Noun Modifier Particle: の

Before, we mentioned little bits about the の (no) Particle but did not go into much details about what it is and why it was used. Now we've learnt about the basic sentence structure including the Topic, Subject, Object, Adjectives and Verbs, understanding the の Particle should be more easier without having to break it up into several smaller lessons that are harder to find or reference or review.

Labelling Nouns with the の Particle

In its simplest form, the の Particle is regarded as the "possessive", similar to how in English we may add ('s) to the end of a word to show ownership of a noun. For example:

1. ゆたの猫 (yuta no neko) => Yuta's cat
2. 私の猫 (watashi no neko) => My cat
3. 彼の猫 (kare no neko) => His cat

While this works and is seen this way from an English perspective, this is not what it actually means. It is best not to compare the の Particle as being the same as the English "possessive" but view it from a Japanese perspective instead.

The final noun is the Main Noun and the previous noun in the chain connecting to it using the の Particle says something about the Main Noun. A literal translation of the examples above would be (1) "The [cat] of Yuta's" (2) "The [cat] of mine" and (3) "The [cat] of his".

Unlike English where nouns are read from left to right, Japanese nouns are generally modified right to left; the right most noun is the most important and everything before it labels that noun.

The best way to think of this, is that the [ noun + の ] is a label attached to the Main Noun. To see this happening, let's look at the word for "Girl", 女の子 (onna no ko), it doesn't mean "The women's child"; here, the main noun is 子 (child) and it is labelled with 女 (women / female), together becomes "child of a female" which is a "Girl"; it may sound odd in English but remember, this is not English.

A similar thing does happen in English too, for example the word "oct~" means "8": octagon => 8 sided shape; octave => 8 note interval; octogenarian => 80 to 89 years old; october => 8th month (well, it use to be before other months got added!); and so on.

For this reason, の is better known as a Noun Modifier that modifies and labels other nouns. No language is perfect and seeing it as only "possessive" will introduce ambiguity. Without enough context, there could be several ways to interpret what is being talked about, for example:

1. ゆたの本 => Yuta's book
2. ゆたの本 => A book about Yuta
3. りんごの本 => Apple's book
4. りんごの本 => Book of apples
5. りんごの本 => Apple shaped book
6. 猫の本 => The cat's book
7. 猫の本 => A book about cats

As you can see, some of these could mean something else, especially (6) if seen as a possessive particle becomes the "cat's book" rather than "A book about cats"; The same goes for (3), (4) and (5).

However, there are many other ways to say these if anything needs to be understood more clearly. For example: ゆたに関する書籍 (yuta ni kansuru shoseki) which means "A publication relating to Yuta" which in English gets interpreted as "A book about Yuta".

の as a Noun Modifier

The main purpose of the の Particle is to turn a group of words into a single noun or noun phrase. For example: 緑 (midori) means "green" and 車 (kuruma) means "car"; these are two seperate words but if we want to say "green car", we can place の between the two nouns to make 緑の車 (midori no kuruma).

The final noun is always the Main Noun and whatever comes before the の particle says something about that Main Noun. In the example before, 車 (car) is the main noun and 緑 (green) describes the car.

It may be easy to think that the first noun says something about the last noun but this is not true and will only lead to ambiguity. Using 私の家 (watashi no ie), the main noun is 家 (ie) the "house"; the noun 私 before it says something about the 家 (house).

Just like how the most relevant information is closer to the verb in Japanese, the most relevant information is also closest to the main noun; this is important when in comes to using multiple の particles. The more distant a noun is in the chain, the less relevance it has on the main noun.

Remember, the last noun is the most important and everything before it says something about that noun; in the example above, the most important part is being a 先生 (teacher) which is labelled as being at 大学 (university). Finally, 大学の先生 (university teacher) is labelled as being of 日本 (Japan).

Notice the last two sentences, using 日本 simply states this teacher is a "Japanese university teacher" but not necessarily a Japanese Language teacher, just a teacher at a university in Japan; he or she may not teach any Japanese Language at all. The other sentence uses 日本語 to clearly indicate that this teacher does in fact teach the Japanese Language but not necessarily within Japan.

Multiple の Particles

When chaining の together, remember that the final noun is the main noun and the noun before the の adds a label to it. The further away a noun is, the less relevance it has on the Main Noun

Please keep in mind that even though there are no restrictions to how many の particles are used to form a noun or noun phrase, the most common you will ever see is only two の particles; sometimes, other の particles are omitted if it is already understood but more than three の particles may be considered too stiff or even ambiguous by many people.

Example #1

In this example, we have イギリスの私の家 (igirisu no watashi no ie).

1. The main noun is 家 (house).

2. 家 (house) is labelled with 私 (me). What kind of house is it? It is 私の家 (my house); this is now the new Main Noun.

3. 私の家 (my house) is now labelled to イギリス (England) to indicate that "my house" is in "England".

4. イギリスの私の家 (My house in England).

As can be seen here, イギリス (English) does not label 家 (house) to mean "English house" nor does it mean "England's my house". Instead of moving forwards with each noun, we are going backwards as seen in the diagram above were each box is inside another box working its way outwards. Rearranging this order could produce a different meaning:

If we were to think of の as being possessive, we could very awkwardly say the 家 house belonging to 私の me belongs to イギリスの England: my house in England.

