spontaneity; voluntary action
General noun for acting on one's own initiative, without external prompting. Often used in compounds like 自発的 (spontaneous) and 自発性 (spontaneity).
See also: 自発的
His spontaneous action was appreciated.
Thank you for helping voluntarily.
spontaneous passive
Linguistics term for a passive-like construction that implies something happens spontaneously or without an explicit agent. Common in Japanese grammar descriptions.
In Japanese, the spontaneous passive is expressed by attaching 'reru/rareru' to the irrealis form of a verb.
The teacher aims for an education that encourages students' initiative.
"Omowareru" is an expression that conveys a spontaneous passive meaning.
This company values its employees' initiative.
"Reru/rareru" is sometimes used as an auxiliary expressing spontaneous passive.
主体性 refers to the quality of thinking and acting as an independent agent, whereas 自発 focuses on the spontaneous, unprompted nature of a specific action.
強制 means being forced or compelled by others, the direct opposite of 自発, which means acting on one's own initiative.
偶発 means happening by chance or accident, while 自発 means happening through one's own voluntary will, so the two share the kanji 発 but describe opposite causes.
spontaneous; voluntary
spontaneity; self-motivation; initiative
spontaneous fission
Compound of 自 (self) and 発 (depart, emit), literally 'self-starting'. The linguistic sense is a calque from Western grammar terminology.