I’ve started trying some more advanced reading lately (e.g. still beginner but not super tailored stuff you would find in textbooks) and I’ve noticed a pattern of usage for the stem form of a verb. It seems to be used to connect two parts of a sentence, where I have been taught 〜て form would be. For example, this is (abridged) from 聞き耳ラジオ on satori reader:
クラスが飛び上がり、近くの木の枝に止まった。
On wikipedia I’ve found [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugation#Conjunctive) which briefly explains this usage but I haven’t seen any other resources describing it, which I find strange because it seems to be pretty common. Could anyone provide more information or sources on this grammar point?
3 comments
Yep very common. And in newspapers you’ll find (て)おり a lot because the stem of いる is just い and (て)い looks weird alone.
yes is form is called 連用形 or form used for connecting, and is more formal and written.
It’s the 連用形 ren’youkei. Which also is just the て form without the て (originally), ie in old Japanese the て form of 上がる is 上がりて and this becomes 上がって in modern Japanese just from how the language evolved.
The 連用形 is used to connect to other verbs. For example to connect to the auxiliary verb ます, which gives 上がります. Because of this, the 連用形 is simply called the masu stem in English resources. Another example is 飛び in your sentence, which connects to 上がる.
It is also used to form nouns. Just 上がり on its own can be used as a noun.
And (somewhat similar to the first usage I said) it is used to break somewhere, and connect it to the next part of the sentence like a sequence of events. In modern Japanese, this meaning is basically the same as using the て form, but just the 連用形 is more formal which is why you’ll see it more in newspapers and such.