While it is still possible to interpret all three examples as being the same, the last one would be better rephrased differently, to sound more natural.

Example #2

In this example, we have 原っぱの中のオンボロ一軒屋 (harappa no naka no onboro ikken'ya).

What is the main noun?
The main noun is オンボロ一軒屋 (onboro ikken'ya) referring to a "tattered single isolated house". This is labelled with 中 (naka) meaning "middle" to create the new main noun "tattered single isolated house of the middle". This is then followed by the label 原っぱ (harappa) referring to an "open field". Together, this means "A tattered single isolated house of the middle of an open field".

By context of the movie となりのトトロ (My Neighbour Totoro) we should know this to mean "A tattered cottage in the middle of the countryside".

Nominalisation の Particle

So far, we've only looked at grouping multiple nouns to make a noun phrase but what if we want or need to group verbs, i-adjectives and na-adjectives to form a noun phrase? This is known as nominalisation.

Nominalisation is the process of forming nouns from verbs and adjectives which can also form noun phrases or relative clauses. We won't go too much into details about relative clauses just yet but here are the four types of words and how to nominalise them:

1. Verb (informal) + の
2. i-adjective + の
3. Noun + の
4. na-adjective + な + の
5. の cannot be used as a nominaliser at the end of a sentence before です or だ.

Verb (informal) + の

When nominalising verbs, you must use the casual form (not the 〜ます forms). This refers to the "one" or "thing" of the action. Just be aware that you cannot use the nominalisation の at the end of a sentence ending with です or だ as this will cause confusion with the のです and のだ particle which we will look at in another lesson.

• 傷つく (kizutsuku) "to be hurt"
• 捕まえた (tsukamaeta) "to be caught"

Verb (informal non-past) + の

When turning verbs into a doing verbs like the English "~ing"; please note that you must use the casual form (not the 〜ます forms) and in it's non-past form (do not use past tense).

• 読む (yomu) "to read"
• 遊ぶ (asobu) "to play"

i-adjective + の

い-adjectives are nominalised with の just like verbs and not at the predicate just before です or だ. By adding の to い-adjectives, we can turn those adjectives into a noun or noun phrase which may be interpreted in English as "ones" or "things".

• 速い (hayai) "fast" / 速いの "fast ones"
• 可愛い (kawaii) "adorable" / 可愛いの "adorable ones"
• 面白い (omoshiroi) "interesting" / 面白いの "interesting ones"

na-adjective + な + の

When nominalising な-adjective, we needs to include the な character before the の particle. By adding なの to な-adjectives, we can turn those adjectives in a noun or noun phrase which may be interpreted in English as "ones" or "thing".

• 静かな (shizuka) "quite" / 静かなの "the quite ones"
• 好き (suki) "like" / 好きなの "the thing of liking"

Verb (informal non-past) + こと + です

Remember that nominalisation happens at the end of a clause especially before particles such as the topic, subject or object but not at the predicate. However, what if nominalisation takes place just before the predicate such as です (desu) or だ (da)? In this case, we must use the こと (koto) particle.

In this example, the verb 弾く (hajiku) means "to play (an instrument)" and is turned into a noun using the particle こと (koto) instead of の (no); using の at the end here would express the explanatory の particle instead of verb nominalisation.

We'll cover more about こと and using の with です in another lesson.

Repeated and Definite Nouns

If the main noun is clear from context, then it may be omitted from the sentence. In the following example, The missing nouns are referring to cats 猫 (neko) so to avoid saying 猫 over and over again.

Since the topic is obviously about 猫 (cats), Shino replies without using this definite noun just like how the predicate using 好き is also dropped.

Indefinite Nouns

If the missing main noun is indefinite, referring to nobody and nothing in particular, this may be interpreted in English as "ones" or "things"; this is why the previous example may also be interpreted as "I like white ones, black ones and quiet ones" and "cute ones".

Here are some real life examples to see how this is used:

When used with a verb, instead of been compare to the English "~ing", の is used to say "the one" or "the thing". Here, 捕まえる (tsukamaeru) meaning "to catch" is in past tense and the added の refers to the "thing" that was caught.

The explanatory の

When the の particle appears at the end of a sentence, it adds an explanatory expression or question. It may also come across as direct or even rude if not used correctly.

Using の is more commonly used in casual speech and a way of explaining something or giving instructions. It can also be used similarly to the question marker but this is not quite the same. You may come across its other variants of のです and んです which we will cover in another lesson.

When used as a question, unlike the か question particle, there'll be a raising intonation using の when seeking for an explanation (asking a question). When someone provides an explanation to your question, they may also end the sentence using a form of の.

As you can see here, の is not normalising or modifying other words but is instead seeking an explanation or stating a reason for something. です and だ may be dropped in casual speech. If nominalisation takes place then こと should replace の.

Other Uses of the の Particle

You will come across a lot of different uses, too many to list here but here are some other common uses of the の particle you may come across.

Ownership

As already seen, の used with pronouns and names can label things to show ownership:

Quantity

Quantity could be anything to express the number of something such as number of people, price, amount, size and so on:

Roles

Roles could be anything from groups, organisations, companies, even job roles and so on. This is used by labelling the main noun with the role it takes:

Topic

The topic as we know is what something is about. Here, the の particle labels what the main noun is about. However, be careful as it could easily be mistaken as ownership instead.

Additional Notes