АГЕНТИВНЫЕ АДВЕРБИАЛЫ В ЯПОНСКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ

Introduction

This paper is part and parcel of a larger study of Japanese modal adverbials (in a broad sense of modality). That adverbials should convey subtler modal meanings of the predicates they modify seems to be a linguistic universal [8]. In a sense, adverbial form nothing short of ‘second grammar’ adding up to the ‘traditional’ grammatical meanings in a sentence, while on the other hand keeping it compact and expressive. Needless to say that it is the use of the adverbials that makes the sentence – if not grammatically correct – successful pragmatically. So, adverbial usage is all the more important from pragmatic point of view that it is grammatically optional. A concrete distribution of meanings between ‘traditional’ and ‘second’ grammar must, then, be language specific and described as such.

Another way to approach the ‘second’ grammar may be in place. The more compact the grammatic core, the more general and vague, the fuzzier its semantics. Fuzziness in itself [2] is no trouble at all, and rather a help, as long as language use is dominated by the mechanisms of linguistic relevance [10]. However, discerning a more fine-grained nuance of meaning may take more than just, say, prosodic variations. And this is where the optional adverbial modification comes into the picture.  It should come as no surprise that adverbials, rather than anything else, would come in handy here – since they are the first to modify the predicate to which they are most closely tied.

Basically, each semantic field allows for such means of disambiguation and attenuation around its prototypic core. Among the many is the case of grammatical Voice, that I will take up below. Prototypical relations are triadic, including the Active (agent acting on her own), Passive (action caused from outside) and Causative (action delegated outside). Many languages would confound even these, as in Mne nado oformit’ propusk = I must stamp my permit (instead of have it stamped). Agentivity, which is in question here, is famously scalable – for these compound verb forms. But the other side of the coin would be indicating a range of ‘lexical’ means to convey this very same scale. Mostly this disambiguation is what done though modal, or I could call them technical, adverbials.

All in all, voice modification may be roughly divided in two groups. One – closing down on the prototypic centre of agentivity, that is, playing up the self-identity of the agent. The second – on the contrary, rather distanced from the centre, placing the situation more precisely in the periphery of the agentivity field. The former, understandably, are first and foremost represented by the reflexives (no wonder, their taxonomy includes terms such as ‘agentivity adbverbs’ [5]). I deal with them in a separate study now in print (unquotable yet, see [4], though). The point of this work is therefor to show what adverbial modification is available in Japanese besides the reflexives (largely this will stand for the de-agentive meanings closer to the Passive, and the Causative). My ultimate task is to arrange these items according to their semantic input from the point of view of agentivity status. To achieve this, I will review semantic features relevant to the causation event (kind of situation, nature of resistance, and power dynamics), and their pragmatic effects.

The bulk of adverbials is collected through in- and cross-language dictionaries [6]; [9]). Instances of use are all taken from an open corpus, translated by me [7].

Results and Discussion

1. The canonical prototype of agentivity is a free human (or alike, say, group of people, company or government), acting independently according to her own will or desire. An adverbial highlighting this type of agentivity is susunde – a converb of susumu = to move forward, reinterpreted (as adverb) as out of one’s own initiative:

うまく自発性を引き出せば、子どもたちは進んでボランティア活動などに参加し、地域や社会に役立つ自分という存在に気付くだろう // If their initiative is rightly stimulated, children will of their own accord join into volunteering, and they will learn how useful to the region and society they may be (The Nishi Nihon Shimbun 31.07.2002)

That susunde describes, before anything else (and indeed before the action itself takes place), an act of a completely free will, becomes apparent in collocation with reflexive expressions of such as jibun-no te-de = with one’s own hands, mizukara = on one’s own, watashi-kara = me myself:

好きな人のメールアドレスを知りました。そこで、好きな人にメールを毎日自分から進んで送りますか？それとも、返信が遅い場合多数の人とメールしていると考え少ししか送りませんか？// Now you’ve learned an e-mail of somebody you like. Would you write yourself, out of your own accord, everyday? Or, if that person is late answering, will you realize that you’re only one of many correspondents there – and decide to write less, them? (forum)

