侵食: Coastal Erosion and Encroachment on Private Life
Compare waves eroding coastal rocks with long working hours encroaching on private life. Read the physical and figurative targets and distinguish an ongoing process from its onset.
Waves gradually eroding rocks
侵食 (しんしょく) describes physical erosion in the coastal example. The sentence identifies rough waves as the cause and coastal rocks as the material affected.
「激しい波が海岸の岩を少しずつ侵食している。」 — “The rough waves are gradually eroding the coastal rocks.” 少しずつ expresses gradual change. The form 侵食している presents the erosion as an ongoing process.
Work beginning to encroach on private life
「長時間の仕事が私生活を侵食し始めた。」 — “Long working hours began to encroach on private life.” The affected object is now 私生活, private life, rather than rock. 侵食 describes work encroaching on that area of life figuratively.
The ending in 侵食し始めた marks the beginning of that encroachment. It does not describe the complete disappearance of private life or someone physically moving from one place to another.
Read the target and the stage together
The first relationship is 波が岩を: waves affect rocks. The second is 仕事が私生活を: work affects private life. These objects distinguish the physical and figurative uses of the same word.
The forms also identify different stages. 侵食している presents ongoing erosion, while 侵食し始めた marks the onset of encroachment. Reading the object together with the ending preserves both the sense and the stage of the change.
In 「長時間の仕事が私生活を侵食し始めた。」, what is being encroached on, and does the sentence say it has disappeared completely?
Show the answer and why
Private life is the affected object. The sentence figuratively says that long working hours began to encroach on it. し始めた marks the onset, without stating that private life has disappeared completely.