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Japanese verbs, like the verbs of many other languages, can be morphologically modified to change their meaning or grammatical function – a process known as conjugation. In Japanese , the beginning of a word (the stem ) is preserved during conjugation, while the ending of the word is altered in some way to change the meaning (this is the ...
By contrast, in Old Japanese -shiki (〜しき) adjectives (precursors of present i-adjectives ending in -shi-i (〜しい), formerly a different word class) were open, as reflected in words like ita-ita-shi-i (痛々しい, pitiful), from the adjective ita-i (痛い, painful, hurt), and kō-gō-shi-i (神々しい, heavenly, sublime), from the ...
Japanese wordplay relies on the nuances of the Japanese language and Japanese script for humorous effect, functioning somewhat like a cross between a pun and a spoonerism. Double entendres have a rich history in Japanese entertainment (such as in kakekotoba ) [ 1 ] due to the language's large number of homographs (different meanings for a given ...
Since English loanwords are adopted into Japan intentionally (as opposed to diffusing "naturally" through language contact, etc.), the meaning often deviates from the original. When these loanwords become so deeply embedded in the Japanese lexicon, it leads to experimentation and re-fashioning of the words' meaning, thus resulting in wasei-eigo.
Moe (萌え, Japanese pronunciation: ⓘ), sometimes romanized as moé, is a Japanese word that refers to feelings of strong affection mainly towards characters in anime, manga, video games, and other media directed at the otaku market. Moe, however, has also gained usage to refer to feelings of affection towards any subject.
Oogiri is a form of comedy that focuses on improvisation by providing a funny answer on the spot for a question or thematic topic. Usually presented like a game show or quiz show format, the comedians are asked a simple question, to which they must try to come up with spontaneous witty and funny responses. The question can vary from simple ...
However, they merged over the course of Late Middle Japanese (see Late Middle Japanese adjectives), and now shii-adjectives are simply a form of i-adjectives. The distinction, although no longer meaningful in pronunciation, is still reflected by the writing system, where し is still written out in hiragana, as in atarashii ( 新しい , new) .
The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana.Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalized Japanese words and grammatical elements; and katakana, used primarily for foreign words and names, loanwords, onomatopoeia, scientific names, and sometimes for emphasis.