I’m reading a 1903 travel guide to Japan from OpenLibrary.org. They have a pretty good vocabulary and grammar guide for tourists. Some of the expressions are naturally archaic (e.g. at night it tells you how to ask for a candle) but what caught my eye was a form of grammar I’ve never seen before – the “improbable future” conjugation.
For example consider the plain form of the verb, “come.” Here are the various conjugations explained, most just the way I learned them:
- present / certain future: kuru (I come, I will come)
- past: kita (I came)
- probable future: koyou (I shall probably come)
- gerund: kite (coming, having come)
- negative present: konai (I do not or shall not come)
- negative past: konakatta (I did not come)
- desirable adjective: kitai (I want to come)
- negative adjective: kitakunai (I don’t want to come)
All those are fine. Then there is this form I never heard of before:
- improbable future: kimai (I shall probably not come)
I asked a Japanese friend and he never heard of that form either. Has anybody heard of it before? There were other examples too: arumai (there probably will not be); ikumai (I probably shall not go); shimai (I probably shall not do).
I wonder why and when that form fell out of use. It seems useful.
doug