蒸発: Evaporating Water and a Disappearing Shop Owner
Compare water evaporating in sunlight with a shop owner's sudden disappearance. Follow the subject and what was left behind to distinguish physical evaporation from a figurative use.
Water left on a plate
蒸発 (じょうはつ) means evaporation in the water example. 「皿に残った水が日差しで蒸発した。」 — “The water left on the plate evaporated in the sunlight.” The sentence describes the water evaporating in sunlight as a past event.
水 is the subject that changes. 皿に残った identifies the water left on the plate, while 日差しで connects its evaporation with the sunlight.
A shop owner suddenly disappearing
「借金を残して店主が突然蒸発してしまった。」 — “The shop owner suddenly disappeared, leaving debts behind.” With a person as its subject, 蒸発 describes disappearance figuratively. The shop owner is not described as physically becoming a gas.
突然 marks the suddenness, and 借金を残して says that debts were left behind. The sentence supplies neither a specific reason for the disappearance nor a later repayment outcome.
Let the subject guide the reading
Read physical evaporation when the subject is the water on the plate, and figurative disappearance when it is the shop owner. The subjects 水 and 店主 distinguish these two uses of 蒸発.
Also follow what was left behind. The first sentence concerns water left on a plate; the second concerns debts left by the owner. Those details belong to different objects and events.
Does 「借金を残して店主が突然蒸発してしまった。」 say that the shop owner became a gas?
Show the answer and why
No. It figuratively describes the owner suddenly disappearing and leaving debts behind. Unlike the water example, it concerns a person's disappearance, without stating its reason or what later happened to the debts.