I just had a discussion with ChatGPT regarding a sentence I read in a manga. I’m not quite sure if I can trust the final takeaway. While I think ChatGPT is a useful tool, I’m aware that it can confidently report false information.
**tl;dr**: Is it true that the passive form of a verb can be omitted if it is clear by context who is performing the action?
Here is the full conversation:
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>**Me**: Can you help me break down and understand this Japanese sentence? おまえが 木霊の呼び寄せた助っ人だな。
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>**CGPT:** Sure, here’s a breakdown of the sentence:
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>おまえ (omae) – “you” (informal)
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>が (ga) – particle used to mark the subject of the sentence
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>木霊の (kodama no) – “of the echo” (木霊 means “echo” or “reverberation” and の is a particle indicating possession)
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>呼び寄せた (yobiyoseta) – past tense of the verb 呼び寄せる (yobiyoseru), which means “to call over”, “to summon”
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>助っ人 (suketto) – “helper”, “assistant”
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>だ (da) – copula, which is a word used to link the subject of the sentence with its predicate
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>So, putting it all together, the sentence means something like “You are the assistant who was called over by the echo.” In other words, the speaker is saying that the person they’re addressing is the helper who was summoned by the echo.
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>Without more context, it’s hard to say exactly what the speaker means by “the echo” or why they called for an assistant, but hopefully this breakdown helps you understand the basic structure of the sentence.
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>**Me**: I believe in this context, 木霊 is referring to a tree spirit
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>**CGPT:** Ah, I see! In that case, you’re right that 木霊 (kodama) is more commonly associated with “tree spirits” or “echoes in the mountains” in Japanese folklore, rather than just a general echo.
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>So, a more accurate translation of the sentence might be something like “You’re the assistant who was summoned by the tree spirit.” Thank you for providing that additional context!
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>**Me**: In this sentence, how do we know that 木霊 is the one doing the summoning? I’m assuming it has something to do with the の particle in 木霊の呼び寄せた?
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>**CGPT:** Yes, you’re correct! In Japanese, the particle の can be used to indicate possession or association between two nouns, and in this case, 木霊の (kodama no) is indicating that the kodama (tree spirit) is the one who performed the action of summoning.
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>So, 木霊の呼び寄せた助っ人 (kodama no yobiyoseta suketto) means “the assistant who was summoned by the tree spirit”.
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>**Me**: Because 呼び寄せた is not a noun, how is 木霊 possessing it? Or is 木霊 possessing the 呼び寄せた助っ人? If so, it would seem like the 助っ人 was the one who was doing the summoning.
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>**CGPT:** You raise a good point! I think the particle の here is not so much indicating possession as it is indicating association between 木霊 and 呼び寄せた助っ人. In other words, it’s not that the tree spirit is literally possessing the action of 呼び寄せた, but rather that the assistant who was summoned is associated with the tree spirit in some way.
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>So a more precise way to translate the sentence might be “You are the assistant who was summoned by the tree spirit.”
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>Thank you for bringing this up and helping me clarify my earlier explanation!
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>**Me**: Is 呼び寄せた passive or transitive?
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>**CGPT:** 呼び寄せた is the past tense of the transitive verb 呼び寄せる (yobiyoseru), which means “to call (someone or something) over” or “to summon (someone or something)”.
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>In this sentence, 呼び寄せた is being used in the passive voice, indicating that the assistant was summoned by someone or something else. The subject of the sentence (the one doing the summoning) is not explicitly stated, but is implied to be the tree spirit based on the earlier context we discussed.
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>**Me**: How do we know it is being used in the passive voice? Isn’t the passive form of this verb 呼び寄せられる? Or am I wrong?
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>**CGPT:** You’re right that the passive form of 呼び寄せる is 呼び寄せられる (yobiyoserareru), so technically 呼び寄せた by itself is not a passive form.
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>However, in the context of the full sentence (“おまえが木霊の呼び寄せた助っ人だな。”), it’s implied that someone or something (in this case, the tree spirit) performed the action of 呼び寄せた to bring the assistant to their aid. This is why I described it as being used in the passive voice, even though the verb form itself is not technically passive.
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>I hope that clarifies things a bit!
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>**Me**: Is it safe to say that this sentence, while meaning the above, might not be using the correct grammar? For example, if I use the phrase 食べた人, I would be talking about a person who has eaten, not necessarily a person that was eaten.
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>**CGPT:** In the sentence “おまえが木霊の呼び寄せた助っ人だな。”, the grammar is correct and it means “You are the assistant who was summoned by the tree spirit.”
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>Regarding your example, you’re correct that the phrase 食べた人 can have multiple meanings depending on the context. It can mean “a person who ate (something)” or “a person who was eaten (by something)”, and the intended meaning should be clear from the context in which it’s used.
