THE NOUN. a
CHAPTER I.
The Japanese language has, properly speaking, no article, no plural, and no gender.
1. There is an equivalent of the English "a certain," namely, aru (lit. existing) : aru onna a certain woman. More recently this aru has come to be used also with plurals in the sense of "some." To the English article in its generic sense, as in "the cat" or "a cat" (speaking generally), corresponds the Japanese idiom : neko to iu mono what is called cat (neko cat, to particle of quotation, iu say, mono thing).
2. When there is need of bringing out the idea of plurality, the suffixes ra,(b) domo (from tomo companion), shú (c) or shu crowd, tachi (c) or dachi all, and gata (from kata side), may be employed. These are, with the exception of the first, used only with words denoting persons. The last is the most polite :
- Hyakushó peasant ; hyakushódomo peasants.
- Ко child ; kodomo children.(c)
- Akindo merchant ; akindoshú merchants.
- Onna woman ; onnashú women (of servants girls, etc.).
- Oya parent ; oyatachi parents.
- Fu-jin (c) lady ; fujingata ladies.
Many words may be made plural by doubling :
- Kuni country ; kuniguni countries.
- Hito person ; hitobito people.
- Tokoro, sho (c) place ; tokorodokoro, shosho various places.
The plural may also be expressed by means of words used as prefixes meaning "many," "all," etc.
- Bankoku all countries, from ban myriad.
- Shokoku various countries (or provinces) from sho many.
a Jitsu-mei-shi true-name-word, or simply meishi.
b The suffix ra is in the colloquial used mostly with pronouns. The ideogram used to represent it is tó "class." Both ra and tó may also have the sense of "etc."
c The words kodomo child, wakaishú young fellow (from wakai young), and tamodachi friend, have come to be used also in a singular sense. To make the plural sense of kodomo distinct, still another suffix must be added : kodomora, kodomoshú, kodomotachi.
