Spontaneous Voice (自発): Happens by Itself
Spontaneous Voice (自発) is the れる・られる reading where a feeling, memory, or perception arises by itself, with no one actively willing it.1 It is the fourth and least-known member of the れる・られる family. It often hides in plain sight inside a sentence a learner has already labelled "passive."21
Overview
The auxiliary れる, and its 一段・カ変・サ変 counterpart られる, is one shape with four grammatical meanings: 受け身 (passive), 可能 (potential), 自発 (spontaneous), and 尊敬 (light respect / honorific). This four-way split is the standard dictionary classification.2
Of those four, 自発 is the rarest and most literary in modern Japanese. It remains productive only with a closed set of thought, perception, and emotion verbs, and in a handful of fixed literary forms.13
This article assumes you already know the passive and potential mechanics. It points to their own articles instead of re-deriving the conjugation here.
The fourth meaning of れる・られる
デジタル大辞泉 lists exactly four senses for れる, in this order: passive (受け身), with the example 「満員電車で足を踏まれた」 ("my foot was stepped on in a packed train"); potential (可能); spontaneous (自発); and light respect, glossed 「軽い尊敬の意を表す」 ("expresses a light sense of respect").2 All four share one morphology and derive from a single base form.
The historical relationship runs in an order that surprises most learners. The passive, potential, and honorific readings are 「基本的用法としての自発から派生したと考えられている」 ("thought to have derived from spontaneous as the basic use"). In other words, they are thought to have grown out of spontaneous as the fundamental usage.1
When you meet 案じられる or 思われる, you are looking at the original job of this auxiliary. The "by itself" sense is the historical core; the passive "X happens to me" reading is a natural extension of "X arises around me."1
What "spontaneous" means here
自発 denotes a phenomenon realized naturally or "by itself," without active volition: 「行為・動作を人が積極的意志を持って行うのでなく、自然にあるいはひとりでに実現する現象」 ("a phenomenon that happens naturally or by itself, rather than an action someone performs with active will").1 For the modern auxiliary, デジタル大辞泉 defines the sense as 「自発の意を表す。自然と…られる。つい…られてくる。」, meaning that something happens naturally or comes about unbidden.2
Japanese Wiktionary glosses the same sense as 「動作がはっきりと意図しないで、自然に起きていることを表す」, an action occurring naturally and not clearly intended.4 A teaching definition describes it as a feeling, sensation, or thought that 「自然に沸き起こってくる」, wells up of its own accord without accompanying volition.5
The English word "spontaneous" can mislead here. In English, it suggests impulsiveness or improvisation by an agent. Japanese 自発 is the opposite: the absence of agentive will. Read it as "arises by itself," not "done on a whim."
故郷に残した両親のことが思い出される。2
"Thoughts of my parents, left behind in my hometown, come to me unbidden."
この公園に来ると、子供の頃のことが思い出される。5
"Whenever I come to this park, memories of my childhood come back to me."
Form / how it attaches
Same れる・られる shape, different reading
れる attaches to the 未然形 (imperfective stem) of 五段 verbs and to the さ of サ変 verbs. られる attaches to 一段, カ変, and サ変 verbs. The spontaneous reading uses exactly the same attachment as the passive: 「五段動詞の未然形・サ変動詞の未然形『さ』に付く」 ("attaches to the imperfective stem of 五段 verbs and to the サ変 imperfective stem さ").2
The 自発 form is therefore morphologically identical to the passive. The difference between the four readings is semantic, not formal. It rests on meaning: the presence or absence of an agent, an ability sense, a respected subject, or a perception/emotion verb, never on shape.16
One consequence matters for reading: because the spontaneous form is built on られる, just like the passive, it keeps the ら. The colloquial ら-抜き reduction targets only the potential reading. A 自発 form such as 案じられる therefore never becomes 案じれる.
年を取ってから、一日が短く感じられる。5
"Once you get older, the days come to feel short."
スタッフさんたちの意気込みが感じられた。3
"I could sense the staff's enthusiasm."
