Wind and Rain

(57) Kaze ni fukarete sanposhita. wind DAT blowi-PASS walk-PAST

"I walked along, the wind blowing on him." (58) Tsuyoi kaze ni fukarete, ugokenakatta.

strong wind DAT blow-PASS move-POS-PAST

MI could not move, a strong wind blowing against me."

We can express either negative or positive implications by using this construction; it has been traditionally included amoung the indirect passives because it contains a noun phrase not found in any comparable active sentence.

According to A. Wierzbicka (1979), the event described happened in a place, not necessarily that of the subject, and the subject, which is the extra noun phrase, is affected by this event.

However, the passive subject, in my opinion, is always affected

directly. Thus the interpretation can be either negative or positive, as we have seen above. The subject must be in the place where the wind blows, and he must actually feel the wind. Therefore these sentences should be considered direct passives. Observe the unnatural sentences below:

(59) ??Kaze ni fukarete soto ni ikarenakatta.

wind DAT blow-PASS outside LOC go-PASS-NEG-PAST

"I could not go out, because I was affected by the wind blowing."

The verb fuku ("to blow") has interesting characteristics, in that it can be used as not only intransitive but also transitive.

(60) Kaze ga fuku. wind NOM blow

"Wind blows."

(SI) John ga hokori o fuku NOM dust ACC blow John b 1ows d u s t .

Verbs like this in J a pa n e s e are c o n s i d e r a b l y rare c o m p a r e d with English. They are:

akeru ("to open"), hiku ("to d r a w " ) , masu ("to gain"), reotsu ("to have"),

m usubu ("to tie"), u keru ("to g e t " ) , and so on.

In these verbs I would like to focus on hiku ("to draw") and motsu ("to have") because they have s i m i l a r c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s as fuku ("to blow") but others do not.

"The river went down." b. John wa tsuna o hiita.

TOP rope ACC d r a w - P A S T "John drew the rope."

a. Kore wa r e i z o o k o de m i k k a motsu. this TOP r e f r i g e r a t o r three days

"This lasts three days in r e f r i g e r a t o r . " b. John wa kaban o motta.

TOP bag AC C h a v e - P A S T "John had the bag."

(62) a. Kawa no mizu wa hiita.

river GEN w ater TOP d r a w - P A S T

And they also have the p a ssive s e n t e n c e s

(64) A b u r a wa i ni motareru.

oil TOP s t o m a c h D A T h a v e - P A S S Oil sits heavy on s tomach."

(65) Watashi wa kanojo no m i r y o k u ni hikareta.

I TOP she GE N charm D A T d r a w - P A S S - P A S T

ii

The two sentences above are idiomatic usage and we do not think of them as passive sentences because they do not have corresponding active sentences. However they are syntactically passive sentences.

Going back to the verb fuku ("to blow") , kaze ("wind") does not have an undergoer in the sentence.

(66) # Kaze ga watashi o fuku. wind NOM I ACC blow

It is because kaze ("wind") is a natural cause and has only intransitive verbs.

However the passive sentence has positive interpretation, and I ' «*. believe this is related to the existance of the transitive verb fuku

("to blow").

A

It must be easily imagined that the speakers feel that the wind blows just like they are animate.

I strongly believe in this idea-, however as I do not have a more effective explanation now, I would like to leave this problem here.

We have similar sentences in which the phenomenon concerned is "rain", rather than wind:

(67) Arne ni furarete bishonure ni natta.

rain DAT fall-PASS wet through become-PAST "It rained, and I was wet through."

This construction invariable expresses a negative effect upon the passive subject, demonstrated by the complete unacceptability of a sentence such as:

(68) # Arne ni furarete ureshikatta.

rain DAT fall-PASS be pleased-PAST "It rained, and I was pleased."

This construction, containing "rain" as the agentive noun phrase, is usually used only when the passive subject undergoes the event

directly, as in the case with the construction containing "wind" above. Therefore we would expect to hear:

(69) A»e ga futta node yakyuu o it i ni ikenakatta.

rain NOM fall-PAST as baseball ACC see go-POS-NEG-PAST

"As it rained, I could not go and watch the baseball game."

instead of:

(70) ?9Aite ni furarete yakyuu o it i ni ikenakatta.

rain DAT fall-PASS baseball see go-POS-NEG-PAST

Many native speakers agree that (69) is more or less unnatural. There are speakers who accept Sentence (69) as natural, however I believe this is because we also have sentences like the following, which are perfectly acceptable to all speakers:

(71) Aite fi furarete yakyuu ga chuushi ni natta. rain DAT fall-PAST baseball NOM stop become-PAST

It rained and the baseball game was affected by it. The gaite was stopped."

Here the "game" itself is the undergoer of the event, directly

affected by the rain. Speakers who accept (70) may be extrapolating from completely natural sentences like (71), even though there is no direct undergoer in (70).

Another reason is when the hearer imagined the situation the speaker was in the rain and got wet, the sentence would be acceptable. On the other hand when he was in a house and heard the radio which said the game was stopped, the sentence would never be accepted.

Therefore, although the evidence is not quite as clear as it is in the case of passive sentence involving "wind", I consider the sentences involving rain to be direct passives also. It remains to be explained, however, why these sentences have strictly negative connotations.

Recall that the direct passive should allow positive or neutral

connotations. Kuno (1973) claims that "rain" is always considered a nuisance by Japanese people. Therefore I believe it is the content of the sentence, not its construction, which results in the negative implications.

However, as there are some people who accept sentences like (70)

above, in which the subject is not a direct undergoer, I concede that this construction could still be considered an indirect passive. In this case the consistently negative implications would require no further explanation.