4

I was using Jisho.org to help me figure out the tense of the following passive verb

殺されかかったんだ

when it decides to combine 殺され (passive form) with かかった thereby forming "殺されかかった" as a 'recognized' whole verb (recognized meaning its fully underlined in the link thingy).

I still don't know what the two かか's mean, although my bad gut intuition is saying that the first か is a question particle, thereby making it a passive question parsed by かったんだ.... I really am confused as to what it means and how to parse the segments correctly.

Original sentence: ……そうだ, 殺されかかったんだ

Improve this question
3
  • 2
    I think you're overthinking it. What if you just saw かかった? How would you work from that?
    – Leebo
    Mar 7, 2019 at 5:46
  • @Leebo No clue, other than its a か with a past tense long form imperative. Or maybe its a かか word in its dictionary form? (As far as I can recall, I've never seen a word made with only two か's in hirigana, hence my confusion as to how to proceed).
    – Toyu_Frey
    Mar 7, 2019 at 16:20
  • かかる is an N5 word (though not this usage specifically), so I guess I assumed you knew it but were just confused by the construction.
    – Leebo
    Mar 7, 2019 at 22:03

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
11

「Verb in 連用形{れんようけい} (continuative form) + かかる」

means:

"to be about to (verb)", "to be on the point of (verb)ing", etc.

The first verb used in this expression can be either in the active or passive voice form. Active or passive, Japanese verbs still inflect in the same manner.

Active voice: 「殺し」 is the 連用形 of 「殺す」

「殺しかかった」= "was about to kill"

Passive voice: 「殺され」 is the 連用形 of 「殺される」

「殺されかかった」 = "was about to be killed"

The two か's cannot be separated as 「かかる」 is just one verb.

Improve this answer
0

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .