SVEUČILIŠTE JURJA DOBRILE U PULI

PREDDIPLOMSKI STUDIJ
JAPANSKI JEZIK I KULTURA

する – JAPANESE VERBAL NOUNS

Edita Beširević

Kolegij: Uvod u japansku gramatiku

Pula, kolovoz 2018.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

する – JAPANESE VERBAL NOUNS .................................................................................... 1

INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 3
SURU – LIGHT OR HEAVY VERB? ................................................................................... 3
PREDICTING THE ATTACHMENT OF THE (LIGHT) VERB SURU .............................. 4
JAPANESE VERBAL NOUN ............................................................................................... 4
CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................... 5
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... 5

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INTRODUCTION
Japanese verbs often tend to have many meanings, out of which some share the same writing
in both kanji and hiragana. Such verbs can have more than 50 meanings, much like the verb
deru. However, the one I find most fascinating might just be a verb more flexible than any I’ve
yet learned about – suru.
For the topic of the essay I have chosen the versatility of the Japanese verbal noun suru. As a
standalone, suru (jisho form) is an irregular verb and can mean to do, to make, to play, etc. The
versatility it encompasses may be too much for an essay, but I will heavily lean on the
experience of the literature I read and researched for this topic. As a student of Japanese
language and literature, my goal is to show the simple functions this verbal noun performs and
shine some light on the creative ways in which it was adapted in the language. One of the
reasons for this is the uniqueness of this particular language. As is visible in its lexicon,
Japanese took many foreign words into it, and as far as I’ve read on suru, it might’ve been one
of the bigger changes in the adapting of the language to a broader world. Seeing as it already
carried massive grammatical, semantic and especially wide written world, one could hardly
imagine anything more pragmatic for translation and communication purposes than inventing
a verb that makes it possible for any foreign word to become a verb as well. To show how
exactly one can add suru to a noun:

The word for love in Japanese language is ai (愛), and is a noun.

The verb ‘to love’ is made with adding suru: aisuru (愛する)..

It is kango (Sino-Japanese, or Chinese) and later gairaigo (borrowed words from farther west)
in origin. It rarely functions with original Japanese words – wago, but there are some words it
can work with.

For example: 旅 (たび - journey) + する = たびする (tabisuru, to travel).

Adding it to the end of a noun makes it into a complex word much like the gerund form in
English language. The Japanese term for this is dōmeishi 動名詞.

However, this verbal noun can sometimes act as a true noun.

研究 (けんきゅう)する – kenkyuusuru (research).

SURU – LIGHT OR HEAVY VERB?

Light verbs are verbs which do not carry a unique meaning on their own, often relying on other
words – nouns, verbs – to complete the meaning. The rest of the verbs are sometimes referred
to as the heavy or full verbs, or those which do indeed have a meaning. When it comes to the
Japanese VN suru+ (w)o, many people would argue that the ‘weight’ of suru is decided
thematically. However, Miyamoto provides a different analysis – he claims the weight of suru
depends on the accusative phrase and whether the accusative comes after a thematic or non-
thematic verbal noun. Miyamoto argues the dichotic behaviour of this form comes from the
accusative phrase rather than the suru verb itself. (Miyamoto, 2000: 138)

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PREDICTING THE ATTACHMENT OF THE (LIGHT) VERB SURU
Matsuoka, Tamaoka, Sakai and Makioka wrote about predicting the attachment of suru in two-
kanji compound words in Japanese using four aspects, all of which is a lot more complex than
the research I was looking for. However, they do go in depth about the versatility of the light
verb suru. Their example of the creation of the verbal noun as follows:

The Japanese word for announcement is a two-kanji compound word 発 表 – happyō –

when matched with suru, it becomes 発表する – to announce.

Knowing how not all Japanese words can be attached to suru means that there must be a specific
meaning to Japanese nouns that determines whether or not they’re compatible. The paper cited
here also defines the binding factor of the light verb suru and two-kanji compound words being
the nouns having a verb-like feature that allows them to be used as a verb. This research used
four aspects (inchoactive, durative, telic and stative) of predicting the attachment of the light
suru. Out of these four, the telic aspect rated highest in prediction. The telic aspect marks, for
an example, the appearance of the suffix ‘after’ (後) in the possible VN attachments, meaning
most of the suru verbal nouns are aligned with time-related prepositions. The durative aspect
concerns with the suffix ‘during’ ( 中 ), while the inchoactive and stative aspects are
differentiated by abstract meanings of words; like importation versus occupation or existence.
(Tamaoka, Matsuoka, Sakai, Makioka, 2005: 74)

JAPANESE VERBAL NOUN

The English verbs make, have, give, take and do all correspond to the light suru verb. They
cannot be predicates on their own, but are still the main verbs in the sentences. The VN+suru
acts as a main predicate in any sentence and serves to specify the argument. Morphologically,
the VN is a noun, but grammatically it has verbal characteristics. The VN+suru construction
can be divided into the incorporated and unincorporated forms. Shimada and Kordoni give the
next example:
a. Taroo-ga eigo-o BENKYOO shita. (Taroo studied English)
b. Taroo-ga eigo-no BENKYOO-o shita. (literally: Taroo did his English studies)
The difference between the sentences that largely depends on the form suru takes or is taken
with, is that the object in the first sentence is in accusative while in the second sentence the
object (eigo – English) is in genitive. The sign to these differences is also the switch of the
‘(w)o’ particle. Of course, the former paragraph dealt with Japanese compound words and the
change of weight of the suru verb depending on the accusative phrase. This example serves to
prove that the accusative phrase does indeed enable the full or heavy suru verb/verbal noun.
(Shimada, Kordoni, 2003: 4)

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CONCLUSION
While very fluid in definition, especially when it comes to grammatical characteristic, in my
opinion suru is one of those verbs or phrases that sometimes make a language whole. It might
seem oversimplified once you get the hang of it – don’t know a word… add suru to the right
noun! – but once you compare it to other languages, things start becoming clearer. In English
language, the form of gerund makes it almost impossible to consider a whole word
oversimplified in making verbal nouns. In the case of German language, there’s schaft – in my
opinion a more elegant way to reshape words, but however still not that much more complicated
than the Japanese suru. Modal verbs all around the world make it easier for people to create
fluid sentences, catch up on foreign languages and enunciate their long, complex sentences a
lot better. I especially enjoy the Japanese version because of the humour behind some
expressions. There’s also the fact that suru means ‘to do’, which makes every use of it more
dynamic than the alternative.
I’m sure saying suru is a great relief to anyone learning the Japanese language is unnecessary,
but I humbly say so anyway.

REFERENCES

Miyamoto, T. (2000). The Light Verb Construction in Japanese. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:

John Benjamins Pub. Co.
Ohara, M. (2000). An Analysis of Verbal Nouns in Japanese. PhD thesis, University of Essex.
Shimada, A. & Kordoni, V. (2003). Japanese “Verbal Noun and suru” Constructions.
University of Saarland, Germany: Department of Computational Linguistics.
Tamaoka K., Matsuoka Ch., Sakai H., Makioka Sh. (2005). Predicting Attachment of the
Light Verb –suru to Japanese Two-kanji Compound Words Using Four Aspects.
Glottometrics.
Tsujimura, N. (2013). An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics. Wiley.