Can anyone explain why the use of が not を in this sentence その建物から町全体が見下ろせる

Question

I'm currently learning Japanse, but then I stumbled upon a sentence in a dictionary その建物から町全体が見下ろせる which has the meaning: "The building looks down on the whole town"

But I'm confused, isn't が a subject marker particle? Shouldn't を have been used instead, which is an object marker particle?

Did you translate the sentence, or was the translation provided? — Leebo, Feb 02 '22 at 05:10
it's written in the dictionary as an example sentence, including the translation. — greengrass, Feb 02 '22 at 05:16
見下ろせる is potential form of 見下ろす. Which particles go with potential? — Jimmy Yang, Feb 02 '22 at 05:17
Related: The difference between が and を with the potential form of a verb — aguijonazo, Feb 02 '22 at 05:58
The sentence is from Tanaka Corpus, not the dictionary. Tanaka Corpus is a collection of translations from various languages, they aren't created by that website for the purpose of demonstrating that usage. — Leebo, Feb 02 '22 at 21:20

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 03 '22 at 03:09

You can parse that sentence like this:

その建物から
From that building

町全体が見下ろせる
the entire town is overlook-able.
the entire town can be overlooked.

So yes, 町全体 is indeed the subject of the sentence.

In general, potential form in Japanese work slightly different from English potential expressions. Try reading ～が[verb](ら)れる as "X is [verb]-able" or "X can be [verb]ed" rather than "I can [verb] X".

Still, it's also fine to say その建物から町全体を見下ろせる. For details, please read the following questions.

Can anyone explain why the use of が not を in this sentence その建物から町全体が見下ろせる

1 Answers1