Category talk:Japanese auxiliary verbs

What about splitting this category into “Japanese auxiliary verbs in traditional grammar” for 助動詞 and “Japanese auxiliary verbs” for 補助動詞?

(Notifying @Eirikr, TAKASUGI Shinji, Atitarev, Poketalker, Fumiko Take, Suzukaze-c) --Dine2016 (talk) 05:42, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Category:Japanese auxiliary verbs should contain only 補助動詞. The morphemes belonging to 助動詞 in traditional Japanese grammar are not auxiliary verbs but verb endings. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 14:11, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

It's worth noting that the JA WP makes the distinction that 助動詞 are both the verb-ending suffix-y bits in Japanese grammar (as described at 助動詞 (国文法)), as well as the additional verbs in other languages in constructions like "I have eaten an apple"; meanwhile, 補助動詞 are treated as the secondary verbs in certain set compound verb constructions like 見てしまう (as described in the second line of text at 助動詞 (言語学), and at 補助動詞).

The English verbiage for 助動詞 is auxiliary verb, as seen in the cross-linking between the WP articles at 助動詞 (言語学) and Auxiliary verb, and at various links at google:"auxiliary verb" japanese. The English verbiage for 補助動詞 might be subsidiary verb rather than auxiliary verb: c.f. google:"subsidiary verb", where (for me, at least) the first hit is a Japanese Language Stack Exchange thread discussing these.

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:44, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

@Eirikr Do you think we should have a category for jodōshi, and if so, should the category be named "Japanese jodōshi", "Japanese auxiliary verbs in traditional grammar", "Japanese inflecting suffixes", or something else? Personally, I support such a category if "Japanese" includes both Classical Japanese and Modern Japanese, as the jodōshi system is devised for the classical language and can be quite idiosyncratic for the modern language only. --Dine2016 (talk) 05:29, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm. Settling on rational and commonly-used terminology for this seems important. By way of comparison, Japanese_grammar#Auxiliary_verbs lays out one possibility, where 助動詞 are "auxiliaries" and 補助動詞 are "helper auxiliaries". Not satisfying, somehow. Jim Breen's dictionary code tags differentiate between "auxiliary" and "auxiliary verb", which sounds somewhat better to my ear. Thoughts?

And FWIW, I agree re: including both modern and Classical. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 01:15, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

@Eirikr Bjarke Frellesvig's A History of the Japanese Language also uses the terms "auxiliary" and "auxiliary verbs". However, his definition of "auxiliary" is different from that of traditional grammar. For example, non-inflecting suffixes such as classical じ and modern た are not auxiliaries but "flectives", and inflecting suffixes following a finite verb form such as べし and らしい are not auxiliaries but verb extensions. If we insist on the traditional analysis, I think it's better to group the morphemes as "jodōshi" untranslated. If we want to use the term "auxiliary", then it's better to use a linguistic analysis. Personally, I'm inclined to the former approach and using the term "jodōshi", as both a {{lb}} label name and the category name. Thoughts? --Dine2016 (talk) 01:45, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

@Dine2016 -- I'm certainly open to that, just calling these "jodōshi" -- less ambiguity, less confusion. So long as the descriptive text on the category landing page explains what we mean by "jodōshi", and mentions some of the English-language attempts at describing these. And so long as the template also accepts "jodoshi" without the macron, to make things easier for editors without quick access to extended characters.

I confess I don't fully understand your post, though -- was it Frellesvig that used labels such as "flectives" and "verb extensions"? Using the term "flective" for a static and unchanging element seems ... very weird, given the similarly to "inflective" and the implication of "flex" i.e. "change", even though these *don't* change. Add to that, the fact that "flective" seems a very odd and artificial word that most readers won't be familiar with, and I find myself thinking we should avoid using this term if at all possible.

"Verb extension" is also a weird turn of phrase: at first glance, this implies to me something more like a suffix or infix, something that is actually attached to the verb. Morphologically, べし and らしい are adjectives, and functionally, they're almost more like modals.

Anyway, +1 to the idea of using "jodōshi" as the label. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 16:32, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! And yes, Frellesvig used the terms "flective" and "verb extension" in his book. Roughly speaking, auxiliaries extend the verb stem (sas- → sasare-), flectives finish the conjugation (sasareta), and verb extensions extend the already conjugated form (sasareta rashii). On the other hand, A History of the Japanese Language is the only "linguistic" book I have access to, so I don't know if other linguistics have other analyses. --Dine2016 (talk) 00:43, 11 July 2018 (UTC)