Part 2 - Active? Passive? Causative? Causative-Passive?

There's somemore stuff regarding differences betw the above mentioned forms which i studied in Japanese In Mangaland 3 :)

Let's just talk more about the active and passive forms using examples from the book. There's another difference between the two forms besides the subject of the sentence being different.

In active forms, the information is very direct. It tells you wat ever it tells you. Example:

"Otouto GA watashi NO koora WO nomimashita."
My younger brother [otouto], drank [nomimashita] my cola [watashi no koora].

In this sentence, the subject we are interested in is my younger brother. Nobody cares too much bout me nor my cola. It's all about my younger brother. The information is as straightforward as straightforward can be. I.e 'My younger brother drank my cola'. Period. Nothing more, nothing less. As it is :)

Compare and contrast with this form of passive sentence, called 'victim-passive':

"Watashi GA Otouto NI koora WO nomaremashita."
I had my cola dranked BY my younger brother [and i sure didn't like it].

NOW, the emphasis has totally shifted. Now, I become the subject of the sentence while my younger brother becomes the Agent of the passive action (i.e, he did the act of drinking). More than just a shift in the emphasis etc, the nuance of such a passive sentence doesnt just tell us dat i had my cola drunk by my younger brother. It also tells us in subtext, dat i was kinda pissed at him for doing so, because he didnt get my permission etc.

Such is an example of this form of passive sentence :) The subject's disapproval/negative feeling towards the action done against him is highlighted.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moving on to the causative type of sentences.. there is a slight difference in terms of particles used. We can use either NI or WO to mark them, but there is a slight difference in the connotation. Causative verbs can mean not just to make somebody do something, but also to allow/let someone do something.
Example:

"Sensei GA Gakuseitachi NI hashirasemashita."
The teacher LET/ALLOWED the students [to] run.

Here, we see that the particle NI is used to mark the students [Gakuseitachi], who received the permission to run from their teacher. In a case like dat, probably the students needed to train for an upcoming sports event, and so seeked the teacher's approval. And so the result is the teacher allowed them to run as expressed in the above sentence.

Compare and contrast with the following:

"Sensei GA Gakuseitachi WO hashirasemashita."
The teacher MADE the students run.

Very clearly, we see now that the teacher ordered the students to run. Obviously, the students weren't in favour of this. In such a case, the students were probably being punished by the teacher for some offence, either dat or because there's an upcoming physical fitness test and the teacher wants his entire class to pass it :)

The above examples were used with intransitive action verbs. However if a transitive verb is used instead, then we will use NI to mark the person who is allowed or forced to carry out the action, while WO marks the object upon which the action is carried out. See example 3 in the previous entry.

Thus in such causative sentences shown in the 2 examples, we can infer alot of subtext. Dat's the nature of the japanese language, much can be conveyed across without it being explicitly expressed in words :)



So, having explored the ideas of 'allowing' and 'forcing' in the causative voice, we might ask ourself, how about the ideas of 'being allowed' and 'being forced to' in causative-passive styles?

The answer is yes and no. Yes to the idea of 'being forced to' but NO to the idea of 'being allowed'. Therefore, causative-passive sentences can only express the idea of obligation or being forced, and not the idea of permission or being allowed. Dat is because causative-passive forms express negative feelings of disapproval just like victim-passive forms, therefore the nature of such forms DO NOT have the positive idea of receiving approval or permission.

Yeap, dat's basically it for this entire topic.. It's a lot to learn, and pretty confusing. Where and wat kind of particles to use etc.. but you slowly learn to understand each function and can better understand such sentences when you come across them :)