The particle va is suffixed to singular and plural nouns which already have a particle; e.g., coco ie va mairanu 'he will not come here,' coco cara va denu 'he did not go out from here,' coco ni va aru mai 'he will not enter here.' Sometimes va replaces the particles of the declension; e.g., fune de saie ióió tçuita ni, cachi va nacanaca naru mai (119v) 'I arrived with such difficulty by ship: I would undoubtedly never have arrived had I come by foot, or on foot.'[[57]] The particle va here replaces cara.
Japanese does not have the genders feminine, masculine, and neuter as Latin does. There are, however, certain nouns which are feminine or masculine because of their meaning. Other nouns are common to both these genders. For things which do not have a proper gender vo is placed before masculine nouns and me before feminine; e.g., voivo means 'male fish' and meivo 'female fish,' vojica means 'roe-buck,' melica [mejica] 'roe-doe,'[[58]] coma means 'horse,' zoiacu 'mare,' xô means 'male hawk,' dai 'female hawk,' cotoi means 'bull,' meuxi 'cow,' votoco means 'man,' vonago, nhóbó, or vonna 'woman.' All these words are placed in the dictionary as they come to mind.
The nominal adjectives have no gender or declension but make use of the same particles as the nouns. There are however many and diverse adjectives. Certain ones end in ai others in oi, ei, ui and ij. There are other, more proper adjectives, which are formed by adding no to nouns. When the first five types of adjectives are placed before nouns they are then properly adjectives and do not in any way alter the composition of
the sentence. But when they are placed after nouns they become more like verbs and are in fact conjugated like them; e.g., tacai iama 'a high mountain,' xiguei ideiri 'frequent comings and goings,' caxicoi (10 fito 'a wise man,' cavaij mono 'a wretched thing,' aiaui coto 'a dangerous thing,' umare tçuqi no cuchi 'one's natural, or mother tongue.' There are also adjectives ending in na which, when they are placed before nouns, do not alter the construction; e.g., qirei na coto 'a clean thing.' All the adjectives, except those ending in no, change their form in some way when they occur before verbs. Those that end in ai change to ó; e.g., cono iama va tacó gozaru 'this mountain is lofty.' Those ending in ei change to eô; e.g., cono iama va xigueô gozaru 'these mountains are dense.' Those ending in oi change to ô; e.g., caxicô gozaru 'he is wise.' Those ending in ui change to ú; e.g., xei no ficú gozaru 'he is small in stature.' Those ending in ii [ij] change to iú; e.g., caiú gozaru 'it itches.'[[59]] Among those adjectives ending in ij there are many which come from verbs; e.g., nozomi,u means 'to wish,' and from it comes nozomaxij 'which is to be wished for.' Other adjectives come from nouns; e.g., varambe means 'a child, or infant,' and from this comes varamberaxij which means 'childish.' Other examples may be found in the dictionary.
Adjectives which end in na change the na to ni when they are placed before verbs; e.g., fuxin ni zonzuru 'I think it doubtful.' The adjectives that end in no sometimes change the no to na; e.g., bechi no fito changes to bechi na fito 'a different man.' Sometimes when it is followed by a verb the na changes to a ni; e.g., bechi ni gozaru 'it is different.' However, the meaning remains the same whether the word ends in na or no; e.g., bechi no fito no cuhi cara qiita [... cuchi ...] is the same as bechi na fito no cuchi cara qiita 'I heard it from the mouth of a different person.'[[60]] The only difference in these forms is that when the word ends in no no change occurs as a consequence of what follows. But, as has been said, those adjectives that end in na change to ni when they come before a verb. If a substantive verb follows an adjective, it is an elegant statement; e.g., cono iami va tacó gozaru 'this mountain is high.' But if this kind of verb does not follow, the sense
is not altered since the adjective is used as a substantive verb. But this is not used before superiors. To them we will not say cono iama va tacai but rather cono iama va tacó gozaru. The same is true for the other adjectives.
Adjectives usually end in i but infrequently these adjectives change to xi or to qu. Ioi, which means 'good,' changes to ioqu, or ioxi; e.g., ioqu dancó xite, which has the meaning of 'offering good (11 council.'[[61]] There are innumerable nouns which become adjectives if na is suffixed to them; e.g., afo means 'ignorance' and from it comes the word afo na which means 'ignorant,' jiiu means 'liberty' and jiiu na means 'which is free.' Other examples are offered by the dictionary.
There are certain abstract nouns which become adjectives when they precede a vocable (vocabulis) with the meaning of 'man'; e.g., jifi means 'pity,' but when the word jin is placed after it, it becomes jifijin 'a pitiable person.' Fin means 'poverty,' but when the word nin is suffixed to it, it becomes finnin 'a poor person.' In the same way, when one suffixes ja to fin, it makes finja, which also means 'a poor person.' The word ban means 'watch,' but if the word ja is added to it, it becomes banja 'a careful person.' Many other examples can be found in the dictionary.
There are in Japanese certain words which are borrowed from Chinese, called cobita[[62]] or coie, and are written together to form by their union a noun and an adjective. Thus, ten mean 'heaven,' xu means 'lord,' and tenxu means 'lord of heaven.'
The preterit of verbs (which will be taken up in their place) seem to have the same strength and meaning as adjectives when they are used before nouns; e.g., iogoreta te 'dirty hands,' where iogoreta is the preterit of the verb iogore,uru 'I became dirty.' Caita qió means 'a written book' and caita is the preterit of the verb caqi,u I write.' The abstract (abstracta), or root from which the verb is formed, is itself a noun which signifies the action of the verb in the abstract; e.g.,