An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language

3.2. FURTHER INFLECTIONS 135

make sure we use the right particles:

active, ”(I) eat dinner.”

passive, ”Dinner is being eaten (by me).”

Second, what used to be the verb actor has become a verb detail in-
stead. In English we see this expressed by the fact that the verb actor moves
to being part of a preposition phrase (”I” becomes ”by me”, for instance),
and from the section on verb particles in chapter 2, we know that these
kind of phrases are marked with in Japanese:

active, ”I eat dinner.”

passive, ”Dinner is being eaten by me.”

active, ”(A) dog barked (at me), (and that) was scary.”

passive, ”(I) was barked at by (a) dog, (and that) was scary.”

The helper verbs involved are both verbs, so they can them-
selves be conjugated further by using their appropriate base:

bases

In addition to the regular passive construction, these verbs are also

used to form what is known as the
, or ”passive form of bother”.
A somewhat inelegant name, this specific passive is used to indicate that