Okurigana 送假名
Okurigana(送り仮名,accompanying letters) are kana suffixes following kanji stems in Japanese written words. They serve two purposes: to inflect adjectives and verbs, and to force a particular kanji to mean a specific idea and be read a certain way. For example, the non-past verb form 见る (miru, "see") inflects to past tense 见た (mita, "saw"), where 见 is the kanji stem, and 见 and た are okurigana, written in hiragana script. With a very few exceptions, okurigana are only used for kun'yomi (native Japanese readings), not for on'yomi (Chinese readings) – Chinese morphemes do not inflect in Japanese, and their pronunciation is inferred from context, since many are used as parts of compound words (kango).