Where does 見 come from in 見捨てる or 見殺し?


I wonder if there is a certain meaning of 見 that isn't immediately obvious or
straight-forward. 見捨てる and 見殺し both carry this idea that, through inaction,
something bad is allowed to happen. There may be more that I haven't found,
but I'm assuming there is a connection etymologically. It may be simply the
idea of sitting back and _watching_ these things happen, which makes sense to
me, but I'd like to know if there is more then that.




見殺し might be similar to 萌え殺し, 飼い殺し, 褒め殺し, 棄て殺し. I think it means
見ることによって、人を殺す, that is, 見る＝殺す.

見捨てる might be similar to 見限る, 見切る and 見放す. Maybe, the 見 in these words more or
less contains a kind of “passive” or “inactive” feeling, something like
面倒を見ていられないから、しかたなくやめる.

As for the etymology, my hypothesis is 見 might mean “to experience” here. It
seems that words meaning “to see” often develop into grammatical voice
markers. e.g. “見” is a “passive” marker in Chinese, “相” is a “reciprocal”
marker in both Chinese and Japanese (～合う{あう}, 相{あい}～).




As you suggested, by adding 見【み】 in 見殺し the implication is that you're
standing by and _watching_ it happen (read: not intervening). For 見捨てる【みすてる】
it's more along the lines of "get out of my sight" in English—someone is being
cast out.

Since the focus is on etymology and not simply defining things, however, let's
take a look at others in this family:

  * 見上げる【みあげる】 - to look up to
  * 見下す【みくだす】 - to look down upon
  * 見交わす【みかわす】 - to exchange glances
  * 見付ける【みつける】 - to discover ("to come into view")
  * 見入る【みいる】 - to fix one's eyes on
  * 見兼ねる【みかねる】 - to be unable to look at something (e.g. without being moved by pity to act)
  * 見出す【みだす】 - to discover (c.f. 見付ける above)
  * 見分ける【みわける】 - to distinguish (to use the eyes to separate)

As we can see, each one slightly modifies the base verb to focus on how the
eyes or one's vision is involved. Except for perhaps 出す, 分ける, and 捨てる, it also
extends the concept of the base action involved (those three still convey
bringing something out into the open, separating into groups, and throwing
things away, however the rest of them would not be appropriate to use in the
same sentences without the attached 見).

