Am I Understanding Verb Conjugation Correctly?

4 comments

1. Sorry I’m not too sure about the explanations though they seem correct but, some of your extrapolations with ない are incorrect

   1, yes the dictionary form is used when talking about the present and future in casual conversation

   飲ま doesn’t mean anything on its own, it needs ない or ず or something else to be negative form

   歩けば, the ば is the hypothetical thing so you can think of it as having to go on the end so the negative comes from 歩かない → 歩かなければ

   歩ける is a different “type” of verb as you described so it conjugates as 歩けない in the negative (remove the る)

   Volitional has a different way of negation altogether, which is 歩くまい just adding まい in this case without removing anything. The meaning is like a strong denial you won’t do the action I think. It doesn’t come up too often in modern Japanese

2. The imperative, hypothetical and let’s forms can’t be conjugated further, so you can’t just add nai onto them

3. 歩け　　⇒　歩かない

   歩けば　⇒　~~歩けばない~~

   歩ける　⇒　~~歩けらない~~

   The first one is correct, the rest not. The negative version of the second one would be 歩かなければ, and the last one 歩けない (potential verbs become ru verbs, or ichidan. Whatever name you prefer)

4. eg. 飲む 　⇒　 飲みます　 (Neg. form： 飲みません)　‐　Polite

   　 飲む　 ⇒　飲ま　　　（Neg. form： 飲まない）　-　Casual/Negative

   In the second example, is 飲ま a valid way conjugation in the Casual/Negative form, or is the negative form the only valid form of conjugation for the あ Row? If that is the case in casual Japanese would simply use the dictionary form or another conjugation when communicating casually?

   – Yes. コーヒは飲まないけど、お茶は飲む。This is a valid plain form sentence. You need the -ない. There are some other negative conjugations, like -ず (飲まず), but they’re not casual speech (grain of salt with -ず).

   – The -あ like conjugations (mizenkei) also form the passive, causative, and causative-passive forms.

   – Your “polite” form section is actually the continuative/connective/conjunctive “ren’youkei.” It does more than just make polite forms. (Refer to the Wikipedia page for Japanese verb conjugation)

   For the え Row, you can conjugate it in three different ways which I collectively labelled as ‘Capability’ in the chart above:

   eg. 歩く　⇒ 　歩け – Walk! (Imperative)

   　　歩く　⇒　歩けば – If you walk (Hypothetical)

   　　歩く　⇒　歩ける – Can walk (Potential)

   Hence, would it be valid to conjugate the above example like so:

   歩け　　⇒　歩かない　(Don’t Walk!)

   歩けば　⇒　歩けばない (If you can’t/don’t walk)

   歩ける　⇒　歩けらない (Can’t walk)

   – The abrupt negative command is 歩くな！

   – -ば form of -ない is -なければ – 歩かなければ

   – All potential verbs become ichidan – 歩けない.

   Similarly with the お row can you conjugate 歩く to get 歩こう (let’s walk), hence would it be valid to conjugate it as: 歩こわない (Let’s not walk)?

   – Negative volitional does exist, but it’s rarely used: 歩くまい. It’s like “I shan’t walk.” A more casual form might be 歩かないことにしよう (let’s decide not to walk), or 歩かないようにしよう (let’s try not to walk).