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>In general, the meaning of a sentence should be determined by the context and the way the words are used together, rather than relying solely on the individual meanings of each word.
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>**Me**: With that being said, is it common to omit the passive form if the context is clear?
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>**CGPT:** Yes, it’s common in Japanese to omit the passive form of a verb when the context is clear and the intended meaning is easily understood. In the case of the sentence “おまえが木霊の呼び寄せた助っ人だな。”, even though the verb 呼び寄せた is not in the passive form, it’s clear from the context that the tree spirit is the one who summoned the assistant.
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>In Japanese, word order and context play a big role in conveying meaning, and often times, the implied subject or object of a sentence can be inferred from the context, even if it’s not explicitly stated. So, it’s not uncommon for the passive form to be omitted when it’s not necessary for clarity.
3 comments
> CGPT: Yes, you’re correct! In Japanese, the particle の can be used to indicate possession or association between two nouns, and in this case, 木霊の (kodama no) is indicating that the kodama (tree spirit) is the one who performed the action of summoning.
This part is wrong. The の particle is just a replacement for が in the sentence. When there are relative clauses like this, が can be replaced by の. It’s not the possessive の particle, it’s a completely different thing.
私が食べたラーメン = the ramen I ate (or, the ramen that was eaten by me)
This is 100% exactly the same as 私の食べたラーメン, the meaning is the same.
> CGPT: You raise a good point! I think the particle の here is not so much indicating possession as it is indicating association between 木霊 and 呼び寄せた助っ人. In other words, it’s not that the tree spirit is literally possessing the action of 呼び寄せた, but rather that the assistant who was summoned is associated with the tree spirit in some way.
This is completely wrong. There’s no association. の is just the same as が.
> In this sentence, 呼び寄せた is being used in the passive voice, indicating that the assistant was summoned by someone or something else.
It’s not passive. ChatGPT is wrong. 呼び寄せる is transitive, and 助っ人 is the object of the verb, which is used in active voice. Just like in the ラーメン sentence example above, 食べた is not passive, it’s just saying that ラーメン is the object that was eaten by 私, or that 私 ate the ラーメン. In English we write the phrase as “that was eaten” which sounds passive, but in Japanese it’s not passive. It’s just an attributive clause.
> The subject of the sentence (the one doing the summoning) is not explicitly stated, but is implied to be the tree spirit based on the earlier context we discussed.
Again this is completely wrong. The subject is 木霊 since it’s marked by the particle の which is a replacement for が (in this type of sentence, as mentioned above).
This is a great example of why ChatGPT is really really really really really really trash and **NO ONE** should rely on this shit to learn Japanese. There’s been plenty of threads in this sub in the past and honestly I wish the mods made a rule to just ban ChatGPT content because it’s really detrimental to learning Japanese. It’s wrong. Don’t use it.
I think ChatGPT has done a horrible job of explaining this grammar point.
>Me: In this sentence, how do we know that 木霊 is the one doing the summoning? I’m assuming it has something to do with the の particle in 木霊の呼び寄せた?
In relative clauses, the subject can be marked by either の or が. The specific situations where one sounds more correct or more natural than the other are a little hard to pin down, but in this case, おまえが 木霊の呼び寄せた助っ人だな means exactly the same thing as おまえが 木霊が呼び寄せた助っ人だな. It has absolutely nothing to do with possession and absolutely nothing to do with passive voice.
>Is it safe to say that this sentence, while meaning the above, might not be using the correct grammar? For example, if I use the phrase 食べた人, I would be talking about a person who has eaten, not necessarily a person that was eaten.
No, that’s grammatically correct. The presence of the subject makes a difference. 食べた人 means “a person who ate,” and it really wouldn’t mean “a person who was eaten” unless it was 食べられた人. But once you have an overt subject – クジラが食べた人 – it would be “the person who the whale ate.” It would be more natural to say クジラに食べられた人, I think. So it’s clearer if it was something that we more typically think of as food – let’s say, for example, that I’ve made sandwiches for my three children, Ken, Hana, and Yukiko, and Yukiko is allergic to peanut butter so I’ve made her a sandwich with almond butter instead. Ken comes and grabs one of the sandwiches, so I tell him, ああ、ダメです、由紀子が食べるサンドイッチです。 That is the sandwich that Yukiko will eat.
No, as has been explained already in the comments. 呼び寄せた is transitive, and the thing ChatGPT *should* have pointed out was the use of の as a subject marker, not a possessive particle.
As a rule, ChatGPT is usually wrong about at least *something* in most of its explanations. What’s worse, despite this fact, these explanations are usually lengthy and detailed, and thus very convincing to people who don’t already know what is being explained (or, in other words, *the target audience*).
As far as its use as a Japanese learning aid, it is ***thoroughly*** insufficient, a fact that has come up several times now on this subreddit.