未然形

Japanese

Etymology
Kanji in this term
未 然 形
み
Grade: 4		 ぜん
Grade: 4		 けい
Grade: 2
on’yomi

Compound of 未然 (mizen, literally “not yet occurred”) +‎ 形 (kei, “form”). Historically called 将然言 (しょうぜんげん) (shōzengen), 未然段 (みぜんだん) (mizendan).[1]

Pronunciation

Noun

未然形 (hiragana みぜんけい, rōmaji mizenkei)

  1. (grammar) a Japanese verbal inflectional category: the irrealis form
    Indicates that something has not yet happened, or not yet begun.

Usage notes

This term is used in the traditional description of Japanese grammar. In the western analysis of Japanese grammar, it is not an inflected form but a derived stem, called for example the "a- stem" in Bjarke Frellesvig's works. Some analyses such as John R. Bentley's A Descriptive Grammar Of Early Old Japanese Prose even do not posit such a stem at all, instead analyzing the a as part of the suffix (e.g. yuk-azu instead of yuka-zu).

See also
  • Appendix:Japanese verbs

References
  1. 1988, 国語大辞典（新装版） (Kokugo Dai Jiten, Revised Edition) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan
  2. 2006, 大辞林 (Daijirin), Third Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, →ISBN
  3. 1998, NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 (NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: NHK, →ISBN
  4. 1997, 新明解国語辞典 (Shin Meikai Kokugo Jiten), Fifth Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, →ISBN
  • Shibatani, Masayoshi (1990) The languages of Japan, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 221-224
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