List of verb endings?

Hi all,

I’m at level 5 and just realized that I now learnt 3 different endings for the same steam / verb : 見る, 見せる and 見える.

So I’m wondering :

  • are there more than those 3 forms for the stem 見 ?
  • how many different “verb endings” are there in Japanese ? I’ve already spotted verbs ending by つ, す, がる, etc.
  • anyone could share for a list of those “verb endings”, or point me to a resource ?
  • are there some general rules explaining how those different endings affect the sense of the stem / verb ?

I searched on Google but mainly found explanations about the various “forms” of a verb like masu / masen / mashita / nai / te / etc. But what I’m looking for is more about the different “infinitive” form, and how they give a different sense to the stem / verb.

Sorry for probably not using the right words, I have no idea how this is called in Japanese grammar (and I suck at grammar more generally !)… hopefully you get what I mean by “verb endings” from the example above :grimacing:

Tx in advance :pray:

Except that they aren’t the same verb. You’re mistakenly conflating different words together. Also, the ending is just the る as they are all ichidan verbs.

Except the ‘stem’ is not 見 for all of those verbs. It’s 見, 見せ and 見え respectively.

The verb endings are:

Ichidan verbs:

Godan verbs:
う, つ, る, ぶ, む, ぬ, く, ぐ, す.

がる is not a verb ending.

Maybe this link will help you?

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Well…

Not entirely true.

見 is the verb stem here. せる and える are causative and potential auxiliary verbs respectively.

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No, that would be 見させる and 見られる. Those are the causative and potential forms of 見る.

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Ugh. You’re absolutely right. Sorry about that.

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No problem. I’ve previously made the same mistake, too.

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見る, 見せる, 見える make up a somewhat confusing set of verbs, since they sound like causative and passive forms of a godan verb but are actually three distinct ichidan verbs with slightly different meanings. It makes me wonder if maybe these words were originally derived from 見る and later became separate words, although since ichidan verbs are a closed set I’m not sure how likely that is.

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From what I can tell 見せる was a form of 見す.

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Holy crap, I’m dumb.

I was always wondering what these Ichidan and Godan verbs were supposed to be, but too lazy to Google.

So it’s just another name for る and う verbs… :see_no_evil:

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And a much better name, too, since う verbs can end in る.

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More like, る and う verbs are another name for 一段 and 五段. :stuck_out_tongue:

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You’re not alone; a quote from my study log a while back…

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Did your research cover the 二段 and 四段 groups that used to exist? :slightly_smiling_face:

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No, I was just relieved to know I already had the basics covered. Knowing that English used to have 7 or so conjugations groups (all those ‘irregular’ verbs used to be regular), I did have the notion in the back of my head that they could exist, but I’m nowhere near far enough along in my competency to be delving into those for the mo. Cheers for the heads up, though! :smiley:

Well, the short story is, all 五段 verbs used to be 四段 (the ~おう conjugation is comparatively new), while many 一段 verbs used to be 二段 (食べる, for example, used to have a 食ぶ form - the only 二段-like verb that still exists today is 得る, which can be read as both うる and える).

There’s never been a 三段 group.

Fun fact: modern standard Japanese has only one single ~ぬ verb: 死ぬ.

There’s also 往ぬ in the dictionary too, but that’s dialectical and/or archaic.

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Aka the bane of my life because I never can remember it.

But now I just might.

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Well, I still learned something new here, I wasn’t aware, that U-Verbs conjugate through the whole row, because I don’t know every from yet. It really makes sense then, to call them Godan.

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Far too few, it seems! I think I shall take this opportunity to make a new one:

わにかぬ
= to WaniKani / to WK / to crabigator

You know you’ve been WKing when

わにかにます・にました
わにかにません・にませんでした
わにかぬ
わにかんだ
わにかなない
わにかななかった
わにかにましょう
わにかのう
わにかね!
わにかなないで!
わにかんで
わにかんでいる・んでいない
わにかんでいた・んでいなかった
わにかなせる・なせない
わにかなれる・なれない
わにかなせられる・なせられない
わにかねば、わにかねれば・わにかなければ
わにかななきゃいけない・ななくちゃいけない・なないといけない

Sorry, got a bit carried away there :laughing:

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わにかねばならぬ!

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Saying it aloud, doesn’t it just roll off the tongue so nicely? :grin:

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