earticle

영어

This paper examines the diachronic development of the progressive passive construction in Japanese. While the form is common from the Meiji period onward, it also appears in Kyōgen scripts, which reflect Muromachi-period language, and―though rarely―in Heian-period narratives. This early emergence may not pose much of a problem. However, the corresponding English construction “be being + past participle” is a very recent innovation: examples such as The house is being built do not occur until the mid-18th century (Leech et al. 2009), raising questions about the earlier Japanese data. DeLancey (1982) explains the late development of the English progressive passive through the incompatibility between the perfective nature of the passive and the imperfective nature of the progressive. Focusing on the Konjaku Monogatari-shū, which offers several relevant examples, this study analyzes occurrences of the progressive passive in texts from the Heian to Muromachi periods, with attention to its relationship to related forms such as -(r)are-te aru, -te aru, and their network with -(r)are-te iru.