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Japanese has two kinds of adjectives known by several terms but the ones I
know are `i-adjectives` and `na-adjectives` \- why?

I recall that Japanese adjectives are much more like verbs than in English and
most European languages (where they are more closely related to nouns), but
does this apply to both types of Japanese adjectives or only one type?

I seem to remember that the two kinds are totally different to one another -
is this true and if so how did each originate? For instance do we know if
Okinawan/Rkyukyuan languages also have two types of adjectives? What about the
Korean language, which is the language next most often claimed to be related
to Japanese? (though far from universally accepted).
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grammar adjectives na-adjectives i-adjectives linguistics
Why does Japanese have two kinds of adjectives? (-i adjectives and -na adjectives)
My understanding is that な-adj are actually a completely different type of
word that are closer to nouns but are taught as な-Adj.

taken from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_adjectives>

> **adjectival verbs** 形容詞 keiyōshi adjectival verbs, i-adjectives,
> adjectives, stative verbs  
>  **adjectival nouns** 形容動詞 keiyōdōshi adjectival nouns, na-adjectives,
> copular nouns, quasi-adjectives, nominal adjectives, adjectival verbs

In fact if you say な-adj to japanese person, they'll have no idea what you are
talking about.

> 外国の日本語教育における形容動詞 [編集]
>
> アメリカやアジア諸国を始めとする海外の日本語教育では、形容動詞を「な形容詞(na-
> adjective)」、形容詞を「い形容詞(i-adjective)」として形容詞の一部に分類して教えることが多い。また活用としては名詞＋コピュラとほとんど同じで、連体形をナ、連用形をニとするだけの違いであることから、ナニ名詞、na-
> noun, qualitative noun, adjectival nounと呼ばれることもある。
>
> 形容動詞を adjectival noun と呼ぶ場合、対比させる形で形容詞を adjectival verb と呼ぶことが多い。
> いっぽう、日本語名を直訳する形で形容動詞を adjective verb などと呼ぶこともあり得るので、注意が必要である。

Also in regards to Korean, it also has the same 3 types of adj. The following
also taken from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_adjectives>

> Korean has exactly the same three word classes as above, called 형용사
> hyeongyongsa, 형용명사 hyeongyongmyeongsa, and 관형사 gwanhyeongsa respectively.
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The reason for the western language learners' confusion when facing the so-
called "two types of Japanese adjectives" is that they try to find similar
constructs to their own native language in Japanese. And when they fail (since
**Japanese has no real adjectives at all** ), the naïve learner or teacher
(which unfortunately includes most textbook writers, who are not
linguistically trained) will try to force their familiar concepts on Japanese.

## What is an adjective?

Before we get to discussing what the "adjectives" in Japanese really are, we
first have to define and understand the concept of adjective - otherwise it
would be quite meaningless talking about them. I'll have to concede here that
different linguistic schools have different ideas of adjectives, so the idea I
represent here represents structural linguistics and especially the ideas of
some of my own teachers. Some other schools (e.g. many functionalists) have
not all too different ideas, but others, generative linguists in particular,
may not agree.

An adjective is most simply a [word
class](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_class) that is used specifically to
qualify and describe nouns by being in
[agreement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreement_%28linguistics%29) (i.e.
matching [gender](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender),
[number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_number) and/or
[case](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case)) with them. A classical
example would be the following Latin pairs, where as the noun changes, the
adjective changes as well (note that word order is not important, and
adjectives don't even have to be adjacent to their nouns):

```

             Abacus (masculine)       Terra (feminine)
    Singular novus abacus             nova terra          New abacus/land
    Plural   novi abaci               novae terrae        New abacuses/lands
    
```

You've probably noticed that English adjectives do not really match this
pattern, since they show neither gender nor number nor case (they did show all
of that in Old English, but not anymore). And indeed, the English adjectives
are not quite adjectives in the classical sense, and the line is actually
quite blurred between nouns and adjectives in English (Is 'winter' in "
_winter_ clothes" an adjective or a noun? And what about 'Hollywood' in "a
typical _Hollywood_ ending"?). In fact, English adjectives resemble the na-
adjectives of Japanese more than Latin (and French, German, Spanish and
Hebrew) adjectives.

## Japanese counterparts of adjectives

Japanese has three (or more accurately two and a half) word classes whose most
members translate to adjectives in English and other European languages, and
therefore they are all usually called "adjectives" in textbooks. These classes
are

### 形容詞: Descriptive verbs

Descriptive verbs are also called _stative verbs_ (verbs of state) or
_adjectival verbs_ by linguists, but most of us know these guys as _i-
adjectives_ or even _true adjectives_. Descriptive verbs are really just
verbs, although they miss some verbal forms that are available to other verbs.
In essence, descriptive verbs are just verbs that come before the noun and
form a [relative clause](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_clause).
There's really no difference in syntax between 踊る蝶 (the butterfly who is
dancing) to 白い蝶 (the butterfly who is white).

### 形容動詞: Descriptive nouns

Descriptive nouns are also called _adjectival nouns_ by linguists, but most of
us know them as _na-adjectives_ or _quasi-adjectives_. Despite their name,
they are no less adjectives than the "true adjectives", and [some of
them](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/920/why-is-it-that-some-
accepts-after-it-while-some-only-accepts-after-it) can actually be connected
to nouns by using の rather than な. Historically, descriptive nouns were either
nouns followed by the genitive の or nouns followed by な, which is the
attributive (before-noun) form of the copula なり. So a の-adjective like `普通の男`
started out as basically just saying "a man of ordinary", and `静かな場所` (which
in classical Japanese meant: `静かである場所`) started out as saying "a place which
is silent".

It's instructive to note that descriptive nouns actually take a completely
normal copula instead of な when past or negative forms are used (e.g.
`普通だった男`, `静かじゃない場所`), so these adjectives actually still use a copula to this
very day, but it's most common form is replaced by the special な or の
(depending on the adjective).

### 連体詞: Attributives

This class includes a rather small number of words that attach directly to the
noun without a special copula and have no verb-like conjugation (like 形容詞).
This includes words such as ある (some), いわゆる (so-called), 同じ (the same), たいした
(great), この・その・あの, 大きな and 小さな. In fact, it's not really a real consistent
class, but just a mish-mash of several frozen forms of words that used to be
verbs (ある, いわゆる、たいした), descriptive nouns (大きな and 小さな), pronouns that merged
with the particle の (この・その・あの) and the more special case of 同じ. There's
nothing much to unite them, and this class is not productive (i.e. creating a
new word in this class is very rare, and not at all trivial).

## What's the state in other languages?

Well, the situation in Classical and Old Japanese was very much as it is
today, except for descriptive nouns not using a special copula, but the
regular copula instead. The conjugation of descriptive verbs was very
different from today, but normal verbs also had a different conjugation.

I know Okinawan has at least descriptive verbs that are directly related to
the descriptive verbs in Classical Japanese: e.g. `takasi` ( _tall_ ) from Old
Japanese becomes `takasan`. I guess it should also have a class of descriptive
nouns, since they tend to be more productive than verbs, but I really don't
know much about it.

As for Korean, it definitely resembles Japanese here. Descriptive verbs are
conjugated like normal verbs but have some differences with them. Descriptive
nouns have to be followed by the verb 하다 (hada - _to do_ ) instead of the
copula, as we do in Japanese, but other than that they are very much alike.
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