Many people probably remember memorizing parts of speech: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, particle, auxiliary verb … Matsushita Daizaburō called a halt to that way of counting. We read, in plain terms, Part 3, Chapter 2 of Hyōjun Nihon Bunpō, “Hinshi oyobi hinshi-bu” (Parts of Speech and Their Groups). (English renderings of the quotations are ToL translations.)
The earlier parts of speech: nine
Matsushita first writes out the earlier way of counting.
従来の日本文典は通常、名詞、代名詞、動詞、形容詞、副詞、接続詞、助詞、助動詞、感動詞の九品詞とし、
(Earlier Japanese grammars usually take nine parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, conjunction, particle, auxiliary verb, interjection, and …)
He also notes that European grammars usually take eight parts of speech: noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection.
Matsushita’s five
Then Matsushita says:
品詞は之を定めて感動詞、名詞、動詞、形容詞、副詞の五品詞とすべきである。
(The parts of speech should be fixed as five: interjection, noun, verb, adjective, adverb.)
From nine to five. What falls out are pronoun, conjunction, particle, and auxiliary verb. We do not follow the treatment of pronouns and conjunctions in this article. (Pronouns we see in Plain-language explainer 3.) Here we focus on the boldest step: removing particles and auxiliaries from the parts of speech.
The image of “person and shoes”
Matsushita states his reason:
其れ故本書の五品詞中には助詞助動詞は含ませて居ない。
(For that reason, particles and auxiliaries are not included among this book’s five parts of speech.)
Particles and auxiliaries, in Matsushita’s terms, are genji (parts of a word). Why parts? Matsushita explains with a person and shoes. The word (nenshi) is the person, he says, and particles and auxiliaries are the shoes.
念詞は人で助詞助動詞は靴だ。
(The word is the person, and particles and auxiliaries are the shoes.)
What Matsushita means is this. A person is a person even barefoot. Even if the person puts on shoes, it does not become two, a person and shoes. Shoes make one person together with the person only by being worn, and the shoes themselves are not a person. Particles and auxiliaries are the same.
O and tari work only when attached to “hana” or “saki.” They are not one word themselves. So they are not counted among the parts of speech.
Matsushita goes on to criticize earlier grammars. Earlier grammars treat genji such as particles and auxiliaries as words, yet do not treat prefixes and suffixes as words. So, he says, their concept of a word is not carried through.
“Fukashi” is a verb
There is one more thing that stands out among the five. Matsushita’s verb is much broader than the verb of school grammar.
In the explanation of verbs in Part 4, examples like these appear.
父母の恩は海よりも「深し」。
霜葉は二月の花よりも「紅なり」。
(A parent’s kindness is “deep,” more than the sea. / The frost-touched leaves are “crimson,” more than the flowers of the second month.)
Fukashi and kurenai nari would be an adjective and an adjectival verb in school grammar. Matsushita, however, gives them as examples of the verb in its use of comparison (hikaku-tai). He also writes that, along with “uramu” and “kanashimu,” words like “nagashi” and “mijikashi” always carry hanteisei (a quality of judgment).
So in Matsushita’s five, many of the words school grammar calls adjectives are among the verbs. His “adjective” is used in a different sense. What that consists of, we could not confirm in this article.
What is the basis of classification?
Why such a difference? Matsushita divides parts of speech by the function the word inherently has. “Uramu” (to resent) and “urami” (resentment), he says, are not the same word even if they use the same genji.
「怨む」は人の動作で人から離れない。「怨み」は一つの無形物である。全く違つた概念である。
(Uramu is a person’s action and does not leave the person. Urami is a formless thing. They are entirely different concepts.)
So Matsushita says the classification of genji and the classification of nenshi (words) differ in their standard of classification.
What to keep in mind when reading
First, the “shoes” image is a plain way of saying the center of Matsushita’s claim; it is not a proof. Whether the claim “a particle is not a word” works as an account of Japanese has to be considered separately. We sort out this point in the verdict article.
Second, Matsushita’s “adjective” and “verb” cover a different range from the parts of speech of the same name in school grammar. Even with the same name, the content is not necessarily the same. In reading Matsushita’s five, his definitions must always be checked.
Summary
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Earlier parts of speech | Nine (noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, conjunction, particle, auxiliary verb, interjection) |
| Matsushita’s parts of speech | Five (interjection, noun, verb, adjective, adverb) |
| What falls outside | Particles and auxiliaries are not parts of speech but genji (parts of a word) |
| The image | The word is the person; particles and auxiliaries are shoes. “The shoes themselves are not a person” |
| Breadth of “verb” | Words like fukashi, which school grammar would call adjectives, are treated as verbs in use |
| Basis of classification | The function the word inherently has. Uramu and urami are different concepts |
In a nutshell — Matsushita Daizaburō likened particles and auxiliaries to shoes and removed them from the parts of speech. A person who puts on shoes does not become two, he said.