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Lesson 13: "Passive Conjugation"

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Today we're going to talk about the receptive helper verb.

In other places you will hear this referred to as the "passive conjugation".

Now, as we've already learned, there are no conjugations in Japanese, so it can't be a conjugation.

Also, it isn't passive.

So that's zero out of two for the textbooks.

And this matters because if we think of the receptive helper verb as a passive conjugation, it completely disrupts our grasp of the structure and, once again, it throws those poor particles all over the room.

And as we know the particles are the linchpins, the hinges on which Japanese turns.

So if we mess up the particles we are in deep trouble.

And this is why so many people find Japanese hard to understand.

So, now I've mentioned "passive conjugation" just so you know what we're talking about if you find it in other contexts, let's drop those words completely and call it what it is: the receptive helper verb.

So, what is the receptive helper verb?

It's a verb that fits onto the a-stem of another verb, and the a-stem, that's the same stem that we use for attaching the -nai negative helper adjective, isn't it?

The receptive helper verb is "reru / rareru": that's "reru" for godan verbs, "rareru"for ichidan verbs.

Now, a lot of people panic when they see that the "rareru" of the ichidan receptive helper verb is the same as the "rareru" of the ichidan potential helper verb.

But there's no need to panic.

It's perfectly all right.

In English we have things like this as well.

For example, we have the words "to", "two" and "too".

And they're all pronounced the same and they're all very common words that are used hundreds of times every day.

And how often do they get confused?

Not very often at all.

And it's the same with the potential and receptive helper verbs.

They're used in quite different situations and there's very little chance of confusing them in real use.

And real use is what matters.

So, what does the receptive helper verb mean?

It means "receive" or "get".

Receive what?

Receive the action of the verb to which it is attached.

Now, most of the time I'm going to use the word "get" because this expresses very clearly what the helper verb does.

Your old English teacher might say it's not the best way of expressing things, but it's a perfectly good way of expressing things in English and in Japanese it is exactly how we do express them.

All right?

So, let's take a simple example: "Sakura-ga shikara-reta."

"Shikaru" means "scold" or "tell off", and the a-stem is "shikara", so when we add to that "reru" and put it into the past tense we get "shikara-reta".

"Shikaru" is "scold", "shikara-reru" is "get scolded", "shikara-reta" is "got scolded", so, "Sakura got scolded".

Now, there's an important thing to bear in mind here, and that is that we can sometimes, with a helper verb attached to a verb, we can, as a sort of railroad shorthand, condense those two parts into one verb.

So we can say "hon-ga yomeru" and although "yomeru", which is the potential form of "yomu", is strictly speaking "yome" plus "-ru", we can combine them together and treat "yomeru" as one engine.

But we can't, and never should, do that with the receptive helper verb.

Why not?

Because when the receptive helper verb is attached to another verb, the action of the first verb is always done by someone different from the action of the second verb "reru/rareru".

So we always have in a receptive sentence the action that is done by someone else, whom we may or may not know, plus the real action of the sentence which is "reru/rareru", the receiving - the getting - of that action.

And this is the fundamental point to bear in mind.

It's because the textbooks don't keep this in mind and don't keep those two engines separate that all the confusion and difficulty over the so-called "passive conjugation" arises.

The head verb of a reru/rareru receptive sentence is always "reru" or "rareru", not the verb to which it is attached.

All right.

Now, let's also notice that the A-car, the actor of the sentence, is not necessarily a person.

So, if we say, "mizu-ga noma-reta" (nomu: drink; noma: a-stem of drink; reta: got), we're saying "The water got drunk".

And the actor of that sentence is the water.

Now, even if we add a doer of the action: "mizu-ga inu-ni noma-reta", the actor of the sentence is still the water, not the dog, because it's the water that got drunk, it's the water that did the getting.

The dog did the drinking, but the water did the getting.

And the dog drinking the water is all a white section which modifies that final head verb, "get".

"The water got drunk by the dog."

Now why do I mark the dog with -ni?

I'm going to come to that in just a moment.

Let's get a fuller sentence so we can see all the particles working together in a receptive sentence.

"Sakura-wa dareka-ni kaban-ga nusuma-reta" (nusumu: steal; nusuma: a-stem of steal; nusuma-reru: get stolen; nusuma-reta: got stolen).

"Dareka" means "someone" (dare: who + ka: question). Who was it?

We don't know, no one in particular, but someone.

"Dareka" - "someone".

So, what's going on here?

Who is the receiver of the action?

It's not Sakura, who's marked by -wa.

It's not someone, who's marked by -ni.

It's the person who's marked by -ga, and that's the bag.

The bag is what received that stealing, so the bag is the subject of the sentence.

The bag is the one who did "reru", who did "got".

And -ni... what's it doing here?

Well, let's remember that -ni marks the ultimate target of an action.

So, "Sakura-ni booru-wo nageta" - the ga-marked actor is I, the object of the action is "booru", and the target of that action is Sakura.

Now, this kind of -ni can only be used when we are projecting something, whether it's throwing a ball, sending a letter, giving a present, lending a book.

We have to be projecting something toward the target.

Now, "reru" is not a projecting verb.

It's a receiving verb.

It's not a push-verb, it's a pull-verb.

Therefore the target of that verb is not something toward which you are projecting; it is the thing from which you are receiving.

So -ni performs the same function in relation to a pull-verb that it performs in relation to a push-verb, that is, the ultimate target of the push, the ultimate source of the pull.

So you see, all the particles are doing exactly what they always do.

Nothing is changing here.

If you think of it as "passive conjugation", all the particles do a strange dance and seem to be doing different things from what they usually do, but if you understand it as it is - the receptive helper verb - there isn't any problem.

And it all makes sense, just the way Japanese always does if you know what it's really doing.

Now, there's one other area in which the receptive sometimes confuses people, and that is in the so-called "suffering passive" or "adversity passive", which is actually called in Japanese the "meiwaku ukemi", which means the "nuisance receptive".

And that's what it is.

It's the nuisance receptive.

"Sakura-wa dareka-ni kaban-ga nusuma-reta" means "Sakura's bag got stolen by someone" or, literally, "In relation to Sakura, bag got stolen by someone".

But we can also say "Sakura-ga dareka-ni kaban-wo nusuma-reta".

What happens here?

This is the nuisance receptive.

So what's happening here?

The ga-marked actor is now Sakura, isn't it?

She is the one who does the receiving.

So what does this sentence mean in English?

Very simple: "Sakura got her bag stolen".

That's what we say in English; our old English teacher might not like it, but we say it in English, it makes sense in English, and it's exactly what we say in Japanese.

"Sakura got her bag stolen by someone."

So, I think you can see that there is in fact no problem, no difficulty, no confusion about the receptive helper verb, just so long as you know that it is a receptive helper verb and not something else.