This is from a visual novel.
A dude is talking to his underlings:
さって本日よりきさまらに新たな命令が下されるわけだが
It translates to
"Well now I’m calling you to give new orders"
I was under the impression that the passive form works like this:
A が/は B に passive form
Which means: A is affected by B’s action (directly or indirectly depending whether it's a transitive or intransitive verb)
However I don’t see how that works here. From what I can tell the sentence is constructed like this:
A が/は B に passive form
So the speaker should be the one being adversely affected by the verb (orders) however in this case he is the one doing the action (verb).
A should be affected by B's action. However A is the one doing the action towards B.
Can someone help?
Answer
きさまらに新たな命令が下される
(= 新たな命令がきさまらに下される)
The に here doesn't mark the agent (subject), but the target (indirect object) of 下す. きさまらに here means "to you", not "by you".
「上層部が貴様らに新たな命令を下す」 -- active voice
(They) give new orders to you.
↓
「新たな命令が(上層部によって/から*)貴様らに下される」 -- passive voice
New orders are given to you (by them).
*によって or から is preferred, avoiding repeating に, since 「上層部に貴様らに」 would sound confusing.
下す (give) takes two objects, a direct object (marked by を) and an indirect object (marked by に), so the sentence can be converted to another passive voice form:
「貴様らが(上層部に/から/によって)新たな命令を下される」
You are given new orders (by them).
Another example:
「私があなたに１万円を渡す」 I give you 10,000 yen.
↓
「１万円が(私によって/から)あなたに渡される」 10,000 yen is given to you (by me).
「あなたが(私に/によって/から)１万円を渡される」 You are given 10,000 yen (by me).
... So, 「山田さんに渡された１万円」 would be quite ambiguous: "10,000 yen that was given to Yamada, or by Yamada." (In the case of "by~~", you can usually avoid confusion by using から instead.)
So, logically speaking, 「～に下される」「～に与えられる」「～に渡される」「～に教えられる」「～に託される」「～に依頼される」 etc. can mean either "be given/taught/entrusted to ~~" or "be given/taught/entrusted by ~~", and you should see the context to tell which meaning a に is being used for.
No comments:
Post a Comment