This is hardly an example of semantic redundancy, since an actor can well act in all physical independence, but complying to a foreign will. To the contrary, a physical action carried out by a foreign body can be accepted of own’s free accord – as in this collocation with a lexical passive below:

子供のために、自分の隣人のために進んで検診を受けよう、そう思う人もおるはずだと思うのでありま // Many would, I think, chose to get diagnosed for the sake of their child, or neighbours (parliament speech 1988)

In this respect the focus is placed unlike the reflexives, not on the identity of the physical body carrying out an action. If a modifier is construed as filtering out an alternative proposition (P0), we could say that the Р0 in this case would be an action carried out by the same actor physically, but otherwise than through her own free decision.

Another transposed converb in this sub-group is yorokonde = with pleasure, gladly, a typologically common turn of speech, used for accepting an offer. Its pragmaticalization involves semantic bleeching of [glad], which becomes a social fiction, a tribute to the Harmonize Communication maxim, cf. gern, avec joie, gladly. Free will here, unlike the case of susunde, is brought forward in order to show its identity to someone else’s (earlier mentioned or otherwise activated in discourse). Certainly, a psycological predicate that this makes (mental state of the subject of will) is only accessible to the Speaker herself being the actor or directly controlling him (typically, superior or parent). Dominating speech acts would be commissives, to the exemption of descriptions empathic with the actor:

子供はカレー好きだから喜んで食べると思います // Our children love curry, so they’ll gladly have it (forum), cf. 自分の愛する男性に喜んで貰いたい // From a beloved one – should it be accepted with joy! (blog)

2. Another large group of adverbials emphasize a move to a more passive role of the agent, weakening the semantic component [out of own free will]. In Japanese we see several typical models for these expressions. Firstly, these are adverbial versions (transforms) of grammatical final predicates (as a left-branching language Japanese accumulates grammatical morphemes on the rightmost edge of the phrase). This constructive option, if not entirely ruled out for Russian (and structurally close languages), is perceived as heavy and less felicitous, rather peripheral among other expressive means, cf. vynuzhden ≈ ^?vynuzhdennym obrazom, same in English, too ^??in а forced way (with an utterly grammatical was forced to…). Think of the semantic deviation in the French adverbial derivative forcément from the predicate forcé (de faire qch), drifting into mode-of-action and eventually into probability.

As a transform, yamu-o ezu may be seen as final grammatical construction yamu-o enai = forced to, moved leftward in a sentence (to the left boundary of the verb phrase, as is characteristic of a verb-oriented adverb). The effect of this is to defocalize the expression (as compared to its semantic role as a predicate head):

「負担が増加することはやむを得ない」とした人は４．６％// 4.6% of the respondents claimed the payload rise were inevitable (White Book on transport and infrastructure 2005) (the rise itself here is the topic)

In comparison, a non-focal use paves the way to focalize different new content. If the event (P) is asserted, then the semantic nuance – that the action was undertaken  under the pressure of the circumstances – is moved from the assertion to the presupposition. And that is the classical instrument to press an unverified knowledge unto the Hearer. As if to compensate for this, in numerous cases (much more commonly, than before a final yamu-o enai) it is preceded by a subordinate reason clause. Thus, given a broader context, the Hearer is all the less likely to focus on the truth conditions of the “forced” part:

通勤が困難なためやむを得ず退職 // Due to the difficulty in commuting I was forced to quit (forcedly=though I didn’t want to) (forum)

Adding up to this, the grammar in the final part of the sentence presents an array of various “no-options”, from the de-agentive construction koto-ni naru up to ontological necessity. To these, the adverbial gives a finer semantic nuance:

地震により著しく損傷し、今後の安全性を確保することが困難となったことから、         やむを得ず         解体することとなりました // The building suffered heavy damages in the earthquake and due to difficulty in assuring safety it was decided, for want of better choice, to demolish it (regional report, Wajima, October 2003)

