An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language

138 CHAPTER 3. MORE GRAMMAR

sive”, which just means that it’s a construction that indicates giving per-

mission to ”let someone do something”:

”The CEO let me take on (the) project.”

This sentence could technically also mean ”The CEO caused me to

take on the project” or ”The CEO made me take on the project”, and as ever,

context is all-important. However, in most cases where it could either be a

forced action or a permission, it’s usually a permission.

3.2.13 Causative passive: /

The title sounds like a combination of the causative and the passive, and

that’s essentially what it is. It’s long, and its use is not rare. In English, this

form reads ”have been made to do ...” and is also quite long. So, just like

in most western language, the more nuance you want to place in your verb

conjugation, the longer it’ll get.

However, because this is a passive, we must make sure to use par-

ticles accordingly:

”The children were made to eat breakfast by their mother.”

”(I) had been made to redo (my) homework by (the) teacher.”

3.2.14 Potential

Long potential:

As mentioned in the section on the passive, one of the other roles that
/ can play is that of the (long) potential. The potential form of
a verb in English is typically constructed using the auxiliary verb ”can”,
such as when turning ”I swim” into ”I can swim”, but in Japanese this is
a conjugation instead. The reason this form is called the ”long” potential
is because it is typically only used in combination with verbs. While
theoretically usable to form a potential form for verbs in this way,
there exists a shorter potential form for these verbs, involving a contraction
between the and the classical verb , which is similar to the
English auxiliary verb ”can”.