Two types of possessive passives in Japanese

Many East Asian languages have possessive passives, whose subjects are interpreted as the possessor of the direct object. This paper investigates Japanese Possessive Passives (JPPs) and proposes that there are two types of possessive passives in Japanese: one with a ‘-phrase’ headed by ( JPPs) and the other with a ‘-phrase’ headed by ( JPPs). While previous studies assumed that JPPs are a sub-type of indirect passive, I propose that such an analysis is untenable. Instead, JPPs exhibit the same dichotomy as -passives and -passives exhibit (, ): While subjects of JPPs are base-generated like -passives, subjects of JPPs undergo NP movement like -passives.

Duke Scholars

Author Yunchuan Chen Asian & Middle Eastern Studies