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:
“Grammar is the logic of speech, even as logic is the grammar of reason.”
—Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886)
“The old saying of Buffon’s that style is the man himself is as near the truth as we can get—but then most men mistake grammar for style, as they mistake correct spelling for words or schooling for education.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“Syntax is the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages. Syntactic investigation of a given language has as its goal the construction of a grammar that can be viewed as a device of some sort for producing the sentences of the language under analysis.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)