未然みぜん形がた

Japanese

Kanji in this term
未み	然しか	形かたち
み Grade: 4	ぜん Grade: 4	けい Grade: 2
goon	kan’on

Etymology

Compound of 未然みぜん (mizen, literally “not yet occurred”) +‎ 形かたち (kei, “form”). Historically called 将はた然しか言げん(しょうぜんげん) (shōzengen), 未然みぜん段だん(みぜんだん) (mizendan).

Pronunciation

• (Tokyo) みぜんけー [mìzéńkéé] (Heiban – [0])
• IPA^(key): [mʲizẽ̞ŋke̞ː]

Noun

未み(み)然しか(ぜん)形かたち(けい) • (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 Japanese Educational Grammar (日本語にほんご教育きょういく文法ぶんぽう), this is called the ない形かたち (-nai kei, “-nai form”) as it is used before the suffix ない (-nai). 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).

Related terms

• 已然いぜん形がた(いぜんけい) (izenkei, “realis”)
• 仮定かてい形がた(かていけい) (kateikei, “conditional”)
• 終止しゅうし形がた(しゅうしけい) (shūshikei, “conclusive”)
• 命令めいれい形がた(めいれいけい) (meireikei, “imperative”)
• 連用形れんようけい(れんようけい) (ren'yōkei, “adverbial”)
• 連体れんたい形がた(れんたいけい) (rentaikei, “attributive”)

See also

• Appendix:Japanese verbs

References

• Shibatani, Masayoshi (1990) The languages of Japan, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 221-224