Timeline for Is there a good etymological reason why the potential form in Japanese requires the が particle?
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| Nov 14, 2020 at 9:46 | comment | added | Eiríkr Útlendi | @user4092, curious what the え is there in the Taketori quote? 『あの国の人を、[え]{●}戦はぬなり。』 Also, it seems that Old Japanese 助動詞 suffix ゆ was used already in the Man'yōshū in all three senses of 自発・受け身・可能, as illustrated with quotes towards the bottom of the KDJ entry here at Kotobank. | |
| Jun 17, 2020 at 8:18 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
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| Sep 8, 2018 at 14:37 | vote | accept | Pregunto | ||
| Aug 13, 2018 at 17:01 | comment | added | Eiríkr Útlendi | The は indicates what we are talking about in broader terms, whereas the が marks what the verb itself is describing (in these constructions). So in 私は地図が読める, the 読める does not express that 私 has the ability of 読む, but rather that the 地図 has the quality of 読める (being legible). A tighter, more direct translation to express this construction might be "As for me, the map is readable / legible" → "the map is readable / legible by me" → "I can read the map". The more-natural English construction obscures the fact that the Japanese potential verb describes the が subject, not the は topic. | |
| Aug 13, 2018 at 16:59 | comment | added | Eiríkr Útlendi | @Tommy, for #1 above, a key distinction I've seen in other works: potential and passive verbs describe something about the subject marked with が, whereas active 他動詞 describe something being done to the object marked with を. In #1, the nominal marked with は is technically the topic -- which is grammatically separate from the verb in Japanese in many utterances. | |
| Aug 13, 2018 at 16:54 | history | edited | Eiríkr Útlendi | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added translation of dictionary content; unfamiliar with 気を置く expression, so any sprucing up of that would be welcome
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| Aug 12, 2018 at 8:51 | comment | added | user4092 | I found one example. あの国の人を、え戦はぬなり。弓矢して射られじ from 竹取物語. As a matter of fact, the potential usage started with negation, which semantically corresponds with negation of 自発 rather than passive. | |
| Aug 12, 2018 at 8:01 | comment | added | user4092 | @Pregunto That problem seems unexpectedly complicated. It seems to have progressed as を → の/が → が → が/を (with occasional zero particle for each). I have no evidence myself, though. In addition, "derived from passive" is not necessarily wrong (not really correct either) but it's still different from that in English sense. | |
| Jul 15, 2018 at 11:41 | vote | accept | Pregunto | ||
| Jul 15, 2018 at 11:41 | |||||
| Jul 13, 2018 at 10:15 | comment | added | Leebo | Okay, I see what you're saying if you mean it's nonstandard, as mentioned in this answer. But it seems like it's very widespread. japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/609/… | |
| Jul 13, 2018 at 10:03 | comment | added | Leebo | を is not incorrect though... | |
| Jul 13, 2018 at 9:54 | comment | added | Pregunto | Ok, so I had a look again and I did my utmost to understand what is says, with a dictionary. Am I right in concluding that essentially -を is incorrect because the potential is etymologically derived from the Passive? | |
| Jul 13, 2018 at 4:27 | history | edited | Tommy | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 155 characters in body
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| Jul 13, 2018 at 4:21 | history | answered | Tommy | CC BY-SA 4.0 |