Passive and related constructions with verbal suffix -(r)are- in Early Middle Japanese : The case of Konjaku Monogatari-shū

This study examines the verbal suffix -(r)are- in Early Middle Japanese (EMJ), exploring its schematic and prototypical meanings and describing the features of its sub-constructions. In EMJ, there were six sub-construction types of -(r)are-: animate-subject passive, non-volitional, potential (impossible), honorific, stative passive, and hold-event. The schematic meaning across all these constructions is ‘spontaneity,’ which inherits from spontaneous intransitive verbs. Spontaneous intransitive verbs can be broadly categorized into two types: ‘spontaneous change in things,’ such as break, wither, melt, and ‘spontaneous change in individuals,’ such as get tired, become haggard, be absent minded, and the like. The former conveys the meaning of ‘change in things without the intervention of an agent,’ and this meaning extended to the development of stative passive and hold-event constructions, serving the function of backgrounding an agent. The latter means ‘occurrence of events where the subject does not control or intend,’ and this meaning extended to form animate-subject passive, non-volitional, and potential constructions. In EMJ, due to the overwhelming use of the non-volitional and animate-subject passive, the prototype meaning of -(r)are- is considered to be ‘spontaneous occurrence in/over an individual.’ This is because the intransitive verb constructions themselves often represented ‘spontaneous occurring of changes in a person.’ Furthermore, this study investigated the distribution of -(r)are- constructions in the Honchō Sezoku-hen section of Konjaku Monogatari-shū and compared it to that of Genji Monogatari. In Konjaku, animate-subject passive constructions were used in more than 80% of the cases, while in Genji, non-volitional constructions constituted over half of the total, followed by animate-subject passive. These differences can be attributed to Konjaku providing an objective description of events from an external perspective, whereas Genji delves into the inner thoughts of the characters and focuses on psychological descriptions, making it a more emotional and sentimental text.