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別に僕は周りを無視して本に没頭したいわけでもないので、見ろと言われれば見る

Would it mean the same thing if 言われれば was replaced with 言われば? What's the difference if any between ~れれば and ~れば?

I'm also not certain of the meaning of the sentence- is the second part trying to say "If told to look, I'll look"? (If so 言われば would be fitting as well wouldn't it?)

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The conditional -(r)eba has two forms:

  1. Following a consonant-stem verb, it takes the form of -eba:

     行く　　   ik-u　→　　行けば　　   ik-eba  
 泳ぐ　　 oyog-u　→　　泳げば　　 oyog-eba
 差す　　  sas-u　→　　差せば　　  sas-eba
 放つ　　hanat-u　→　　放てば　　hanat-eba
 死ぬ　　  sin-u　→　　死ねば　　  sin-eba
 運ぶ　　hakob-u　→　　運べば　　hakob-eba
 飲む　　  nom-u　→　　飲めば　　  nom-eba
 走る　　hasir-u　→　　走れば　　hasir-eba
 構う　　kamaw-u　→　　構えば　　kamaw-eba　（note: /w/ disappears before vowels other than /a/,
 　　　　        　　　　　　　　　          　so we end up with kama-u and kama-eba instead)

  2. Following a vowel-stem verb, it takes the form of -reba:

     食べる　tabe-ru　→　食べれば　　tabe-reba  
 生きる　 iki-ru　→　生きれば　　 iki-reba

So for short, we call it -(r)eba, using the parentheses to indicate both forms at the same time.

What about your example, 言われれば? Let's take this apart.

First, we'll start with consonant-stem verb 言う. Its stem is iw-, but the /w/ disappears before every vowel except /a/ in modern Japanese, which is why we end up with forms like 言わない iw-anai but 言う i-u. The /w/ disappears from iw-u and leaves us with i-u.

Next, we want to add the passive -(r)are- to this verb. We add it directly to the stem iw-, which gives us 言われる iw-are-. As you can see, we end up with a vowel-stem verb.

Last, we'll add the conditional -(r)eba. Since we're adding it to a vowel-stem verb, it takes the form of -reba, and we end up with iw-are-reba. As you can see, the two れs belong to different morphemes; you can't remove either of them.

For this reason, your alternative, *言われば, is ungrammatical.

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言われば is not correct. You should use 言われれば (or 言われたら).

is the second part trying to say "If told to look, I'll look"?

Yes, I think you're right. 言われれば consists of 言わ(未然形 of 動詞「言う」) + れれ(仮定形 of 助動詞「れる」) + ば(接続助詞).

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  • Shouldn't it be iw-are-reba (base-passive-conditional)?
    – Thomas Gross
    Dec 20, 2014 at 16:30
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    @ThomasGross You're presenting a modern analysis, while Choko has shown how it's analyzed in Japanese school grammar. Descriptively they work out to the same thing in this case, although the modern analysis is probably more parsimonious.
    – user1478
    Dec 20, 2014 at 17:13

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