This paper presents two views on the categorization of Japanese nouns, verbs, and adjectives into form classes: the traditional view and a view set forth in the writing of Suzuki Akira. The fundamental issue here is the criterion for categorization. Is it the meaning of words, or is it their grammatical behavior that determines the system of categories? The traditional view establishes a criterion that is grammatical--the presence or absence of inflection is crucial in categorization. Suzuki (Akira's) arguments for classification appeal to the overall regularity or simplicity of the language; his fundamental assumption is that the grammatical forms of Japanese reflect in a direct way its semantic aspects. Both approaches are illustrated with examples. (VM)