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Both ARUand IRU mean "to exist" and you use these terms to tell someone that you
have something.
In Japanese - you need to choose one of the these verbs according to the item you have -
whether it's animate (things that move- alive) or inanimate (dead items).
ARU - this one is used for inanimate objects - like books, toys, plants and buildings.
They're items that can't move by themselves.
When speaking in a polite context, use the polite form ARIMASU
IRU - is used for animate things - like people, animals, insects, ants...yes, every thing
that can move by themselves.
When speaking in a polite context, use the polite form IMASU
Don't forget the particle GA which gets tacked on after the item/object/person - or
anything that you're saying you have and exists.
Let's look at the negative form - and talk about what you don't have - or doesn't exist.
Iru (いる) and aru (ある) are the present/future ‘plain’ form of the verb translated as ‘to
be/exist’. Iru is always used in reference to an animate subject or object, and aru always
refers to an object or subject that is inanimate;
When the verb is used following an object marked with ga and a subject marked with ni
(に), the translation becomes ‘to have’. For example
To arrive at this translation, the particle ni is read, in this context, as ‘in/at’, the place
where something is at the present. So at first, the translation for (7) mayfggfh be
considered ‘a car is at John/in John’s presence’. In order to reach the translation ‘to
have’, Tsujioka[2] presents these two examples:
Unlike shoyuusuru and motsu however, iru/aru can express relationship as well as
ownership, as seen in (9) where John does not physically own his son. Rather, it is a
statement expressing the relationship.
Although iru/aru sentences may have a possessee that is alienable and inalienable, it is
not possible to have a modified inalienable possessee;
This appears to be the only restraint, other than the animate/inanimate restrictions, and its
solution will be discussed in the next section. The sentence structure for iru/aru
possessive sentences is
Although nouns in Japanese are not marked for animacy, it has two existential/possessive
verbs; one which for implicitly animate nouns (usually humans and animals) and one for
implicitly inanimate nouns (usually non-living objects and plants, etc.) The verb iru (い
る also written 居る)is used to show the existence or possession of an animate noun.
The verb aru (ある, sometimes written 在る when existential or 有る when possessive)
is used to show the existence or possession of an inanimate noun.
An animate noun, in this case 'cat,' is marked as the subject of the verb with the subject
particle ga (が), but no topic and no location are marked. This implies the noun is
indefinite and merely exists.
In the third example the noun is marked as the topic (and by default functions as the
subject of the verb) while a location, in this case the top of a chair, is marked with the
location particle ni (に). This implies that the noun is both a definite noun and that is
located at the specified location.
In all these cases if the noun is not animate, such as a stone, instead of a cat, the verb iru
must be replaced with the verb aru (ある or 有る[possessive]/在る[existential,locative]).
In some cases where 'natural' animacy is ambiguous, whether a noun is animate or not is
the decision of the speaker, as in the case of a robot, which could be correlated with the
animate verb (to signify sentience or anthropomorphism), or with the inanimate verb (to
emphasise that is a non-living thing).