Monday, February 20, 2017

passive voice - How do I interpret the Japanese construction of verb+noun?


A) Let's take just transitive verbs first:



  1. 食べる人


  2. 食べられる人


B) Now let's take intransitive verbs:



  1. 起きる人

  2. 起きられる人

  3. 起こす人

  4. 起こされる人


OK, this thing has confused me for a very long time now, like really long. Thus I am posting this here. I have asked the question once before but did not get a real answer.



What I am confused with about verb+noun sentence is how it is to be translated. e.g from A) we get



  1. "The person that eats (person is subject, object omitted)" and

  2. "The person that is eaten (person is object here, subject omitted)" right?


Now let's get to B) I think all 4 sentences are grammatically valid and sound as far as usage is concerned. I would translate them as



  1. "The person that wakes up (person is subject and object - instransitive verb)"

  2. "The person that is awaken (by himself) (person is subject and object - intransitive)" or in other words "The person that awakes himself (by himself)"



Then we have,



  1. "The person that wakes (others) up (subject is person, object omitted)"

  2. "The person that is awaken (by someone else) (subject omitted, object is person)"


Now what I want you folks to do is to make sure that I interpreted the Japanese sentences correctly. This will make sure that I understand how to make verb+noun sentences.


Thus 食べる食事 means "The food that eats (someone/something)". To refer to the food I eat I shall say 食べられる食事は… "the food I eat is..." right?




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