Thursday 5 May 2016

grammar - Does the particle に in に作られた mark the agent or the location here?


I'm confused about 「に作られた」 in the following sentence. Kindly explain this part to me.



「Central Base」とは、旧「アクアポリス・中央エアポート」に作られた、「ASDF」の陸上(?)基地のことだ。



Some sort of translation:




  1. Central base is, created by the old Aquapolice - Central airport, ASDF's land(?) base.





  2. Central base is, created on the old Aquapolice - Central airport, ASDF's land(?) base. (However in this case I think that で would be more suitable)




The "(?)" is part of the original text.



Answer



The reading as に to mark the agent of the passive construction is definitely syntactically possible, but a much more likely reading is the locative に, i.e. your second reading.


Why is it に and not で? で marks a place where an action happens, に marks a place where something "exists". There is definitely some overlap in usage, but で in this case sounds strange to me, as if "it was built there, but then moved somewhere else".


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