Page 164 - Basic Japanese

(2) -r as in nor-u rides

(3) -[w] as in ka-u buys

(4) -s as in kas-u lends

(5) -k as in kak-u writes

(6) -g as in oyog-u swims

(7) -b as in yob-u calls

(8) -m as in yom-u reads

(9) -n as in shin-u dies

You will notice certain peculiarities in the above list of
stem-final consonants. Verbs like kau ‘buys’ are said to be

consonant verbs, but the consonant with which they end, w,

just doesn’t occur in Japanese except before the sound a (as
in watashi ‘I’). This means that for some of the endings, like

the imperfect, these w-ending-stem verbs don’t display this
stem-final consonant at all. That is why we put the w in

brackets—to show that it disappears before every vowel

except a. You will notice another sound in brackets—the s of
the verb katsu ‘wins.’ This verb stem basically ends in just -t,

but the sound t does not occur before the sound u in
Japanese, so that before an ending beginning with u, the t is

replaced by ts. In a similar way, since the combination ti

does not normally occur in Japanese, before the infinitive

ending -i, the t becomes ch— kach-i ‘wins.’ Since the sound si
does not occur, the infinitive of hanas-u ‘speaks’ turns out to
be hanash-i ‘speaking.’ There is only one verb with a stem

ending in -n, shinu ‘dies,’ and this is often replaced by a

euphemism nakunaru ‘passes away.’ The verb shinu is
included in our list only for completeness. Here are some

models showing the formation of the plain forms: