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.
Answer
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}～).
No comments:
Post a Comment