The Hachijō language shares much of its grammar with its sister language of Japanese—having both descended from varieties of Old Japanese—as well as with its more distant relatives in the Ryukyuan language family. However, Hachijō grammar includes a substantial number of distinguishing features from modern Standard Japanese, both innovative and archaic.
Hachijō is head-final, left-branching, topic-prominent, often omits nouns that can be understood from context, and has default subject–object–verb word order. Nouns do not exhibit grammatical gender, nor do they usually indicate grammatical number.
Pronouns and demonstratives Like Japanese, Hachijō distinguishes first and second person pronouns, and has proximal, mesial, distal, and interrogative demonstratives. Hachijō uses demonstrative pronouns in place of third-person pronouns.
Pronouns The pronominal system of Hachijō has been partly inherited from Old Japanese and partly borrowed from Modern Japanese: +Personal pronouns Singular Plural1st Person ware warera are arera 2nd Person unu unura ~ una ~ unara omee omeera omi omira omaĭ omaĭra nare narera Interrogative: "who" dare darera Interrogative: "what" ani
The pronouns ware, are, unu, and dare often use irregular nominative/genitive forms with ga: waga, aga, uNga, and daga. The form uNga can also be pronounced NNga .
Hachijō has a variety of nuances among many of its personal pronouns:
First-person pronouns Unlike Japanese, both ware and are (and their variants) are considered ordinary and show no particular variations with regard to politeness, honorifics, or humility. Instead, they vary in usage based on the speaker, dialect, and context. For example, it is possible for both to appear in the same utterance:
Other variations include the contraction of -re to -ĭ, and the contraction of -re-wa to -ra or -rja when combined with the topic marker wa. For example, uncontracted ware and warewa would be considered more feminine than contracted waĭ and wara in the Mitsune dialect, whereas in the Uphill dialects, ware and warewa would be the norm (with the contracted forms generally unused).
Second-person pronouns Like in Japanese, it is most common to refer to an addressee by name rather than by using a pronoun. Nevertheless, several second-person pronouns do exist:
The pronoun omee is honorific, used for individuals of superior status. As the subject of a clause, omee is generally used with other honorific vocabulary such as the verbs ozjarowa ("to go, to come") and tamourowa ("to give"). The pronoun omi is polite, used for individuals whom the speaker wants to respect, but for whom the honorific omee would be excessively formal. Aside from a handful of polite verbs like wasowa ("to go, to come") and gouzirowa ("to see"), sentences with omi generally use ordinary vocabulary. The form omi is never seen without a particle. The pronoun omaĭ is between omi and unu, used of those of equal or lower status. It is mildly informal or neutral, and it is often used in place of unu when people outside of the speaker's in-group are present. It is a comparatively new pronoun. The pronoun unu is very informal or familiar, and it is used for family members, and close friends. However it can be somewhat rude or vulgar, depending on the dialect. The pronoun nare is offensive and shows contempt, being used when fighting, arguing, scolding, etc.
The second-person pronouns omee, omi and omaĭ originate in borrowings of Japanese omae "you." In modern Japanese, omae is familiar or derogatory, but it formerly had a respectful meaning, and it is in this respectful usage that it was borrowed into Hachijō.
The pronoun unu has cognates in Old and Middle Japanese 己 ono2 ~ unu "yourself, myself, oneself." Similarly, 汝 na ~ nare "you" is found in Old Japanese (including Eastern Old Japanese) and Early Middle Japanese.
Third-person pronouns Hachijō has no dedicated third-person pronouns. When necessary, demonstratives—most often distal ones—are employed to indicate the equivalent of the third person. For example, when referring to people:
ure~uĭ and uĭcu are informal, used for people within one's in-group, as well as for people whom the speaker does not care about showing respect to. The form uno hito (plural uno hitora) is polite, used for people outside of one's in-group. It comes from a compound of uno "that" and hito "person." The form uno kata (plural uno katara) is honorific, used for referring to superiors. It comes from a compound of uno "that" and kata "person (honorific)."
Interrogative pronouns The interrogative personal pronouns are dare "who" for human referents and ani "what" for non-human referents (cognate to Japanese 誰 dare "who" and 何 nani "what"). The pronoun ani is often contracted to aN- when consonant-initial particles are adjoined to it.
Hachijō dare is related to the Old Japanese pronoun ta ~ tare "who," but it is unclear whether the change of initial t to d was borrowed from Japanese or was an independent parallel innovation.
Hachijō ani derives directly from Eastern Old Japanese *ani "what," which is attested indirectly in Eastern Old Japanese compounds like aze "why" and ado2 "whatever" (contrast the Western Old Japanese forms naze and nado2, whence Modern Japanese なぜ naze "why" and など nado "et cetera"). There are also a handful of other Hachijō interrogatives historically derived from compounds with ani, such as ada "how," aNde "why," and aNsei "why."
To form indeterminate pronouns from interrogatives, the suffix -ka is added. In contrast to Japanese, this -ka is added after any case suffix, not before, e.g., Hachijō anjoka (ani=o=ka) vs. Japanese 何かを nani-ka o, both "something (accusative case)."