中断したのは安保理から与えられた任務をやむを得ずして中断しなければならなかったというその結果なんですよ // The disruption was caused by us having to break off, through no choice of ours, fulfilling the mission entrusted with us by the Security Council (speech in parliament, 1991)

The perlocutive aim of such usage – exclude responsibility of the Speaker – goes well in speech acts such as Warning:

受講申込みが少ない等の理由でやむを得ず講座を中止する場合があります // If case of few applications we may be forced to cancel lectures (regional report, Wakayama, October 2008)

This logics is drawn out ad absurdum, when a combination of multiple de-agentivating morphemes works as a case of hypercorrection – looking as the Speaker striving to waive responsibility at all costs:

 追い詰められた日本がやむを得ず真珠湾攻撃に踏み切らざるを得ない状況を作ったのです // This brought about a situation when Japan, cornered, was forced, contrary to its aspirations, to attack Pearl Harbour (forum)

My choice of examples shows already that yamu-o ezu belongs rather to the official style. This may be due to the slightly ‘stiff’ effect of –(a)zu, the obsolete negative. In comparison, a ‘younger’, and more colloquial version, yamunaku, yields a slightly different semantic picture. More used in forums and blogs, it collocates with a more agentive construction koto-ni suru = prefer / decide (to do), rather than the koto-ni naru ≈ it was so decided (3:1, with 1:8 for yamu-o ezu). We even find verbs like kimeru = decide (0 hits for yamu-o ezu). Even the reason clauses are put more pro-actively – instead of “objective” causes in tame = due to here we find N-o uke = considering, N-ni yori = through influence of:

近年の地価高騰の影響や事業意欲の減退により，やむなく廃業することにした // With land prices growing and less interest in keeping the business they decided, for no better choice, to sell out (White book on economy 1988)

Here external causation is rather used as a means to rationalize one’s actions rather than avoid responsibility. This involves clearer thinking, more alternatives:

正社員を希望しながらやむなく短時間就労している者 // Those working part time perforce, though desiring full time employment (White book on welfare 2004)

長袖だということが判明し、やむなくキャンセルしてたんです。本当は半袖が欲しかったけど、既に完売 // I cancelled for no better choice, as I realized it’s long-sleeves. I’d wanted short sleeves but it was all sold (blog)

Speaker may be less serious about a no-choice situation, critical or derisive:

 役者って、一般的に「お金に困ったからやむなくやる」というタイプの仕事ではないように思います // An actor is not really a profession that one takes up just for the sake of some income, for no better choice (forum)

As in the examples here, the situations of choice themselves are less strained, and the actors are more after their benefit than led by a hard force. It seems a luring question, though unsolvable here, whether this change in attitude is somewhat linked with a generation, and not just morphemic, change.

 Continuing along the same line to still less ‘heavy’ situation and freer choice for the actor (still more benefit-driven) is shikata-naku. This, again, is a trsansform different from its predicate source in a tighter linkage to the ‘history’ of an action – while inaction, rather than anything else, is mostly the point of the speaker’s meaning in phrases ending on shikata(-ga) nai (koto da) = nothing (one) can do. It may be worthwhile therefore comparing shikata-naku not to its source of derivation but to a reason clause shikata nai kara = as there was nothing else (one) could do:

あまりにもしつこいから仕方なくドライブに連れて行った // he just keeps begging – well, there being little else I could do – I took him for a drive (blog)

Now, in its pragmatic profile shikata-naku is fairly reminiscent of Russian infinite question clauses like kak zhe mne ne delat’ = how would I not to do this? Its perlocutive status is closest to complaining of an unsatisfactory choice. This function, clearly expressive, contrasts sharply, with the manipulative one we saw before:

自民党以外に入れるとしたら民主党しかないから仕方なく民主党に入れてるだけだと // Liberal democrats aside, there’s no one to vote for except the democrats, so my vote goes to them – not my best choice indeed (blog)

Unlike yamu-o ezu and more like yamunaku, there is nothing remotely similar to the ‘original’ shikata(ga) nai in the final grammar of the sentence, always headed by a volitive verb. The choice is all actor’s, little as (s)he may find it satisfactory:

