Japanese

Noun

四段活用 ‎(hiragana よだんかつよう, romaji yodan katsuyō, historical hiragana よだんくわつよう)

1. (grammar) quadrigrade conjugation; a verbal conjugation class consisting of four alternating bases: -a, -i, -u, -e. Examples:

The subscripts in the table above indicate differences in vowel class that were already being lost in Old Japanese. It remains unclear what those different vowel classes may have meant. See the Syllables section in the Wikipedia article on Old Japanese for more details.

See also

• 五段活用 (ごだんかつよう) ‎(godan katsuyō)

Related terms

• 五段活用 (ごだんかつよう) ‎(godan katsuyō)
• 下一段活用 (しもいちだんかつよう) ‎(shimo ichidan katsuyō)
• 下二段活用 (しもにだんかつよう) ‎(shimo nidan katsuyō)
• 上一段活用 (かみいちだんかつよう) ‎(kami ichidan katsuyō)
• 上二段活用 (かみにだんかつよう) ‎(kami nidan katsuyō)
• カ行変格活用 (ぎょうへんかくかつよう) ‎(kagyō henkaku katsuyō)
• サ行変格活用 (ぎょうへんかくかつよう) ‎(sagyō henkaku katsuyō)
• ナ行変格活用 (ぎょうへんかくかつよう) ‎(nagyō henkaku katsuyō)
• ラ行変格活用 (ぎょうへんかくかつよう) ‎(ragyō henkaku katsuyō)

References

1. ↑ 2006, 大辞林 (Daijirin), Third Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, ISBN 4-385-13905-9