Grammar
A number of archaic grammatical forms are shed bringing the language closer to its modern form.
One of the most prominent developments is the replacement of the conclusive form with the attributive. This has a number of effects:
- It is instrumental in the change from bigrade to monograde verbs.
- It causes a chain of events in the two adjectival classes which eventually results in the two merging into one.
- It weakens the Kakarimusubi system.
- The verb ar- "be", which was once irregular, begins to regularize as a quadrigrade.
Read more about this topic: Late Middle Japanese
Famous quotes containing the word grammar:
“Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“I demand that my books be judged with utmost severity, by knowledgeable people who know the rules of grammar and of logic, and who will seek beneath the footsteps of my commas the lice of my thought in the head of my style.”
—Louis Aragon (1897–1982)
“The syntactic component of a grammar must specify, for each sentence, a deep structure that determines its semantic interpretation and a surface structure that determines its phonetic interpretation.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)