を without a transitive verb?


> 「他の人に手紙を見られてしまいました」

I interpret this sentence's meaning as something like, "The letter ended up
being seen by someone else."

From what I understand, the verb 見る is transitive, "to see." The verb 見られる
should be its passive form then, "to be seen," which should be intransitive.
The particle を indicates that the preceding noun is the direct object of a
verb that follows it, right? So then, wouldn't 「他の人に手紙が見られてしまいました」 make more
sense?

I have a feeling this might have more to do with the verb than the particle.
Does 見る not lose its transitiveness when it is put in its passive form? If so,
is を able to be used without a transitive verb then?

Where did I go wrong?




This is the so-called "adversarial passive".

I give a detailed explanation of passives (including the "adversarial" ones)
here:

> [「を」 object marker in this 受身形{うけみけい}
> sentence](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/18715/%E3%82%92-object-
> marker-in-
> this-%E5%8F%97%E8%BA%AB%E5%BD%A2%E3%81%86%E3%81%91%E3%81%BF%E3%81%91%E3%81%84-sentence/18720#18720)

In your case:

[code]

    ⇓ **Active Sentence** :  他の人が　　　　　　　（私の）手紙を　見た　　⇓
    ⇓ **Passive Sentence** : 　（私が）　他の人に　　　　　手紙を　見られた⇓
    
[/code]

That is to say, 「私の」 gets lifted to 「私が」, and 「他の人が」 gets lifted to 「他の人に」.

As mentioned in the other answer, when a の-marked thing gets lifted to が, it
results in that thing (私 in your case) being "affected", and in general that
means "negatively affected".

If you were to lift 「手紙を」 to が, like you suggested, it would be perfectly
fine, but that sentence would lack the implications of

  1. the letter being someone's (i.e., it would just be " **a** / **the** letter" as opposed to " **my** letter" or whoever the context suggests as the owner);
  2. that someone being negatively affected by the seeing event.




This is the so-called "adversarial passive".

I give a detailed explanation of passives (including the "adversarial" ones)
here:

> [「を」 object marker in this 受身形{うけみけい}
> sentence](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/18715/%E3%82%92-object-
> marker-in-
> this-%E5%8F%97%E8%BA%AB%E5%BD%A2%E3%81%86%E3%81%91%E3%81%BF%E3%81%91%E3%81%84-sentence/18720#18720)

In your case:

[code]

    ⇓ **Active Sentence** :  他の人が　　　　　　　（私の）手紙を　見た　　⇓
    ⇓ **Passive Sentence** : 　（私が）　他の人に　　　　　手紙を　見られた⇓
    
[/code]

That is to say, 「私の」 gets lifted to 「私が」, and 「他の人が」 gets lifted to 「他の人に」.

As mentioned in the other answer, when a の-marked thing gets lifted to が, it
results in that thing (私 in your case) being "affected", and in general that
means "negatively affected".

If you were to lift 「手紙を」 to が, like you suggested, it would be perfectly
fine, but that sentence would lack the implications of

  1. the letter being someone's (i.e., it would just be " **a** / **the** letter" as opposed to " **my** letter" or whoever the context suggests as the owner);
  2. that someone being negatively affected by the seeing event.

