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There are a couple of posts suggesting that, with certain verbs, が can actually mark the direct object of a sentence instead of the subject. But it seems to me that, in these cases, we can just reinterpret the words marked by が as being proper subjects (instead of direct objects). The purpose of this post is to see if this model of Japanese is getting something wrong?

Example 1: 分かる. An example of a verb satisfying this is 分かる:

  1. 「ここが分かる」 "This is understandable." ("This" as the sentence's subject)
  2. 「ここを分かる」 "I understand this." ("This" as the sentence's direct object).

Example 2: Potential verbs. Then there are the potential cases, like:

  1. 「新聞が読める」 "Newspapers are readable." ("Newspapers" as the sentence's subject)
  2. 「新聞を読める」 "I can read newspapers.* ("Newspaper" as the sentence's direct object)

This interpretation also seems to preserve the (elsewhere cataloged) nuances of が vs. を:

  • Using を makes the sentence sound more volitional (since e.g. in the cases above, it forces the subject of the sentence to be a human being, rather than an inanimate object).
  • Using が gives the sentence an exclusionary feel (e.g. "This (as opposed to other things) is understandable" or "Newspapers (as opposed to other things) are readable.).

Is there something wrong/misleading in interpreting が this way (essentially, insisting that が never indicates direct objects)?

George
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    が only marks "objects" if you're thinking in English. See also this other post in response to a question about "dative subjects" and "nominative objects". – Eiríkr Útlendi Feb 14 '23 at 04:40
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    新聞が読める is pretty neutral. は instead of が would give the sentence an exclusionary feel. – aguijonazo Feb 14 '23 at 05:28
  • Theory aside, I would say I found a place where newspaper is readable is wrong as a translation of 新聞が読める場所を見つけた . – sundowner Feb 14 '23 at 13:36
  • @EiríkrÚtlendi: Just to be clear, you're agreeing with my contention that が can be modeled as always marking a subject (and never a direct object) in these sorts of sentences? (In translations to idiomatic English I totally understanding letting が mark direct objects, but I'm more talking about in the literal Japanese). I hope this is true because I find this "が always marks a subject" model of Japanese much easier to grok and understand. – George Feb 14 '23 at 16:25
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    @sundowner: What if translated it as "Newspapers are readable (by me)"? – George Feb 14 '23 at 16:26
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    This seems related too. – aguijonazo Feb 14 '23 at 17:14
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    @George, considering the historical development of the -eru potential forms, and given the consistent grammar of using が to mark the subject, yes, I don't think there's much of a sensible case to make for が marking "objects" as Japanese -- that only works in "Japanese as viewed through an English lens" (or perhaps the lens of some other PIE-derived language). For that matter, Spanish's use of the reflexive for potential is somewhat similar, in that the "thing" that "can be [VERB]-ed" is marked as the reflexive subject. See constructions like "se habla español". – Eiríkr Útlendi Feb 14 '23 at 17:37
  • @aguijonazo Thanks for the reference. It looks like the same debate there as here. – George Feb 14 '23 at 17:58
  • @George 'readable by me' -> then the subject is arguably 'me' – sundowner Feb 14 '23 at 22:20

2 Answers2

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Without any further context, the most reasonable interpretation of 「新聞が読める」 is that "I am able to read a news paper".

To say, "Newspapers are readable" says absolutely nothing about whether I can or cannot read a news paper. This construct in English has a somewhat passive feel to it (how different is from saying "Newpapers can be read").

But the Japanese isn't passive at all.

Is there a reason you're not happy with が marking the subject? This is how ergative languages can work.

A.Ellett
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  • FWIW, there's a strong argument to be made that the potential form of type-1 Japanese verbs (a.k.a. 五段活用動詞【ごだんかつようどうし】, a.k.a. consonant-stem verbs) arose out of ergative usage of otherwise transitive verbs. See also this post describing a compelling paper I'd found that explores the historical development of this verb form. – Eiríkr Útlendi Feb 14 '23 at 05:16
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    Isn't parsing "新聞が読める" as "newspapers are readable" fine so as long as we admit there is an implicit "by me" at the end (or perhaps an implicit 「私は」 at the beginning of the Japanese sentence)?

    Also, I'm totally happy with が marking the subject :] In fact it's allowing が to mark direct objects which I find really confusing here, and what motivated me to make this post. My goal is to see if I can safely parse sentences like these as "が-subject sentences", so I can preserve the notion that "が always marks the subject".

