Something that got my attention fairly early on was the question, why did 五段 (godan) verbs develop the potential -e and 一段 (ichidan) verbs did not? I went ahead and took a deep dive, now culminating in this post. I will be using and referencing passages from Bjarke Frellesvig’s “A History of the Japanese language”.
Where does -e come from?
According to Frellesvig, the ancestor of the modern potential -e (like in 読める) first appeared in Late Middle Japanese (LMJ), around 1477.
The book gives us a crucial example from the Shiki-shō (史記抄):
What’s particularly interesting is that both forms existed side by side, with the same meaning. The shorter -e form likely developed in one of two ways:
As a shortened version of the passive -rare:
From an auxiliary verb meaning “to get” or “to obtain”:
Initially, this new -e form was only used with consonant-stem verbs (五段動詞, godan verbs). As the text notes:
-e- is usually said to have developed as a reduced variant of the passive -rare-
This is also supported by common vowel deletion rules from Early Japanese:
The real innovation came much later. Only in contemporary Japanese (近代日本語) did this potential form extend to vowel-stem verbs, giving us forms like:
This explains an interesting asymmetry in modern Japanese: why potential forms of godan verbs feel more “natural” or “integrated” than those of ichidan verbs. Forms like 読める (yomeru) have a much longer history than 食べれる (tabereru), which is a relatively recent analogical extension of the pattern.
The historical record also reveals something interesting about meaning. When -e first appeared, it wasn’t just about ability – it shared the same functions as the passive: expressing passive voice, potential meaning, and respect. Over time, it specialized to primarily indicate potential meaning, though traces of its broader usage can still be seen in some modern Japanese expressions.
Traces of Old Japanese in Modern Words
Some of our most common Japanese words are actually fossils of the old passive-potential system. These forms became “lexicalized” – meaning they turned into independent words with their own specific meanings.
Examples of the Old Japanese -(a)ye passive that became lexicalized with specific meanings:
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