Japanese

Etymology

Compound of (ren'y?, "attaching to an inflecting word", where ? (y?) is short for (y?gen, "inflecting word")) +‎ ? (kei, "form").^[1][2]

Pronunciation

• On'yomi: Kan'on
  • (Tokyo) ? [rè?'yóókéé] (Heiban - [0])^[2][3][4]
  • IPA^(key): [jo?:ke?:]

Noun

() o (ren'y?kei)

1. (grammar) an inflectional category: the continuative or stem form for verbs, the adverbial form for adjectives

   This is the base form after which various conjugational endings are added, such as ? (te) or (masu). See Appendix:Japanese verbs for more details.

Usage notes

As a term describing an inherently Japanese grammatical form, is sometimes simply transliterated. When rendered into English, the term has been translated different ways by different authors. Alternate glosses include:

• adverbial
• base form
• conjunctional
• continuative
• deverbal noun
• infinitive
• stem form

Related terms

• ?(?)?()?() (izenkei, "realis")
• ?(?)?()?() (kateikei, "conditional")
• ?()?(?)?() (sh?shikei, "conclusive")
• ?(?)?()?() (mizenkei, "irrealis")
• ?()?()?() (meireikei, "imperative")
• ?()?()?() (rentaikei, "attributive")

References

• Sandness, Karen (1999) The Evolution of the Japanese Past and Perfective suffixes, Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, ->ISBN, pages 3, 12, 42, others
• Henderson, Harold Gould (1948) Handbook of Japanese Grammar, Houghton Mifflin Co., page 12
• Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Volume 6, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1932, page 643