The meaning of passive sentences in Japanese

Abstract

It has often been noted that, in Japanese passive sentences, not only transitive but also intransitive verbs can occur. Since the time linguists first began to compare Japanese with other languages, they have tried to analyse the properties of Japanese passives. The linguists of the last two decades paid attention primarily to the syntax of Japanese passive sentences and divided them into two groups, on syntactic grounds, to explain their derivations. However, these classifications are not adequate when it comes to explaining the semantic differences between passive sentences, and there remains a considerable number of exceptions to their definitions. The purpose of this paper is to bring to light the confusions of the previous semantic and syntactic explanations and propose new definitions of the two passive groups. We shall also examine the meanings of passive sentences in real situations and attempt to pinpoint the basic purpose behind use of the passive construction in Japanese.