     – George Feb 14 '23 at 16:21
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    @George, the が here marks the subject of the potential verb 読める. Here, 読める is more directly translated as "to be readable", not "to be able to read". Originally, and still commonly, Japanese verbs of potential (and desiderative verb forms using ～たい) describe a characteristic of a thing. By contrast, English verbs of potential describe an ability of an actor. It's a different focus. – Eiríkr Útlendi Feb 14 '23 at 17:47
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    @George, I think this is also why we start to see を used with potential verbs: this shifts the focus from the thing that is [VERB]-able, to the whole verb phrase being possible. 本が読める ("the book is readable [by me]", emphasis on what is readable) → 本を読める ("it is the reading of the book that is possible", emphasis on what action is possible, as a whole verb phrase). Bracketing the focus, we have（本）が読める (noun focus) and （本を読）める (verb phrase focus), – Eiríkr Útlendi Feb 14 '23 at 17:51
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    Similar for desiderative ～たい forms: （ピザ）が食べたい ("it's the pizza that is desirable to eat [by me]", emphasis on the pizza) → （ピザを食べ）たい ("it's eating pizza that is desirable to do [by me]", emphasis on the entire verb phrase). – Eiríkr Útlendi Feb 14 '23 at 17:51
  • @Eiríkr Útlendi: In the を potential & desiderative forms, is it appropriate to interpret them as flipping to an agent-focus (like in English)? For example in 「本を読める」 and 「ピザを食べたい」, you let the subject of the sentences be "it": (i) "it is the reading of the book that is possible"; (ii) "it's eating pizza that is desirable to do [by me]". Is it wrong to translate them with the subjects being "I", as in (a) "I am able to read this book" and (b) "I want to eat pizza"? This would seem to preserve the "action emphasis" (which seems like a volitional focus too?). Thanks for the discussion. – George Feb 14 '23 at 18:06
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    @George, that sounds like a reasonable interpretation. With translation, there is always a mismatch between the source and target, so it's often a matter of figuring out where that mismatch is least disruptive (not losing important meaning) and most appropriate (producing the most fitting target text for your use case). – Eiríkr Útlendi Feb 15 '23 at 00:19
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The reason Japanese, much as Icelandic, is generally regarded as a language with “quirky cases” and that in “私にこれがわかる”, “私に” is analysed as the, quirky, dative subject and “これが” as the, quirky, nominative object is because aside from the cases they behave as subjects and objects do.

There are actually many, many examples but a basic one would be subject honorrification. “あなたにこれがお分かりです” elevates the status of the subject “あなたに”. Another case would be that clauses that use “ながら” must share the same subject, and for that purpose again “それがわかりながら、なぜ私たちはそこへアクセスしてしまうのか？” seems to treat it as the subject.

There is an endless list of similar arguments that can be made for Icelandic, Japanese, German, and many other languages with “quirky cases” why these parts of speech marked with a case one would not expect, are actually what they are in how they behave grammatically.

http://roa.rutgers.edu/files/324-0699/roa-324-woolford-1.pdf

Eiríkr Útlendi
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Zorf
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  • I disagree. The honorific elevates the status of the agent, not the subject. Separately, ながら constructions do not necessarily require that the following clause use the same topic or subject. See this example, first sentence of the second paragraph. – Eiríkr Útlendi Mar 14 '23 at 19:54
  • I̵'̵m̵ ̵i̵n̵t̵e̵r̵e̵s̵t̵e̵d̵ ̵i̵n̵ ̵r̵e̵a̵d̵i̵n̵g̵ ̵y̵o̵u̵r̵ ̵l̵i̵n̵k̵e̵d̵ ̵r̵e̵f̵e̵r̵e̵n̵c̵e̵,̵ ̵b̵u̵t̵ ̵t̵h̵e̵ ̵l̵i̵n̵k̵ ̵i̵s̵ ̵b̵a̵d̵.̵ ̵ ̵C̵o̵u̵l̵d̵ ̵y̵o̵u̵ ̵d̵o̵u̵b̵l̵e̵-̵c̵h̵e̵c̵k̵ ̵a̵n̵d̵ ̵u̵p̵d̵a̵t̵e̵?̵ Never mind, fixed it! – