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Difference お疲れ様です vs お疲れ様でした while leaving from office?
The difference is small, but お疲れさまです is a generic greeting used in business settings, whereas お疲れさまでした explicitly states someone's work is over for today. In everyday exchanges, whichever is fine, but ...
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8
votes
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using 未然形 and 已然形 with conditional ば
未然形 + ば is ～たら/なら/(れ)ば, and 已然形 + ば is ～(な)ので/～(だ)から in modern Japanese. The difference between 死なば and 死ぬれば is the difference between "if I (will) die" and "since I (will) die". ...
- 306k
8
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The grammar of the Dokkōdō by Miyamoto Musashi
At least grammatically speaking, 悲しまず is not an explicit imperative but a plain negative form of 悲しむ ("not to grieve", "not to be sad"). It's simply 悲しまない in modern Japanese. As ...
- 306k
8
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For this sentence 本日は晴天なりといったとする, could I replace なり to です, if not, why?
It's very misleading to say なり is a literary or formal version of だ. It is an obsolete copula that is no longer actively used in Japanese. You'll never come across it in contemporary Japanese, but you ...
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7
votes
How do Japanese make language sound old (e. g. in historical dramas)?
The words and phrases vary by time, by occasion, and even by class.
Just top of the mind, even the simplest words like “I” and “you” can be expressed in dozens of different ways in old-style Japanese, ...
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7
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What is the ki used for in this sentence? 懐かし き 故郷
In late middle Japanese, the actual class of い-adjectives was in fact subdivided into 2 classes, namely ク-adjectives and シク-adjectives. There is remnant of those adjectives even now, though there are ...
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Two different polite forms of the conditional conjugation
Neither is common. In fact, 戦いませば and 戦いますれば are almost never used in modern Japanese. You have to use 戦いましたら.
I sometimes hear stereotyped samurai in samurai dramas say 戦いますれば. It's indeed "if (...
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7
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Please help me understand this たる?
They are the same as 焼いた人器 and いた時, respectively, but said in an archaic fashion.
Several things happening here. First, ある is used instead of いる because ある could safely be used with animate objects ...
- 306k
7
votes
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Similarity between 挟む and 狭む
1. Why is the verb 狭{せば}む so rare/weird?
As user naruto said in the comments, the reason you don't see 狭{せば}む much in modern Japanese (and that your input method can't handle it) is that this is a ...
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votes
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Name of レ点 in 漢文
The レ点 means first read the next character (that is the character below since it was written from top to bottom at that time) then read the previous character.
Ex: 帰ル（レ点）国ニ should read 国に帰る.
Before, ...
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votes
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I know that the word 広し means 広い, but which rule or grammar is included?
The basic grammar
The し ending on adjectives is the Classical Japanese 終止形【しゅうしけい】 or "terminal form", i.e. the conjugation to use when the word comes at the end of a sentence. The Classical ...
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7
votes
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Questions on an 1840's text: Battle at Yamaki Palace 治承四年八月中句右兵衞佐頼朝公
Questions and Answers
I'll answer your questions in order.
Line 1: 句 looks like it is read as ば (ba), despite 句 having readings of く (ku), こう (kō) or すく (suku). Any thoughts?
The kanji are used here ...
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7
votes
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What is the meaning of the radical 手 as a part of character?
西周金曶壺蓋集成9728今楷
「手{しゅ}」is a picture of a hand. It has variants
「扌」(normally written on the left)
「⿻一十」(bottom component of「奉」)
「手・扌・⿻一十」normally contributes one of two meanings:
Something to do ...
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How do you join たる-adjectives?
One simple approach is to use かつ, which is one of the stiffest words to say "and" in Japanese. It can be used also with i-adjectives and na-adjectives (see the link), but since most taru-...
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7
votes
How does 形容詞+かる work in Classical Japanese?
Your main question
How does 形容詞+かる work in Classical Japanese?
In basic terms, the conjugation charts in the Japanese Wikipedia article at https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/形容詞#古典日本語の形容詞の活用 are quite ...
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6
votes
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Haphazard usage of katakana and hiragana for particles and okurigana
Using ハ for particle "wa" was a part of their proper style to write official documents or letters at that time.
The writing style of 日米和親条約 in your image is [候文]{そうろう・ぶん}, which was a formal ...
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Why was 邪 chosen to spell the names of 伊邪那岐神 and 伊邪那美神 in the 古事記?
To complement Avery's answer, one thing that may be worth investigating is that the Nihon Shoki has a particular phonetic orthography for Japanese (so-called Man’yōgana or ateji, which are directly ...
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6
votes
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What is しか here?
It's direct past き + question か (see the 係助詞 one).
The particle か causes 係【かか】り結【むす】び phenomenon, which makes the sentence verb end in 連体形 no matter where か attaches to in the sentence. In the link ...
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6
votes
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Is there a reason why the passive and the potential form are identical (at least for える/いる verbs)?
Etymologically, various usages of れる/られる derived from one base meaning, "without someone's will". In modern Japanese, れる/られる is still sometimes used in this sense (known as 自発【じはつ】 or "...
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