Role of Okurigana.
What is Okurigana?
Okurigana indicates the Hiragana appended to kanji in Japanese written words.
Present Okurigana is universally almost written by the katakana though Okurigana had been written by katakana in the past.
And, generally okurigana used to inflect an adjective or verb.
"Affirmative or negative meaning, or grammatical politeness" in the Japanese sentence is shown by Okurigana.
Look at the image, please.
A red character is the Okurigana.
Okurigna changes when object of act is different even if it is a verb for which same kanji is used.
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Example for which Okurigana is used.
Then, please look at the example.
I use left Japanese sentence as an example.
The meaning of the verb changes variously by okurigna.
You see these sentences, the importance of okurigana will be able to be understood.
[I delimited each part of speech of the Japanese sentence so that you can easily understand the pronunciation of words in Japanese.]
English |
Japanese |
He learns English. |
彼 は 英語 を 学ぶ。 kare wa eigo wo mana-bu. |
He learned English. |
彼 は 英語 を 学んだ。
kare wa eigo wo mana-nda. |
He has learned English. |
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He had learned English. |
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He may learns English. |
彼 は 英語 を 学ぶ かもしれない。 kare wa eigo wo mana-bu kamoshirenai. |
He will learns English. |
彼 は 英語 を 学ぶ だろう。 kare wa eigo wo mana-bu darou. |
He will be learning English. |
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He is learning English. |
彼 は 英語 を 学んで いる。 kare wa eigo wo mana-nde iru. |
He has been learning English. |
|
He was learning English. |
彼 は 英語 を 学んで いた。 kare wa eigo wo mana-nde ita. |
He had been learning English. |
彼 は 英語 を 学び 続けて いた。 |
He will have been learning English. |
彼 は 英語 を 学び続ける だろう。 kare wa eigo wo mana-bi tsudukeru darou. |
Thus, tense and result by kanji of the verb changes by Okurigana.
[Part of speech that is not okurigna is included in an orange-character if it says strictly.
But, I gave priority to your easy understanding of the change in the verb by Okurigana.]
An additional use of okurigana are to disambiguate kanji that may have multiple readings.
In addition, okurigana accompanies Kunyomi-kanji in many cases.
By Hararie
