Ordinal Numbers.
The Cardinal frequently act as ordinal numbers, as: San gwatsu, the third month; Meiji jūku nen, the 19th year of Meiji. But ordinal numbers are generally formed by prefixing dai to the Chinese numeral, as: dai ichi, the first; dai ni, the second; or suffixing ban or me, as: ichi ban or ichi ban me, the first, or No. 1; niban or niban me, the second, or No. 2; go ken me, the fifth house; san nin me, the third person; mitsuki me, the third month; nido me, the second time; nichō me, the second block of houses.
Distributive numbers are formed by adding zutsu or mae to the cardinal number, as: hitotsu zutzu, one by one, one at a time, or one apiece; futatsu zutsu, two by two, etc.; ichi nin mae, one man's share; san nin mae, three men's share.
For Descriptive or classifying numerals, a large number of words are employed, the principal of which are:—
- Ken for houses;
- Chō for wagons, ink, candles, tools.
- Sō, ships;
- Hon, pens, pencils, pillars, posts, bottles, etc.
- Mai, sheets of paper, notes, quilts.
- Tsuji, threads, ropes, roads, rivers.
- Satsu, books, volumes.
- Jō, mats, quires of 20 sheets of paper.
- Hiki, animals, fish.
- Wa, birds, fowls, bundles of wood.
- Soku, pair of shoes, clogs, socks.
- Bu, set of books.
- Tsutsumi, packages.
The Verb.
The Japanese verb has neither number nor person. They are divided into transitive, intransitive, causative, passive or potential, and negative forms.
The moods are the indicative, imperative, conditional, conjunctive and concessive.
The tenses are the past, present and future. The root form of every verb terminates in either i or e, and is also indefinite in meaning.
The various modifications in the action or state of the verb are expressed by the addition to the root form of certain syllables or auxilliary words; and also, in the first conjugation, by certain regular changes in the final vowel of the root.
The verbs might be naturally arranged into two conjugations, according as the root form ends in i or e; but as there are quite a number of verbs whose root forms end in i which take the auxilliary syllables without change, it is thought better to classify these into a separate conjugation, thus making three, the root form of the
