CHARACTERISTICS. Words and inflections are frequently formed by loosely joining words and parts of words to other words, so it is described as agglutina tive. Native grammarians di vide its words into two classes, uninflected and inflected. The former includes nouns, pro nouns, umnerals, postpositions, and some adjectives which are really nouns. The inflected words are most of the adjec tives and verbs. Nouns do not distinguish gender, number, or case. The apparent exceptions really conform to the rule, for when the distinction of sex is imperative it is formed by using a special word. and when number must be indicated there is reduplication or the use of words signifying number. There are no personal pronouns; hut when, in exceptional cases. a pro noun is required certain nouns are used which retain in common conversation their ordinary meanings. Relative pronouns are wholly want ing, the relative word or clause being placed be fore the word qualified, as we may say the mur dered man' for 'the man who was murdered.' There is no article, and our prepositions are rep resented by postpositions, the latter having cer tain uses which have no equivalent in European prepositions. The verb also, in some of its as peet, differs widely from the verb in languages more familiar to ourselves. It is conjugated in three tenses, past, present. and future, but in a wide range of moods: probable, conditional. con cessive, frequentative, imperative. It has. how ever, neither number nor person. and, one might almost add, it has only the present tense. For its past tense denotes primarily certainty, and is used, therefore, sometimes of the present and even of the tuture. The future denotes uncer tainty. and is used, therefore, sometimes of the present and even of the past. The past tense is used in its ordinary sense of past time \dieII 111,, emphasis is upon the tense, lint often a sec ond verb is introduced in the present showing that it is the dominant point of view, as if one should say 'Is it that you have been in Russia?' Tito moods differ trout our own. There is no infinitive. and there are forms not found in our ordinary wiijugonons. concessive, desiderat ive.
hypothetical. and the like, with negative forms corresponding throughout. The terminations are other verbs, fragments of verbs. or postpositions. TAlost adjectives are conjugated like verbs, and the adverbs are adjectives with a certain termi nation. Adjectives are in the positive degree only. though sometimes comparison is indicated by a word corresponding to 'than,' and the superlative I y various words signifying 'most: The lack of distinctions of persons is made good in part by the use of honorific prefixes, suffixes, and words which themselves convey differences in the degree of estimation in which persons and things are 'tel.]. Conjimetions are in part postpositions, and in part they are supplied through intleetions of the verb. Two sets of numerals are employed. the Chinese and the native Japanese, but the latter ex tend only to ten. Auxiliary minilwrs are common. similar numerals are used sparingly in English. as of paper. blades of grass.hd.ad of cattle and the like. but the Japanese use such expressions lavishly. certain ones applying to whole classes of objects, so nutny long, round ones, so many fiat ones. and as the usage is fixed a mistake in a nu meral produces. as indeed in English. a ludicrous effect. in pronunciation the vowel sounds closely resemble the Italian, and the consonants can lie represented by the English letters, 1, q, r, and .r being wanting. In diphthongs vowel retains its separate value. In many 'clear' con sonants, i.e. surds, are changed to 'muddled,' sonants. Syllables are open, and accent is so slight that it may. be disregarded. The chief rule of syntax is that the qualifying word or clause precedes the word or clause qualified. The verb is last in the sentence, and as a sentence is sup posed to contain a complete statement, however complicated. the mind is often held long in sus pense. Most affirmations are without true sub jects. active verbs being employed often without a subject, the tend Plley being to remark 'with reference to' somebody or something. It follows that the distinction between active and passive voices and verbs is not precisely the same as in other languages.