Japanese

[Blaine Erickson]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
Just catching up on some back messages.
 
Jacob Baltuch <jacob.baltuch at euronet.be> wrote:
 
> On the other hand I seem to remember that Japanese has direct
> and indirect object take different postpositions (-(w)o vs. -
> ni if I remember correctly) and yet has indirect passives.
 
You remember correctly: for most verbs and in most cases, _o_ <wo>
marks the DO, and _ni_ the IO.
 
Not being a syntactician, I don't have too much to say about indirect
passives.  I'll just mention that the passive often (but not always)
indicates some sort of adverse situation.
 
oya       ga  shinda.
parent(s) TOP die-PERFECT
"(My) parent(s) died."
 
versus
 
oya       ni  shinareta.
parent(s) AGT die-PASSIVE-PERFECT
"(My) parent(s) died (and I sufferred as a result)."
Or, more literally, "(I was) deaded by my parent(s)."
 
Best,
 
Blaine Erickson
erickson at hawaii.edu