受動文の動作主表示「に」の一考察

Abstract

The Japanese passive expressions has been studied in various ways. But in this article, rather than considering the Japanese passive only in the concept of 'active vs. passive voice', I also included the concept of 'action vs. state'. In this regard, you can divide passive verbs into two groups. One is actional passives and the other is stative passives. The「に」-attached nouns in passive sentences is often regarded as the agent of the action. This article is trying to show the use of 「に」in relation with the passive verbs attached afterwards, the subj is's animateness, and the agent's animateness in Japanese passive sentences. Although it is not mainly considered in this article, the「に」shows up in indirect passive sentences and also in direct passive sentences. As mentioned in previous researches,「に」is mainly used in depicting sentences but it is also used in sentences including Japanese verbs that mentions changing in states, attitudes of the agent, contacts between the agent and the patient or agent's will. In the case of the subject's animateness, the animate subject hold 81% and the inanimate subject hold 19% in the frequency of its use. In the case of the agent's animateness, the animate agent takes 72%, while the inanimate agent takes 28%. As you can see,「に」is more frequently used in the animate cases whether it is subject or agent. Therefore, according to Hosokawa Yukiko's theory (1986), 「に」has predominant character as actional passive. However, you cannot just neglect inanimate cases. Because it has quite considerable percentage of 19% in subjects and 28% in agents. This phenomenon comes from the fact that「に」, which is the indication of the agent in the passive sentence, may also have the character of stative passive. Moreover, the inanimate agent is used as some kind of a cause or a reason rather than simply taking a role as an agent. Also, as referred in previous researches, 「に」is frequently used in indicating subject or agent because of its "directionality" and its "spatiality". If "directionality" takes prominent role in the sentence, the expression including「に」gives its attention to a "focus point". And if "spatiality" predominates, 「に」expresses its attached noun as a target or an agent. And I assume that 「に」's direction drives in centrepetal "directionaliity" in the agent's point of view.