The closed set of spontaneous-licensing verbs
In modern Japanese, 自発 is productive only with verbs of thought, perception, and emotion. Standard inventories list a tight, recognizable set.357
| Plain verb | Spontaneous form | Sense that "arises by itself" |
|---|---|---|
| 思う | 思われる | a thought / impression comes to mind |
| 感じる | 感じられる | a sensation is felt |
| 思い出す | 思い出される | a memory returns |
| 案じる | 案じられる | worry surfaces |
| 偲ぶ | 偲ばれる | longing / fond remembrance wells up |
| 悔やむ | 悔やまれる | regret arises |
| 惜しむ | 惜しまれる | a sense of loss is felt |
| 待つ | 待たれる | something is eagerly awaited |
Imabi's inventory matches this class: 思う→思われる, 案じる→案じられる, 悔やむ→悔やまれる, 偲ぶ→偲ばれる, 感じる→感じられる, 思い出す→思い出される, 待つ→待たれます.3 Maggie Sensei lists 考えられる, 思われる, 偲ばれる, 思い出される, 案じられる, 惜しまれる.7 Another teaching inventory names 思う, 感じる, 偲ぶ, 案じる, and 思い出す as the common members.5
The same semantic class triggered 自発 in classical Japanese. The classical auxiliary る・らる carried the spontaneous reading for an unconscious action or a feeling that arises by itself. That sense is often rendered with adverbs like ふと, 思わず, and 自然と.6
2回目が良かっただけに小さな失敗が悔やまれる。3
"Precisely because the second attempt went well, that one small slip is all the more regrettable."
故郷が偲ばれる。5
"I find myself longing for my hometown."
乱暴で乱暴で行く先が案じられる、と母が云った。3
"'You're so reckless that I can't help worrying about where you'll end up,' my mother said."
The form 待たれる shows how far the reading is from ability. It does not mean "is able to wait," but "is awaited unbidden / eagerly awaited."3
住民の健康を守る要であり、完成が待たれます。3
"It is the linchpin for protecting residents' health, and its completion is eagerly awaited."
Lexicalized spontaneous-only verbs
Two everyday perception verbs are fossilized 自発 forms. 見える ("be visible / look") and 聞こえる ("be audible / sound") are 見る and 聞く plus ゆ, the old form of れる: 「『見える』『聞こえる』は、『見る』『聞く』に『れる』の古形『ゆ』を付けた形で、自発的な意味を持っている」 ("見える and 聞こえる are forms made by adding ゆ, the old form of れる, to 見る and 聞く, and they have a spontaneous meaning").1
They are now independent vocabulary, learned as plain dictionary verbs rather than productive 自発 forms. They show the historical end-state of the same spontaneous mechanism: a thing 「が見える」 (is visible to me), rather than something a person actively does. This is why their object is が-marked.1
Nuance and usage contexts
The first-person experiencer restriction
The experiencer of a spontaneous feeling is normally the speaker. Imabi describes the construction as "necessarily in the first person, as it is the speaker themselves who is the experiencer." It also notes that the restriction can be relaxed through a modal auxiliary or third-person narrative context.3 This first-person reading rests on a single learner source, so treat it as a strong tendency rather than an absolute rule.
The contrast with the plain volitional verb is what gives 自発 its objective flavor. Maggie Sensei contrasts the volitional 私は今年の冬は厳しいと思う ("I think this winter will be severe," with a clear first-person subject) with the spontaneous 今年の冬は厳しいと思われる ("it is felt / thought that this winter will be severe," with the subject general or suppressed). This frames 自発 as describing something objectively, when a feeling arises naturally without control.7
一般にそのように思われている。5
"It is generally felt to be so."
Ａ国では貧富の差が拡大し、二極化が案じられている。5
"In Country A the wealth gap is widening, and polarization is a cause for concern."
Particle pattern: が for the arising thing
Under 自発, the thing that is felt or recalled takes が. It is grammatically the subject that "arises." The experiencer, when stated overtly, takes に: Wikipedia marks 「経験者を『に』で表す」 ("express the experiencer with に"), with the perceived object taking が.1 Imabi describes the same pattern as marking the object with が, "reversing standard transitive marking," with a stated experiencer taking に.3
This is the reverse of the volitional transitive 思う, which takes を for its object (私はXを思う). Under 自発, that same X becomes the が-subject (Xが思われる), because no one is actively doing the thinking.3
昔のことがふと思い出された。3
"Memories of the past suddenly came back to me."
Register: humility, literariness, written nuance
自発 frames feelings as arising unbidden, which gives it an understated, reflective tone. In modern Japanese, it is largely confined to formal and literary prose and to the fixed verb set.13 Maggie Sensei characterizes the choice as the one a writer reaches for "when you describe something objectively," when a feeling or event happens naturally without any control, rather than as a flat first-person assertion.7
秋の気配が感じられた。3
"There was a hint of autumn in the air."
The spontaneous form also fuses with ～てならない to give the lexicalized 〜（ら）れてならない pattern: "can't help feeling / it weighs on me uncontrollably." Examples include 思われてならない and 感じられてならない. Imabi gives 「かわいそうに思われてならない」, "I cannot help but feel profound pity."3
残念に思われてならない。3
"I cannot help but feel it is a great pity."
