Page 513 - Basic Japanese

action; undergoes the action; is adversely affected by the

action.’ Japanese passives can be made both from transitive
verbs (those which take a direct object, like taberu ‘eats’)

and intransitive verbs (those which do not ordinarily take a
direct object, like shinu ‘dies’ and iru ‘stays’). The forms

korareru ‘has someone come’ or ‘is affected by someone’s
coming’ and sareru ‘gets done’ or ‘is affected by someone’s

doing’ are irregular.

There is also a passive formation made from causatives;
this consists of adding the ending -rare-ru to the causative

stem that ends in -(s)ase-, so that the complete ending for
the causative passive is somewhat formidable: -(s)ase-rare-ru.

There is a shortened form of this ending, alongside the

longer form, for consonant verbs that do not end in su: -
asare-ru instead of ase-rare-ru. This shortened form may be

visualized as -as(e-r)are-ru. In other words, the last sound of
the causative ending and the first sound of the passive

ending are dropped. The meaning of the causative passive
is something like ‘is made to do’ or ‘has to do.’

Of course, the final -ru in these various endings is just the
regular ending for the imperfect mood of vowel verbs. These

causatives, passives, and causative passives can be
inflected for all the usual moods: kosaseru, kosaseta, kosaseyō,

kosasetara, kosasetari, kosasereba, kosasemasu, etc.; sareru, sareta,
sareyō, saretara, saretari, sarereba, saremasu, etc.; tabesaseru,

tabesaseta, tabesaseyō, tabesasetara, tabesasetari, tabesasereba,

tabesasemasu, etc. Here is a list of some typical verbs
together with the causative, passive and causative passive

forms. All the forms are imperfect.