Japanese pronouns

Japanese pronouns (代名詞, daimeishi) are words in the Japanese language used to address or refer to present people or things, where present means people or things that can be pointed at. The position of things (far away, nearby) and their role in the current interaction (goods, addresser, addressee, bystander) are features of the meaning of those words. The use of pronouns, especially when referring to oneself and speaking in the first person, vary between gender, formality, dialect and region where Japanese is spoken.

According to some Western grammarians, pronouns are not a distinct part of speech in Japanese, but a subclass of nouns, since they behave grammatically just like nouns.[1][2][3][4] Among Japanese grammarians, whether nouns should be considered a distinct part of speech (品詞, hinshi) has varied.[5] Some considered them distinct,[6][a][7][b][8][c] others thought they were only nouns.[9][d][10][e] The gakkō bunpō (学校文法, lit. 'school grammar') of today has followed Iwabuchi Etsutarō's model,[11] which does not recognize pronouns as a distinct part of speech, but merely a subclass of nouns (see Japanese grammar § Different classifications).

  1. ^ Chamberlain, Basil Hall (1886). "Chapter IV. The Pronoun". A Simplified Grammar of the Japanese Language. p. 13. The Japanese words corresponding to the personal pronouns of European languages are simply nouns whose original significations are in most cases perfectly clear, and which are indeed still often used with those significations. They answer to such English expressions as "your humble servant" (meaning "I").
  2. ^ Weintz, Henry John (1904). "The Pronoun". Hossfeld's Japanese Grammar. Hirschfeld Brothers. p. 16. The Japanese substitutes for the Personal Pronouns of Western languages are merely nouns which by process of time have become pronominal, and their discussion as separate parts of speech is merely to suit the convenience of the foreign student.
  3. ^ Aston, William George (1904). "Pronouns". A Grammar of the Japanese Written Language (3rd ed.). p. 49. The distinction of person which holds so prominent a place in the Aryan languages has little place in Japanese. The verb has no grammatical inflections to indicate person, and although there are words which correspond in meaning to the personal pronouns of other languages, their grammar is the same as that of nouns, and the idea of placing them in a separate class has not even suggested itself to the native grammarians.
  4. ^ Matsuoka McClain, Yoko (1981). "Pronouns". Handbook of Modern Japanese Grammar. The Hokuseido Press. p. 191. Japanese pronouns are a class of nouns. Thus, the rules governing the use of pronouns are the same as those of nouns as shown below:
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference bunpo-daijiten was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Tsurumine, Shigenobu (1831). 語學新書 (in Japanese). Vol. 1.
  7. ^ Tanaka, Yoshikado (1874). 小學日本文典 (in Japanese). Vol. 2.
  8. ^ Hashimoto, Shinkichi (1935). 新文典別記 上級用 (in Japanese). Fuzanbō. p. 7.
  9. ^ Ōtsuki, Fumihiko (1897). 廣日本文典 (in Japanese).
  10. ^ Matsushita, Daizaburō (1927). 改撰標凖日本文法 (in Japanese).
  11. ^ Morita, Shingo (26 July 2021). 「学校文法」成立過程における指導内容の生成と収斂 (PDF) (Doctor of Philosophy in Education thesis) (in Japanese). University of Tsukuba. 10.15068/0002000707.


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