A parallel construction, 〜（ら）れてしかたがない ("can't help ... no matter what"), is built the same way: spontaneous れる・られる plus an "uncontrollable" tail. The example 思われてしかたがない follows the same pattern as the sourced 〜てならない forms and is shown here as a constructed parallel.
Telling the four meanings apart
Because all four readings share one shape, reading れる・られる fluently means disambiguating it from context. The same four-way split and the same logic carry over from classical る・らる, which gives a clean set of diagnostics.6
A decision procedure for an ambiguous られる
Use meaning, not form, to distinguish the four readings:
- 受身 (passive): there is an affected party and often an overt agent marked に; removing る/らる makes the sentence break down.6
- 可能 (potential): an "is / isn't able to" reading, in classical grammar mostly bound to a following negative.6
- 自発 (spontaneous): the verb is one of unconscious action or emotion, and the action or feeling arises without volition.6
- 尊敬 (honorific): the subject is a high-status person, or the predicate is otherwise respectful.6
Imabi ranks the three non-honorific readings by how little volition each involves: spontaneity has the least, then potential, then passive. With 自発, "the agent had no active part in the natural occurrence," unlike the passive, where "an agent was actively responsible."3
The diagram below turns those tests into one ordered checklist. It is useful because the core task is deciding how to read a real ambiguous form. That decision works best as a branching shape, not another paragraph.
The honorific branch is the respectful use of れる・られる taught alongside the passive form. The ability branch and its colloquial ら-抜き variant belong to the potential. The agent branch is the passive proper. Run the checklist: only the perception-emotion verb with no agent and no ability sense lands on 自発.
今日は、都のみぞ思ひ遣らるる。6
"Today, my thoughts drift, all on their own, only to the capital."
Why ら-抜き does not disambiguate spontaneous
ら-抜き言葉 (dropping the ら, as in 見られる→見れる) is a colloquial reduction tied to the potential reading.4 It does not apply to the passive, honorific, or spontaneous readings. Those all keep the ら.
So ら-抜き cannot help a reader tell 自発 from passive: both retain the ら, and 案じられる has no ら-抜き variant. The precise scope of ら-抜き, and why it affects only the potential, belongs in the article on that phenomenon, so it is not re-derived here.
Good to know
自発 is the oldest meaning; the other three grew out of it
Old Japanese marked spontaneity with the auxiliary ゆ, which evolved through 中古 る・らる into modern れる・られる. The passive, potential, and honorific readings are 「基本的用法としての自発から派生したと考えられている」 ("thought to have derived from spontaneous as the basic use").1 Meeting 案じられる or 思われる means meeting the auxiliary at its original job. The passive "X happens to me" reading stands as a natural extension of "X arises around me."1
見える and 聞こえる are frozen 自発 forms
These two perception verbs are 見る and 聞く plus the old spontaneous ゆ.1 Reading them as "becomes visible / audible to me on its own" explains why their object is が-marked: 景色が見える, "the scenery is visible to me," rather than を-marked 景色を見る, "I look at the scenery."1
Reading a 自発 form as potential ("able to")
It is easy to misread 故郷が思い出される as "I am able to recall my hometown." The spontaneous sense is "my hometown comes back to me unbidden": involuntary arising, not ability.
A potential reading would normally pair with a negative or a "can / can't" context. It would not take a thought-emotion verb in this が-subject frame.36 Spontaneity and potential sit at different points on the volition scale, with spontaneity carrying the least volition of the れる・られる readings.3
故郷が思い出される。
"My hometown comes back to me unbidden."
Marking the felt thing with を under 自発
Writing 故郷を思い出される for a spontaneous meaning carries over the を of the volitional 故郷を思い出す. Under 自発, no one is actively doing the recalling. The recalled thing is the が-subject that arises, and the experiencer, if shown, takes に.13 The correct frame is が-marked.
故郷が思い出される。
"My hometown comes back to me unbidden."
Using 自発 in casual speech
The productive 自発 set (偲ばれる, 案じられる, 悔やまれる, 思いやられる) and the 〜（ら）れてならない pattern are literary, formal, and reflective in tone. In everyday conversation, speakers more often use plain 思い出す, 心配, or 残念.13 自発 reads as written or contemplative, not casual speech.
See also
- Passive Voice (受身形): Direct and Indirect Passives
- Potential Form: ～られる, ～える, できる
- Sonkeigo via the Passive Form (～られる): The Respectful Use of れる・られる
- Ra-nuki Kotoba: The "Dropped ら" Phenomenon in Japanese Potentials
- Causative-Passive Form (使役受身): "Was Made to Do" with ～させられる