The Grammatical Category of Voice in the Japanese Language

Špica, Dragana

doi:10.31724/rihjj.51.2.11

Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, Vol. 51 No. 2, 2025.

Review article

https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.2.11

The Grammatical Category of Voice in the Japanese Language

Dragana Špica ; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta Jurja Dobrile u Puli

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APA 6th Edition

Špica, D. (2025). The Grammatical Category of Voice in the Japanese Language. Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, 51 (2). https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.2.11

MLA 8th Edition

Špica, Dragana. "The Grammatical Category of Voice in the Japanese Language." Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, vol. 51, no. 2, 2025 https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.2.11. Accessed 14 Aug. 2026.

Chicago 17th Edition

Špica, Dragana. "The Grammatical Category of Voice in the Japanese Language." Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik 51, no. 2 https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.2.11

Harvard

Špica, D. (2025). 'The Grammatical Category of Voice in the Japanese Language', Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, 51(2). https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.2.11

Vancouver

Špica D. The Grammatical Category of Voice in the Japanese Language. Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik [Internet]. 2025 [cited 2026 August 14];51(2). https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.2.11

IEEE

D. Špica, "The Grammatical Category of Voice in the Japanese Language", Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, vol.51, no. 2, 2025. [Online]. https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.2.11

Abstract

The paper systematically defines the grammatical category of voice in Japanese and describes seven of its sub-types: the passive (including direct, indirect and possessive/affective passives), the causative, the potential/possibilitive, the spontaneous voice, the reciprocal construction, lexical voice (alternating intransitive–transitive verb pairs), and the periphrastic resultative te aru. These seven sub-types are then analysed against the seven prototype-based criteria for the category of voice proposed by Polančec (2015). The matrix evaluation shows that the passive and the causative form the core of the category, the potential, the reciprocal construction and te aru occupy a transitional zone, while the spontaneous voice, and the lexical alternation of intransitive–transitive pairs lie at the periphery. The paper offers a framework for further contrastive analyses between Japanese and Croatian.