Abstract

The basic word order of a Japanese sentence is subject–predicate. Japanese is therefore classified as a verb-final language. The ‘subject’ can be, and often is, absent, especially when its identity is clear from the context. The predicate may be a verb, an i-type adjective, or a copula. The copula is attached to a noun or a na-type adjective, and functions like the ‘be’ verb in English (e.g. ‘is,’ ‘are’). The main predicates are underlined in the examples in this section.