LLearn Japanese

Tried to look up some words in an JP-JP dictionary and need some help getting some of the dictionary’s jargon.

Hi everyone. So I was trying to look up the verb捕まえる here https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E6%8D%95%E3%81%BE%E3%81%88%E3%82%8B_%28%E3%81%A4%E3%81%8B%E3%81%BE%E3%81%88%E3%82%8B%29/#jn-146614

So it gives me this explanation of the word

つかま・える〔つかまへる〕【捕まえる／×掴まえる／▽捉まえる】 

の解説

［動ア下一］［文］つかま・ふ［ハ下二］

  1. １ 逃げようとするものをとりおさえる。「どろぼうを—・える」「虫を—・える」

  2. ２ （掴まえる・捉まえる）手でかたく押さえ持つ。離さないようにしっかりつかむ。「首根っこを—・える」「大衆の心を—・える」

  3. ３ 声をかけて立ちどまらせる。呼び止める。また、引き止める。「談判しようと社長を—・える」「空車を—・える」

  4. ４ （「…をつかまえて」の形で）…に対して。…を相手に。「先輩を—・えて何を言うか」

Okay my questions are actually not about the explanations but more of the top lines.

1) What’s the meaning of the〔つかまへる〕in the brackets. Is it an old reading or a dialect thing were you sayつかまへる instead ofつかまえる ?

2) What is the meaning of the x symbol and the ▽ symbol next to the alternative Kanji?

3) What even is going on with the next part

［動ア下一］［文］つかま・ふ［ハ下二］

so動 I guess stands for "verb" like　動詞 but what is the meaning of ア下一. Katakana for "A", "below", "one" ? Doesn't really make sense?

Then the Kanji文 for like “sentence”, “text”, “writings” and so on

Thenつかま・ ふ which is like the searched termつかまえる butえる replaced withふ　

And then eight, below, two ? What?

No seriously what is the dictionary trying to tell me with that information?

by dontsaltmyfries

5 comments

  1. 1) Yeah 捕まへる is an old or alternate spelling of the word (歴史的仮名遣い)

    2) X means the Kanji is outside jouyou, upside down triangle means the Kanji reading is outside jouyou but the Kanji itself isn’t https://dictionary.sanseido-publ.co.jp/column/kok_nyumon29

    3) That’s the verb conjugation: https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/下一段活用
    In this case conjugation 下一, kana row ア is used, and alternatively in literary language conjugation 下二, kana row ハ can be used as つかまふ (but this is rare and not really used commonly)

  2. > Then the Kanji文

    pretty sure it stands for Classical Japanese (文語)

    > Thenつかま・ ふ

    this is the Classical Japanese form of the verb, and ハ下二 is the conjugation paradigm (this paradigm doesn’t exist in Modern Japenese)

  3. FYI, they have a (very poorly formatted, IMO) page that explains the entries: https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/help/jn/

    1) Yes, in this case it’s old kana orthography
    2) These mark whether the kanji is part of the elementary school kanji, jouyou kanji, or neither of those
    3) Part of speech and inflection type. In this case 動 means verb, ア下一 means it’s an ア-line shimoichidan verb. With the exception of “ichidan” this probably doesn’t mean much to you, because modern ichidan verbs pretty much only have a single conjugation type. The part after the 文 refers to literary/classical form (it’s a ハ-line shimonidan verb)

  4. つかまへる

    There are a lot of verbs that were written with へる instead of える in old Japanese. That does not mean they were pronounced as if you were saying “tsukamaheru.” The sound changed to an え long before the spelling was regularized to change it to え.

    動ア下一

    下一 means it’s a 下 ichidan verb.

    ア means it’s an ア行 ichidan verb. A 下ア行 ichidan verb ends in える；a 上ア行 ichidan verb ends in いる.

    (A 下カ行 ichidan verb ends in ける, a 下サ行 ichidan verb ends in せる, and so on.)

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