買い置きの食材が全く無かったので仕方なく出かける // there was no stock of food, so I went out, little though I meant to, сf. 相手がいないので仕方なく一人でやってます // no one to play with – no choice but to stick it out alone (blog)

A number of cases imply some previous attempts to hold back from an undesired action, all failing in the end, the actor ‘giving up’ in frustration:

 何日も会社を休んだけど結局治せず、最後には仕方なく病院に行きました // I laid at home for days and days but as I wasn’t getting any better in the end I went to the hospital willy-nilly (forum)

In this, shikata-naku gets close to other Japanese expressions referring to a history of a decision (choosing from a set of alteratives or arriving at a conclusion). Indeed one may find instances of interchangeability with  kekkyoku = by the end of the day, semete = at least, doose = whatever, yahari = after all and some others:

 どんなに頑張っても眠れないので{仕方なく/結局}５時くらいには起きだしてお弁当作ったり洗濯したり // I was trying to fall asleep but all was no good, so {for want of better choice / in the end }I got up at five and set to cooking and washing, сf. 顔が誉められないから{仕方なく/せめて}体を誉めてるのかも // even if they don’t like my face – let them {for one/at least} notice my body (blog)

Another two expressions marking a shift from the agentive prototype to a more passive type of agentivity are derived from negative interjection iya = (oh) no, which in turn is a pragmatized adjective meaning unwanted, nasty. This semantic imprint refocuses not the event of external causation of the action, but rather the actor’s inner resistance, issuing from a clash between her (freely) chosen act and her best liking. This type of behaviour in itself is frowned upon in the case of iyaiya, used in speech acts loosely centered on Prohibiting (deontic contexts including):

いかなくてもいいと思いますよ。いやいや参加することないし。だんなさん一人にいってもらえば// You don’t have to come. There’s no point in participation against your better liking. You can get your husband to go alone (forum), сf.

さもないと、寄付する側もネガティブ・マインドでいやいや寄付するので、この世に途轍もない悪い波動が生じてしまいます // It’ll give the donator a negative attitude, and with a donation in a contrary mood will rise a negative wave (blog)

This use of iyaiya serves like a barrier guarding the ideal agentivity against erosion by current reasoning for external causation. A full opposite of it is iyademo, when the action is appreciated or neutral, and directives are positive:

 まだ一度もディズニーランドに行ったことがありません。今度、子供が生まれるといやでも一度はいかないといけないと思いますが // Never been to Disneyland before. But with the baby born I just have to go once - not a matter or wanting, really (forum), сf. 麻生さんとして生まれたかったですか？いやでも麻生さんは生まれなければならないのでした // Aso-san, did you want to be born as you? Of course not, you had to be born like you and no one else, want it or not (blog)

Look at this ‘moral’ deontic naranai to ikenai! The speaker here (as the carrier of modality in the sentence) is imposing his super-ego which overrides resistance of private will of a lower order, benefit-driven. Another supra-human entity is the notion of ‘objective reality’ in contexts with experiencer subject (predicates here, instead of volitive verbs, include kizuku = notice, mimi-ni hairu = hear):

放蕩をしたけりゃするさし尽せばいやでも気づく人生の意味 // It is though all rogueness that you will – want or no want find it, the meaning of live (blog)

Now, resistance of the actor is seen from outside in shibushibu – reduplicate with the stem meaning unwilling – which blocks contexts other than observed fact:

食い逃げし、茶店の女将に追いかけられ渋々代金を払ったそうです // I heard he left without paying so that the barwoman had to run after him and then he paid in the end with great reluctancy (forum)

Judging from the contexts, this inner resistance concerns mostly trivial  matters, rather than high moral stance. It is not only observed, it is made expressly manifest. In combination with grammatical passive and causative (so-called forced-action) this disambiguates the morphs to show that the actor didn’t leave the event without some protest, a show of autonomy – a right of an autonomous subject:

