Wierzbicka, Anna (1979). Are grammatical categories vague or polysemous? (The Japanese ‘adversative’ passive in a typological context). Papers in Linguistics, 12(1/2), 111-162.
DOI: 10.1080/08351817909370466
Abstract:
The number of meanings that the syntax of a language codifies is usually fairly large. The number of available morphological devices is usually much smaller. It is therefore not surprising that languages make the same morphological devices perform a variety of tasks. Seen against this background, the Japanese passive has to be recognized as multiply ambiguous – or, in other words, multifunctional. How do hearers determine which particular meaning a speaker had in mind in any given utterance?
While real ambiguity does occur, in the vast majority of cases utterances contain a sufficient number of clues to guide hearers towards the correct (i.e. intended) interpretation of any given instance of the Japanese passive. Clues that help disambiguate Japanese passive constructions are listed, and it is argued that grammatical categories in general (i.e. including the Japanese passive) are polysemous rather than vague.
More information:
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 4 (pp. 257-292) of:
Wierzbicka, Anna (1988). The semantics of grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
