I'm having some confusion on the potential form of Japanese verbs,
specifically ichidan verbs. The sources I'm using for my learning tell me that
I should replace 'ru' with 'rareru' or 'rarenai' (examples being 'taberareu'
for 'can eat' and 'taberarenai' for 'can't eat'). I'm noticing this isn't
always the case, however. The potential forms for 'miru' are 'mireru' and
'mirenai', the forms for 'hashiru' are 'hashireru' and 'hashirenai', and the
negative potential form for 'uragiru' is 'uragiranai'. Clearly they don't all
follow the rule of replacing the 'ru' with 'rareru'. Is there any way for me
to be able to tell which ichidan verbs will follow the rule and which ones
won't? Thank you all!
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-08-21T13:58:12.650
100741
2023-08-21T15:10:31.513
57330
question
conjugations potential-form ichidan-verbs
Ichidan verb potential form conjugations
Since you use term _ichidan_ , I assume that you also heard _godan_.

Conclusive/Terminal forms of all _ichidan_ verbs in modern Japanese end with
_-ru_ , but this does not mean that all verbs ending in _ru_ belong to
_ichidan_ class. There are some verbs whose morphological stem ends in _r_ ,
and only the following _u_ is suffix of Conclusive/Terminal form. I use hyphen
below to show boundary between stem and suffixes.

_hashir-u_ and _uragir-u_ are _godan_ verbs. Therefore they allow formation of
Potential forms with _-eru_ : _hashir-eru_ , _uragir-eru_.

Normal Potential forms of _ichidan_ verbs (e.g. _mi-ru_ , _tabe-ru_ ) have
_-rareru_ : _mi-rareru_ , _tabe-rareru_.

In recent times in colloquial Japanese, shortened forms of Potential have
developed. These forms have _ra_ dropped from _-rareru_ , resulting in _-reru_
, so this grammatical phenomenon is called ら抜{ぬ}き (one of meanings of verb
抜{ぬ}く is "to omit, to skip").

For aforementioned _ichidan_ verbs, Potential forms with ら抜{ぬ}き are: _mi-reru_
, _tabe-reru_.

* * *

There are some pairs of homophonic verbs belonging to _ichidan_ and _godan_
classes. Examples:

_i-ru_ "to exist" (and others), _ir-u_ "to need" (and others)

_ki-ru_ "to put on (cloths)", _kir-u_ "to cut"

_kae-ru_ "to change, to replace", _kaer-u_ "to return"

They have different kanji spellings. Most forms of such verbs do not overlap
(e.g. _ki-masu_ versus _kir-imasu_ ).

* * *

If you heard about _-areru_ suffix of _godan_ verbs and if you heard that this
suffix creates Passive form, then I inform that this suffix, possibly with
literary/archaic nuance, can be used to create Potential. _-rareru_ is variant
of _-areru_ suffix ( _-areru_ is used with _godan_ verbs, _-rareru_ is used
with _ichidan_ verbs). Both Passive and Potential are original functions of
_-(r)areru_ suffix, and Potential meaning of this suffix for _godan_ verbs is
now rarely used, but remains for _ichidan_ verbs.

_-eru_ is a different suffix and can be used only with _godan_ verbs. Some
centuries ago this suffix also had both Potential and Passive meaning.

* * *

In above explanation, for simplicity, hyphen is added only between stem of
lexical verb and first suffix. In conjugation of verbs and adjectives in
Japanese, there are often multiple suffixes glued together, usually in only
one valid order. More correct segmentation of _hashireru_ , _mirareru_ ,
_kirimasu_ and _kirimasen_ would be: _hashir-e-ru_ , _mi-rare-ru_ , _kir-i-
mas-u_ , _kir-i-mase-n_.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-08-21T14:41:39.460
100742
2023-08-21T15:10:31.513
2023-08-21T15:10:31.513
56758
56758
100741
answer