本を買わされた事とかよくありましたよ。はじめは上司も経験がなく、渋々買わされたんですけど、次からは警察に通報しますと言ったら、めっきり無くなりました // They foisted books upon us. At first my inexprerienced boss was made to buy some, to no little grudge on his part, but later when we threatened to all the police the guys just disappeared (forum 2008)

Behavioral frames [put up with the unprofitable] and [show resistance] are conjoined in a collocation of shibushibu and shikata-naku:

彼の口から終始『ありがとう』の言葉はありませんでした。気に入らないけれど仕方なく渋々使ってくれているのか、只の天邪鬼なのか… // You wouldn’t get a thank-you from him. Either he accepted for no better choice, in spite of himself, things he didn’t like, or he was just such a spoiled crooked character… (forum 2005)

3. Opposite from “less agentive” lie the “over-agentive” causative meanings. Here adverbial modification is widely called for by what appears to be a broad polysemy of the Japanese causative [1]. It is indeed no easy task to specify, without some minimal support from the context, whether the subject is forced to, made to, allowed to, or left to act, with a single -(s)as(e)- morph. What first springs to mind then is the adverb muriyari(-ni), commonly used in meta-linguistic descriptions of the causative semantics. What is explicated by means of it that the action is directly forced upon the actor by the causator, both animate, and contrary to the actor’s will. Naturally enough, in real language use data there seems to be no boundary between the morphological causative and a wider range of predicates covering softer causation, like semaru, oshitsukeru = to force, yuudoo-suru = to lead:

こういう夫にむりやり離婚を持ちかけると、ストーカーになって追いかけてくるわ // Now, with a husband like this, if you inadvertently [= against his wishes] bring about the topic of divorcing, he’ll be the one chasing you, like a real maniac (The Nishi Nihon Shinbun 29.03.2001)

Similarly to de-agentive modifiers seen above, the causator and the caused may be one and same person. In this case the same inward drama as if from a different angle, through the eyes of the forcing, and not the resisting side:

行きたくないときにむりやり行くのはやめました // If I don’t want to go – I no longer go in spite of myself (forum)

Resistance doesn’t have to be rooted in axiology of the forced subject. Non-volitive verbs appear as well, representing more basic physiological reactions:

朝もむりやり起きた感じ、朝食を終えてもまだ眠くて // In the morning I got up with some difficulty, had breakfast – and still feel sleepy (blog)

A still less proactive type of resistance comes from a logical order of things, or an obvious rationale, which the actor attempts to flout:

何か整合性もない、何か合理性もない、無理やりにいやがる男女をひっつけるような形のようなものをやらざるを得ぬようになりますよ　// Eventually we are forced to stubbornly [=against their wishes] bind an unwanting couple back together again, even though this isn’t logical, nor feasible (speech in parliament 1981)

Similar pattern of violating facts as such, and not just logic of events, is seen in collocations with detchiageru, kojitsukeru = to fabricate.

Strongly borrowing on the background knowledge and beliefs of the speaker, this expression is heavy with evaluative meaning. This is a far cry from the purely disambiguating meta-linguisting meaning (‘forced’ causation, involving resistance).

 Surprisingly, a far more (pragmatically) ‘modest’ disambiguator for the ‘forced’ typa of causation is chikarazuku(de). It doesn’t show in meta-descrptions, but in the corpus is rarely seen without morphological causative – or strong causative verbs, involving resistance, such as osu = to push, ubau = to take away:

口吻の先に味覚の受容器があり甘みを感じると蜜を飲もうとして伸ばすのです。力づくで飲ませようとするとバタバタと暴れたりしてなかなかうまくいきません。慣れが必要です // Taste receptors are near the edge of the trunk, which it pulls out when it feels something sweet. If made to drink the nectar perforce – it will flutter, and all will fail. You have to give it time (К.Honda ‘Wonderful butterflies’ 2005)

A good way of judging semantics is collocating with negation and synonyms. In this we find that ‘force’ in causation is understood rather broadly, not necessarily involving direct physical violence:

