名詞

What it means

名詞 means the grammatical category of words that function as nouns. In Japanese grammar, 名詞 refers to words that name things or concepts and can typically serve as the subject or object in sentences, with minimal inflection compared to verbs.

Main meanings

• Commonly refers to the class of nouns, i.e., words that name things, people, places, or ideas
• In linguistic discussions, 名詞 is contrasted with 動詞 and 形容詞 as a basic part of speech
• In textbooks and dictionaries, 名詞 is used as a header to label noun entries

How to use it

In grammar discussions, 名詞 is introduced as a core word class and is used in formal writing, textbooks, and language-learning materials to label noun entries; it appears in POS tagging in NLP and in classroom explanations to distinguish nouns from verbs and adjectives. The term is typically used in the context of sentence structure to mark subjects and objects.