Page 227 - Basic Japanese

There are three men whose birthplace is Kyushu

in our company.

5.4. Modifier clauses made with adjectival
nouns

In the previous section, you have seen that no is an
alternant of da. However, no is not the only alternant of da.

There is also an alternant na that occurs after adjectival

nouns. Adjectival nouns are a special sort of nouns that do
not often occur before particles like wa, ga, o but occur

before some form of the copula (desu, da, na) or before the

particle ni. When these adjectival noun clauses, like kirei desu
‘is pretty,’ occur in modifier position, the expected form da

occurs in the alternant form of na as in:

きれいな女の人

kirei na onna no hito

women WHO ARE pretty, or pretty women

In citing nouns it is convenient to note the ones that are

adjectival nouns by adding in parentheses (na). Here are
some common ones:

バカ(な) baka (na) fool, foolish

丈夫(な) jōbu (na) strong, rough

きれい(な) kirei (na) pretty, neat, clean

失礼(な) shitsurei (na) rude

丁寧(な) teinei (na) polite