未然形

Japanese

Kanji in this term
未	然	形
み Grade: 4	ぜん Grade: 4	けい Grade: 2
goon	kan’on

Etymology

Compound of 未然 (mizen, literally “not yet occurred”) +‎ 形 (kei, “form”). Historically called 将然言(しょうぜんげん) (shōzengen), 未然段(みぜんだん) (mizendan).

Pronunciation

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

Noun

未(み)然(ぜん)形(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 (日本語教育文法), this is called the ない形 (-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

• 已然形(いぜんけい) (izenkei, “realis”)
• 仮定形(かていけい) (kateikei, “conditional”)
• 終止形(しゅうしけい) (shūshikei, “conclusive”)
• 命令形(めいれいけい) (meireikei, “imperative”)
• 連用形(れんようけい) (ren'yōkei, “adverbial”)
• 連体形(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