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Consider the phrase

アリスという本

which native English speakers might understand as

The book called "Alice"

Question: In English, we think of the name of the book as that which people call it. But I'm curious if in Japanese this is reversed, since the phrase "アリスという" seems to literally translate to something like

speaks, "Alice"

as if the book is the object which is saying its name, rather than us.

So does the phrase "アリスという本" literally mean

The book says "Alice"

?

George
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    The implied information is 本をアリスと言う (with an unspecified "general" subject) instead of 本がアリスと言う. See Relative clauses distinguishing whom/with which/that for related examples. – L. F. Aug 18 '22 at 04:13
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    If you want a native speaker’s “opinion”, I have never thought who is doing the “saying”. アリスという本 simply means to me アリス and 本 refer to one same thing, or they are in apposition to use a grammatical term. In this sense, いう is usually written that way, in hiragana. – aguijonazo Aug 18 '22 at 06:12
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    In my opinion, overthinking things like this is completely pointless. If I were you, I'd just accept that that's just how it works in Japanese and move on. – andrewb Aug 18 '22 at 06:26

1 Answers1

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The sentence "アリスという本" just lacks its subject. It can be rephrased to "人々がアリスという本" (the book that people call Alice). What the implied subject means depends on context and situation.

okapies
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