Hopper and Thompson (1980:251) argue that transitivity ''the effectiveness with which an action takes place'' is a language universal, discourse-oriented property such that high transitivity is correlated with foregrounding and low transitivity with backgrounding. However Iwasaki (1993) claims that transitivity in Japanese is determined by the speaker's ability to control the action and his/her volition, thus, first person experience descriptions use higher transitivity while other descriptions use lower transitivity. However this analysis fails to predict the correct degrees of transitivity with giving and receiving verbs - _ageru_ 'give1', _kureru_ 'give2' and _morau_ 'receive'. Consider the following examples:

1. 'I give1 you.'  Watasi  ga anata ni ageru.
    'I' 'Nom' 'you' 'Dat'
2. 'You give2 me.'  Anata  ga watasi ni kureru.
3. 'I receive from you.' Watasi  ga anata kara/ni morau.
       'Loc/Inst'

_Ageru_ presupposes both volitionality and controllability, but _kureru_ dose not assume that the speaker has an wish to act or any control over the act. _Morau_ can take on imperative or volitional form - _morae_ and _moraoo_, respectively. Thus _ageru_ and _morau_ are [+] in both [volition] and [control] while _kureru_ is [-] in both features. Hence according to Iwasaki's analysis, _morau_ is higher in transitivity than _kureru_. However this is incorrect. Two agents are involved with _morau_ (Shibatani 1979), the recipient and the giver: One is essentially a 'passive' agent and the other the instigative agent. But, unlike _kureru_, _morau_ dose not mark this agent as nominative. Thus the transitivity of _morau_ must be lower than for _kureru_.

If our claim is correct, we can predict the degrees of acceptability of clauses affected by 'empathy shifting'. Empathy is one of the three types of 'viewpoint' - Empathy, Agentive, and Subjective - (Kozai to appear) within the Mental Space framework (Fauconnier 1994, 1997). Viewpoint is the conceptual perspective on the events presented in a discourse. The Agentive refers to instigator(s) of an event, the Subjective indicates the volitionality of the agent while Empathy (Kuno 1987 and Wetzel 1985) refers to the speaker's identification with the participant(s). These viewpoints have a special distribution with each verb and the distribution can clarify the problem of transitivity:

1'. 'I give1 you.'  Watasi  ga anata  ni ageru.
    Emp/Sub/Agt
2'. 'You give2 me.'  Anata  ga watasi  ni kureru.
    Agt  Emp
3'. 'I receive from you.' Watasi  ga anata  kara/ni morau.
    Emp/Sub/Agt Agt

Empathy can be shifted to another NP in certain contexts. In the above examples, if we exchanged the giver and the recipient, the Empathy would be shifted since the first person participant must have it. Such sentences are not always totally acceptable. The degrees of acceptability turns out to be determined by the distribution of viewpoint and correlates with degrees of transitivity. It is in the order of _morau_, _kureru_, and _ageru_, which determined by the viewpoint distribution - whether there is another available viewpoint site and whether the original site of Empathy is still filled with other viewpoint(s). These degrees correlate to the degrees of transitivity, i.e. the higher the transitivity, the lower the acceptability. Also, after the Empathy shift, the correlation between transitivity and the viewpoint distribution is confirmed. _Kureru_ is highest in transitivity because the distribution is most stable - the Agentive and Empathy viewpoints are with the giver in nominative case. _Ageru_ is higher than _morau_ because although the distribution is less stable, Agentive and Subjective viewpoints stay with the giver; and the instigative agent of _morau_ is always in oblique case. Therefore, viewpoint distribution predicts degree of transitivity.
 

References

Fauconnier, Gilles.  1994.  Mental Spaces.  Cambridge Univ. Press: Cambridge.

___.  1997.  Mappings in Thought and Language.  Cambridge Univ. Press: Cambridge.

Hopper, Paul. J. and S. Thompson.  ''Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse.''  Language 56(2):251-299.

Iwasaki, Shoichi.  1993.  Subjectivity in Grammar and Discourse.  John Benjamins: Philadelphia.

Kozai, Soichi.  to appear.  ''Three Types of Viewpoint - Empathy, Subjective, and Agentive: A Case Study from Japanese Giving and Receiving Verbs.''  In the Proceedings of Desert Language and Linguistic Society Symposium.  Brigham Young University: Utah.

Kuno, Susumu.  1987.  Functional Syntax.  Univ. of Chicago Press: Chicago.

Shibatani, Masayoshi.  1979. ''Where Analogical Patterning Fails.'' Papers in Japanese Linguistics  6:287-307.

Wetzel, Patricia. J.  1985. ''In-Group/Out-Group Deixis: Situational Variation in the Verbs of Giving and Receiving in Japanese''  In J. Forgas, ed., Language and Social Situation 141-157.   Springer:  NY.

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