Demonstratives A series of demonstratives similar to modern Japanese's ko-so-a-do series (proximal-mesial-distal-interrogative) also exists in Hachijō:
Proximal (ko-) Mesial (so-) Distal (u-) Interrogative (do-) Japanese cognate Nominal (sg.) -re"this, that" kore sore ure dore ～れ -re Nominal (pl.) -rera"these, those" korera sorera urera ~ ura dorera ～れら -rera Person (sg.) -ĭcu"this person, that person" koĭcu soĭcu uĭcu doĭcu ～いつ -itsu Person (pl.) -ĭcura"these people, those people" koĭcura soĭcura uĭcura doĭcura ～いつら -itsura Determiner -no"this ~, that ~" kono sono uno dono ～の -no Location -ko"here, there" koko sono uku doko ～こ -ko Direction -Qci/-QcjaN"hither, thither" koQci, koQcjaN soQci, soQcjaN uQci, uQcjaNaQci, aQcjaN doQci, doQcjaN ～っち、～ちら(に) -cchi, -chira (ni) Direction -gata"hither, thither" kogata sogata ugata dogata ～っち、～ちら -cchi, -chira Amount, Extent -odo"this much, that much" koudo, koQdo, koroudo soudo, soQdo, soroudo uudo, uQdo, uroudo doudo, doQdo, doroudoikura ～れほど -rehodo Manner, Extent -go͡oN"in this way, in that way" kogo͡oN sogo͡oN ugo͡oN dogo͡oNadaN ～う、～んなに -u, -nnani Type -go͡oNdoo"this kind of, that kind of" kogo͡oNdoo sogo͡oNdoo ugo͡oNdoo dogo͡oNdooadaNdoo ～んな -nna
Particles Like Japanese, Hachijō makes extensive use of grammatical particles, which indicate a variety of meanings and grammatical functions. Most parts of speech can use some particles, but the majority of particles are used with nominals (nouns and pronouns). Hachijō's noun-marking particles are classified similarly to their Japanese counterparts into the following categories:
, which mark items in lists. , which mark the grammatical cases of nominials. These are further divided into: , which indicate self-contained phrases such as the subject or object of a sentence. , which indicate phrases that are semantically linked to another part of the sentence, e.g., to express possession. , a broad category that is further divided into: , which emphasize, restrict, or otherwise indicate a kind of topic or focus related to the words they mark. , which turn words into adverbs of degree, extent, etc.
When multiple particles are used on the same noun, they are generally found in the order Adverbial → Case → Topic-Focus.
Enumerating particles are few in number, and they are used as conjunctions to join nominals into lists. The main particles of this type are to, ni, toka, da, and ja.
Both to and ni are used for making exhaustive lists, and are used more or less the same as in Japanese. The more usual way to form an exhaustive list is by using to, which is generally placed after every element of a list except the last (where it is optional):
The enumerating particle ni, on the other hand, is used in two main ways; the first use of ni emphasizes that the speaker is recalling the elements of the list, in which emphasized elements of the list are marked by ni and other elements left unmarked:
The second use of ni is found in binomial expressions such as mesini okazu 飯におかず "rice and a side dish". Unlike the case particle N~ni, the enumerating particle ni is not reduced to N after light syllables.
The particles toka, da, and ja, on the other hand, are used for making inexhaustive lists:
Case particles The majority of in Hachijō indicate . The most common standalone case particles are:
Particle Japanese cognate Meaning and examples ga が ga Both particles of these particles mark the nominative case (), often used to indicate the subject of a clause.The particle ga is more common than no, but the choice between ga and no is influenced by the subject's animacy (human & proper nouns vs. other nouns) and the type of predicate in the clause. Generally, ga is universally appropriate:
However, inanimate subjects (that is, non-human and non-proper noun subjects) have the option of using no when used with a verb or verbal adjective predicate, especially (but not necessarily) when the predicate is subordinate:
However, when a predicate is of the form nominal+copula, the subject of its clause generally does not use no.
(Both ga and no also serve as markers for the genitive case—see below in the "adjoining cases" table for more details.) no の no o~jo を o Marks the accusative case (), usually used to indicate the direct object of a clause. Due to fusing morphophonemically with its host noun, this particle has several allomorphs, and it has been leveled to jo after non-light syllables (see the section on particle fusion for more details on the various forms of this particle). For an example of direct object use:
Like Japanese を wo, it can also be used perlatively, indicating a place through which an action takes place:
However, contrary to Japanese を wo, Hachijō o~jo is also used with non-verbal and stative predicates like hosikja "to want" (a verbal adjective) and sukidara "to like" (an adjectival noun) to indicate the object of desire, affection, etc.:
It can also be used in some situations where Japanese uses the dative-locative に ni instead, such as when marking a person to whom something is said:
Finally, o~jo can attach to nouns in order to show mirativity:
This mirative function of o~jo can be used with nominalized attributive forms of verbs. When used without a stative suffix, it expresses surprise at the continuation of an action, and when with a stative suffix, it expresses surprise at the resulting state of an action:
Mirative o~jo can also be used with the infinitive form, also expressing surprise at a resulting state (similar to using it with the stative & nominalized attributive). This emphasizes the intensity of the action that led to the state: N~ni に ni Marks the dative (), used for indicating the recipient of an action, the destination of an action, or the location of a state. In passive sentences, it instead marks the agent of an action. Generally, the form N is usually found after light syllables, whereas ni is usually seen after heavy syllables, though there are exceptions (such as in the second example below). This particle overlaps in usage with the allative i~jii and lative gee.
When the dative ni is followed by the topic-marking particle wa, they often coalesce into nja: