Talk:可能動詞

Derivation
Thanks for the expansion. Do you have any idea where it is said that the -e- comes from the 仮定形 stem and not, for example, from a further reduced form of -られ(る) or the auxiliary verb 得る? --Dine2016 (talk) 06:02, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * @Dine2016: It sounds like you're asking about the historical derivation. The Usage Note I added was intended to explain how to create the potential verb form from a modern type-1 verb.  I realized from your query that my Usage text was unclear.  I'll rework that later.
 * Regarding the historical derivation, there are three leading theories for this:
 * Regular stem ending in -i +
 * Shift from passive / potential ending られる
 * Shift from regular transitive to  intransitive
 * There's a paper I ran across recently that discusses this: 可能動詞の成立 (Kanō Dōshi no Seiritsu), by Toshihiro Miyake, dated 2016-04-01. He makes the case for door #3, citing historical usage and semantic patterns that show a clear development from the older predicative  potential forms like  to the modern potential verbs like.
 * Full disclosure: I haven't fully read the paper yet, and some of the initial claims strike me as perhaps a bit strong: 『「レル」「得ル」は「読ムル」および可能動詞の様相と著しく異なるものであった. 』 That said, the basic development jives with ideas I've been batting around for years in looking at Japanese verb patterns through history.  For the potential, the so-called  pattern for creating potentials from passives still leaves the preceding あ行 ending of the verb stem and the れ of the auxiliary, with no clear progression that would collapse -are into just -e; and while a contraction from  +  is certainly possible, the classical  for  is just, and the  is , which would produce Classical terminal  and attributive , neither of which show any clear progression that would produce.
 * Anyway, I hope the above addresses your questions. My time will be more limited over the next few weeks between home and work, so apologies ahead of time if I take longer to respond.    ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 00:16, 9 April 2018 (UTC)