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The Japanese language does not have words that function as adjectives in a syntactic sense – that is to say that tree diagrams of Japanese sentences can be constructed without employing adjective phrases. Nevertheless, there are words that function as adjectives in a semantic sense. This article deals with those words. ==Types of adjective== In Japanese, nouns and verbs can modify nouns, with nouns taking the 〜の particles when functioning attributively (in the genitive case), and verbs in the attributive form (連体形 rentaikei). These are considered separate classes of words, however. Most of the words that can be considered to be adjectives in Japanese fall into one of two categories – variants of verbs, and nouns: *adjective (Japanese: 形容詞, ''keiyōshi'', literally "adjective"), or ''i''-adjectives :These can be considered specialized verbs, and have a conjugating ending ''-i'' which can become, for example, past or negative. For example, ''atsui'' (暑い) "hot": ::暑い日 (Atsui hi) ("a hot day") ::今日は暑い。(Kyō wa atsui.) ("Today is hot.") *adjectival noun (形容動詞, ''keiyō-dōshi'', literally "adjective verb"), or ''na''-adjectives :These can be considered a form of noun; these attach to a form of the copula, which then inflects, but use 〜な ''-na'' (rather than the genitive 〜の) when modifying a noun. For example, ''hen'' (変) "strange": ::変な人 (Hen-na hito) ("a strange person") ::彼は変だ。(Kare wa hen da.) ("he is strange.") Both the predicative forms (終止形 ''shūshikei'' "terminal form") and attributive forms (連体形 ''rentaikei'') of adjectival verbs and adjectival nouns can be analyzed as verb phrases, making the attributive forms of adjectival verbs and adjectival nouns relative clauses, rather than adjectives. According to this analysis, Japanese has no syntactic adjectives. Japanese adjectives that do not fall into either of these categories are usually grouped into a grab-bag category: *attributives (連体詞, ''rentaishi'', literally "attributive") :These may only occur before nouns, not in a predicative position. They are various in derivation and word class, and are generally analyzed as variants of more basic classes, where this specific form (possibly a fossil) can only be used in restricted settings. For example, ''ōkina'' (大きな) "big" (variant of 大きい): ::大きな事(Ōkina koto) ("a big thing") A couple of small sub-categories can be distinguished in these categories, reflecting former grammatical distinctions or constructions which no longer exist: *''-shii'' adjectives (form of ''-i'' adjectives, see below) *''-yaka'' ''na'' adjectives (see below) *''-raka'' ''na'' adjectives (see below) *''taru'' adjectives (ト・タル形容動詞, ''to,taru keiyōdōshi,'' literally "to, taru adjectival noun") :These are a variant of the common ''na''-nominals (adjectival noun; see article for naming) that developed in Late Old Japanese and have mostly died out, surviving in a few cases as fossils; they are usually classed as a form of 形容動詞 (adjectival noun), as the Japanese name indicates. *''naru'' adjectives :These are words that were traditionally earlier forms of ''na''-nominals, but that followed a path similar to ''taru'' adjectives, surviving in a few cases as fossils. These are generally classed as rentaishi. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Japanese equivalents of adjectives」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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