There are object-focused intransitive verb sentence and passive sentence which correspond to agentive-transitive verb sentence in the Japanese language. In Japanese which more frequently uses self-agentive verbs than other languages do, it can be the ...
There are object-focused intransitive verb sentence and passive sentence which correspond to agentive-transitive verb sentence in the Japanese language. In Japanese which more frequently uses self-agentive verbs than other languages do, it can be the issue to distinguish between intransitive verbs and passive expressions that similarly function each other. However, researches about this distinction have only covered the existence or non-existence of a subject in a sentence so far, depending on the theoretical explanation but not on the actual examples. This paper, therefore, specifically examines contexts using intransitive verbs and using passive expressions through actual examples of intransitive verbs and passive expressions from newspapers and novels. The result of the study is as follows :
First, an intransitive verb and a passive expression are more likely to be discriminated not by the existence of a subject in the sentence but depending on how much the subject would be affected by the verb. Thus, even if the sentence has its subject, when it is written objectively focused on the event and without considering the role of the subject, intransitive verbs are more frequently used. Meanwhile, passive expressions are more in use when the sentence subjectively writes a certain role of its subject in the nominative noun phase's context. We can find that in this case, the passive expression is related in meaning to the expressions like causative passives, possessive passives, indirect passives, etc. which basically have the meaning of "damage."
Also, though there seems to be no difference of the subjectivity between an intransitive verb and a passive expression, it is possible to discriminate them by seeing whether the nominative noun phrase can do the action in the sentence, that is, whether it can make some change in the sentence by itself. That is to say, if the nominative noun phrase is capable of making this change in its sentence, an intransitive verb, which is close to the spontaneous voice base form, is more frequently used. On the other hand, if the nominative noun phrase is not able to make any change in the sentence, a passive expression, which implicates the subject, is in common use. However, in a number of examples, intransitive verbs are seen even in the sentence whose nominative noun phrase has no ability to make any change in it. Namely, though the change is made by other elements outside the sentence, if it is viewed as a reasonable result, you can use an intransitive verb, and which is more frequent in examples. The use of a passive expression strongly gives a feeling of other factors' intervention, and so the passive expression can be seen only in the sentence where the subject is written with the case-particles like「niニ」and 「niyotteニヨッテ」or in the adverbial phrase implicating the subject, and which suggests that a passive expression is used just in the context with the subject's strong involvement.
Other languages generally use dual-use verbs or passive form of transitive verbs because in these languages self-agentive verbs are not in use as much as in the Japanese language. If a self-agentive verb is ever used in a sentence of these languages, it is not as frequent. Thus, in other languages, it is not acceptable in a lot of cases to use an intransitive verb to say an action or an event by the influence of other factors, which is unlike in Japanese. As seen above, we can see the importance of intransitive verb use in Japanese, and also, when it comes to Japanese Education, it may be significant for Japanese learners to have this importance in mind.