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I'm trying to parse the sentence below.

みんなに見つめられて、困った。

Book translation: I didn't know what to do because everyone was staring at me

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Here's my reasoning:

The sentence is in indirect passive because the verb 見つめられて is the te-form of 見つめられる, which is the plain passive form of 見つめる as it wouldn't make sense to consider it to be in potential form, and, assuming 見つめられて inherited the intransitivity of the main verb, 困った, there's no direct object, so it cannot be a direct passive sentence.

The performer of the action, みんな, is marked by に and the understood subject, I, is omitted.

I don't think the translation is completely accurate, though. 困った is in plain past form and so is 見つめられて. Therefore, it should be translated as the following: I didn't know what to do because everyone stared at me. However, the meaning is basically the same.

Nameless
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    It's fairly trivial to think up similarly structured sentences where the verb in て form couldn't be intransitive (such as 趣味に合わない物をもらって困った). Or is that somehow different from the scope you were envisioning? – Leebo Oct 05 '21 at 03:06
  • @Leebo I see, it goes both ways then. – Nameless Oct 05 '21 at 03:11
  • @Leebo How can we tell whether is transitive or not in order to use を? – Nameless Oct 05 '21 at 03:18
  • @Leebo I mean, how would we know を has to be used? – Nameless Oct 05 '21 at 03:22
  • You can check a dictionary to confirm a verb's transitivity... Not really sure how else to answer. – Leebo Oct 05 '21 at 03:28
  • @Leebo 困る is intransitive and 見つめる is transitive. However, 見つめられて困った is intransitive, but もらって困った is transitive... – Nameless Oct 05 '21 at 03:34
  • @Leebo 見つめる is transitive and 困る is intransitive, so I'm not sure why it doesn't take the particle を. There's no direct object despite 見つめる being transitive. – Nameless Oct 05 '21 at 03:45
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    What made you think the transitivity of the verb of the dependent clause is affected by the verb of the main clause in the first place? – aguijonazo Oct 05 '21 at 04:38
  • @aguijonazo Because 見つめる is transitive and 困る is intransitive and 見つめられてdoesn't take a direct object, so I drew that conclusion. – Nameless Oct 05 '21 at 05:07
  • In your understanding what would be the object of the transitive verb 見つめる in this situation? – aguijonazo Oct 05 '21 at 05:14
  • @aguijonazo The verb has apparently no object. みんなに indicates the performer of the action. – Nameless Oct 05 '21 at 05:18
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    I can tell the sentence has no object. I’m asking what object would make sense to you if the verb were in the active form 見つめる. – aguijonazo Oct 05 '21 at 05:28
  • @aguijonazo I would be the DO, right? – Nameless Oct 05 '21 at 13:40
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    Yes, then isn’t it natural that I becomes the (hidden) subject in a passive sentence? Why do you expect を to be there? – aguijonazo Oct 05 '21 at 13:57

1 Answers1

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I think you may be confused. A verb in 〜て form is just that verb, in the 〜て form. て-ness has no effect whatsoever on transitivity.

In addition, with few exceptions (notably, 〜ている), a verb in the 〜て form followed by another verb represents two separate actions. In the expression 「見つめられて困った」, there are two verbs, both of equivalent "main"-ness. The 困った on the end has no effect whatsoever on the transitivity of the 見つめられる.

In another addition, you exhibit more confusion in the statement, "困った is in plain past form and so is 見つめられて." While 困った is indeed in the plain past form, 見つめられて is not in the plain past form -- it is instead in the conjunctive 〜て form.

And to add on one more thing, note that any text in translation is exactly that -- a text in translation. Depending on context, intended audience, grammatical differences, and other factors, various and sundry things may differ between the translation and the source. The translated form does not necessarily have anything informative to tell us about the grammar and nuance of the source form.

Looking again at your question:

Do verbs in て form inherit the intransitivity of the main verb?

In short, no. There is no "main verb" in your sample text, and no inheritance of any transitivity.

Eiríkr Útlendi
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  • By 困った is in plain past form and so is 見つめられて, I meant that the tense of 困った affects the tense of 見つめられて. – Nameless Oct 05 '21 at 14:41
  • @Nameless, 見つめられて has no tense at all. Tense for this verb only appears in translation. – Eiríkr Útlendi Oct 06 '21 at 21:09