四段活用
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Japanese
| Kanji in this term | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 四 | 段 | 活 | 用 |
| よ Grade: 1 |
だん Grade: 6 |
かつ Grade: 2 |
よう Grade: 2 |
| kun’yomi | goon | kan’on | |
Etymology
Compound of 四段 (yodan, “quadrigrade, four-grade”) + 活用 (katsuyō, “conjugation”).
Pronunciation
Noun
四段活用 • (yodan katsuyō) ←よだんくわつよう (yodankwatuyou)?
- (Classical Japanese grammar) a verbal conjugation class consisting of four alternating bases: -a, -i, -u, and -e
| 未然形 Irrealis |
連用形 Adverbial |
終止形 Conclusive |
連体形 Attributive |
已然形 Realis |
命令形 Imperative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 書く (kak-, “to write”) | 書か (kaka) | 書き (kaki1 → kaki) | 書く (kaku) | 書く (kaku) | 書け (kake2 → kake) | 書け (kake1 → kake) |
| 立つ (tat-, “to stand”) | 立た (tata) | 立ち (tati → tachi) | 立つ (tatu → tatsu) | 立つ (tatu → tatsu) | 立て (tate) | 立て (tate) |
| 笑ふ (warap- → waraf-, “to laugh”) | 笑は (warapa → warawa) | 笑ひ (warapi1 → warai) | 笑ふ (warapu → warau) | 笑ふ (warapu → warau) | 笑へ (warape2 → warae) | 笑へ (warape1 → warae) |
The subscripts in the table above indicate differences in vowel class that were already being lost in Old Japanese. It remains unclear what those different vowel classes may have meant. See the Syllables section in the Wikipedia article on Old Japanese for more details.
Usage notes
Verbs in this class are superseded in modern Japanese as 五段活用 (godan katsuyō) verbs, with additional variations in the 未然形 (mizenkei, “incomplete”) and 連用形 (ren'yōkei, “stem”) forms.