Relational grammar of passive in Japanese

This article examines the Japanese passives through the study of relational grammar. Japanese passive construction could be divided into three types, namely Chokusetsu Ukemi ‘direct passive', Mochinushi no Ukemi 'possessive passive', and Daisansha no Ukemi ' third person passive'. An analysis of the passive grammatical relation based on the Relational Grammar (RG) theory indicates a change of grammatical relation has the same revaluation on the type of Chokusetsu Ukemi, the direct object of active construction becomes the subject of the passive and the subject of active construction becomes chomeur. In Japanese, Mochinushi no Ukemi, and Daisansha no Ukemi can be handled by the RG with its own constraints