The Clause Map

Japanese Grammar 3

Course 3 · Chapter 1 · The Clause Map

🗺️ The Clause Map — ぶんの つくり

Until now your sentences had one verb at the end and a few blocks in front. Real Japanese packs much more in: a sentence is a main clause with other clauses fitted before it. This chapter shows the one idea behind all of them: everything that describes, explains or conditions something comes before it, and every clause before the last ends in a plain form. Learn that, and the next eleven chapters are variations on it.

1. A sentence is a chain of clauses

A clause is a group of words with its own predicate (a verb, an い-adjective, or a noun/な-adjective + だ). A Japanese sentence is built by adding clauses to the left:

Each step is added in front, never behind. The ending よみました still decides the tense and the politeness of the whole sentence.

2. The six kinds of clause

3. Inside a clause: the plain form

Every clause that is not the last one uses plain forms. Here are the four predicate types, in a row, as they appear before a noun (the modifier form):

4. The head noun and its modifiers

The noun being described is the head, and it always comes last. Everything before it, however long, belongs to it:

In English you put the clause after the noun ("the book that I bought yesterday") and need a word like that, which, who. Japanese needs no such word, and the clause simply sits in front. This is why the verb at the end of a modifier clause must be plain: it is not the end of the sentence.

5. Topic and subject: は and が in clauses

The topic marker は reaches all the way to the end of the sentence, so it cannot sit inside a small clause. The subject of an inner clause takes が:

6. How this course is laid out

Examples in this course are written in kana with kanji in brackets; no romaji is used from here on, so keep your kana reading sharp.

🗣️ In Use — つかいかた

Clauses stacked in front of the main verb.

📋 Quick Reference

✍️ Practice — れんしゅう

Try each one, then click to check.