 痛んだ葦を折ることなく、力づくでなく、大声をあげず、静かな愛をもって、ただ人を生かす正義をもって // Without breaking a rotting vine, not by force, without raising your voice, but with quite love and justice that compel most strongly (T.Kato ‘Gospel of Matthew’ 2004), сf:

高校を卒業するまでは、力ずくでも親のやり方に従わせて来たが // Until she finished school we made her follow the ways of her parents, even though she could be against it (R.Mori ‘Мy family’ 1996)

Resistance from an animate object can be re-interpreted as a resistance from a factor unaccounted for. Here causator and cause are one again, fighting opposite impulses inside. See an optative (operator of will) instead of causative in this respect:

 遊び方なんて知らないくせに、それが金持っちゃったんでこれは遊ばなきゃいけないって、力ずくで遊ぼうとするんだね // Not a remotest idea of how to play, but money he does have. So he must play! And play he will at all costs (Takeshi Beat ‘That’s why the do not love me’ 1991)

Yet another angle in the causator-causee power relations is highlighted in iya mo oo mo naku, grammaticalizing two interjections – acceptance and refusal (verbally without [any] no or yes). The causation drama is played out through the eyes of the cause (6 hits out of 7 use passive voice of the verb), but modified is the action of the causator (quite unlike the case of shibushibu):

「明後日といえば、二十四日であるな」「はっ」「しからば、二十四日、早々に打立て」　「はっ。…かしこまりました」いやも応もなく、おしつけられてしまった // ‘Was it the 24^th the day after tomorrow?’ ‘Why, yes’ ‘Then we depart on the 24^th, start earlyish’ ‘Oh… Alright’ In this manner, no one asking my opinion, the thing was forced upon me (Т.Kaiinju ‘Seigo Takamori’ 2001)

Tentative conclusions

The three areas we have so far investigated give us a glimpse of how adverbial modification works. It is all the more in demand in the Voice relations in Japanese – paradoxically – the more compact and clear-cut the verb morphology is. Basically, it is there to fill in the lacunae that the ‘official’ grammar inevitably leaves in all the diversity of actual situations. But in a living language, things are very rarely limited to sheer disambiguation. It is only natural from the point of view of the language user, who is not formally set to task of making her utterances absolutely streamlined for logical interpretation. Being human, the speaker is guided by subjective attitudes.  Also, acting on analogy, the speaker is free to widen the single unit of lexicon to comprise as many and as concrete attitudinal nuances as necessary. This results in a remarkable pragmatic differences between even semantically close lexemes: yamu-o ezu makes for a disclaimer and a warning, yamunaku – for a constructive rationalization, ‘trace’ of pragmatic situation management, and shikata naku – for an emotional outbreak of frustration of unattainable optimum.

This state of affairs reminds one of paremiology, where one is often forced to admit that the system itself may not be objectively tilted to any single attitude, serving the whole polyphony of views that arises in social interaction. This is the exact case with polyphonic intentions within a single consciousness. As we could see, some modifiers sound supportive of the subject’s autonomy before a super-ego (socially) forced upon him in iyaiya (or any intervention at all, indeed, in iya mo oo mo naku, or chikarazuku). But some, then, become central to a description apologetic of such intervention, see yamunaku and iyademo. Further diversity is called for by the choice of the Japanese to vary description of similar situations from different points of view, as with shibushibu and iya mo oo mo naku). Marking empathy in this way is essential in a language with hardly any grammar for the category of person.

Research on Japanese adverbial modifiers has been quite vital in the question of limited selection (or agreement, to use another set of notions) of final grammatical heads [3]. The fragment of linguistic reality in this paper proves this phenomenon as a trend, but disprove it as a strict rule. Besides pragmaticalization, which works differently from grammar to achieve felicity, an important factor is the online actions of the speaker. Corpus data, largely from non-edited and spontaneous utterances, attest that tautology and mutual anticipatory techniques are too important for spoken speech to be ruled out. Obviously, the speaker, eager to ensure his point, would often choose to over-modify a little, rather than leave ambiguity weakening his point.