JAPANESE GRAMMAR
ADJECTIVAL NOUNS Adjectival nouns describe the properties of people and things just as adjectives do. They do not conjugate like adjectives (→ See Adjectives.) but pattern very similarly to nouns in a variety of contexts. Most adjectival nouns are na-type. They are followed by nawhen occurring before a noun that they modify (e.g. shizuka na resutoran ‘a quiet restaurant’). However, some are no-type, requiring no instead of na in the same context, just like ordinary nouns (e.g. byōki no hito ‘a sick person’). A large number of adjectival nouns were derived from Sino-Japanese vocabulary, i.e. Japanese vocab ulary that wasborrowed from Chinese or made of Chinese morphemes, but there are many adjectival nouns that were derived from Western words and onomatopoeias. (→ See Appendix 1 for the list of common adjectival nouns.) Used as nounmodifiers Followed by na 綺麗な庭 kireinaniwaa beautifulgarden 健康な...