Ownership

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As well as being an existence verb, arimasu can also indicate ownership. The pattern here is:

OWNERhaTHINGgaarimasu.

Note that arimasu is used for ownership regardless of whether or not the thing being owned is animate.

For example:

warumonosanhashyokudogaarimasu. "The ruffian owns a dining room."

warumonosanhanekogaarimasu. "The ruffian owns a cat."

The concept of ownership is rather loose. For example, the wizard is part of the gang of ruffians, so it is OK to say:

warumonotachihamahoutsukaigaarimasu. "The ruffians include a wizard." Note that although Japanese does not distinguish singular from plural - warumono can mean "ruffian" or "ruffians" - it is possible to stress plurality by adding the plural suffix tachi. No one ruffian owns the wizard, but the ruffians, collectively, include a wizard.

Negations arimasen, past tenses arimashita and negated past tenses arimasendeshita are all straightforward.

Ownership II

The particle no also expresses ownership, and as with arimasu, the concept is rather loose.

warumonononekohaurusaidesu. "The ruffian's cat is noisy."

warumononomahoutsukaisamahaoshyaberijyaarimasen. "The ruffians' wizard is not a talkative person." The ruffians do not own the wizard, but he is a member of their gang.

atorantisunonomahoutsukaisamahayumeidesu. "The wizards of Atlantis are famous." Atlantis does not own the wizards - it is simply a place where famous wizards come from.

The concept of ownership or inclusion can sometimes be so vague and general that the "owning" noun can be regarded as an adjective:

saburinasanhaonnanohitodesu. "Sabrina is a woman."

mahoutsukaisamahaotokonohitodesu. "The wizard is a man."

There are even some colours which are nouns (connected with no) rather than adjectives, including midori ("green") and murusaki ("purple").

midorinonekohaurusaidesuyo. "The green cat is noisy!" Presumably it is complaining because it was the victim of another of the wizard's spells.

For reference, the other common colours are i adjectives: see Colours.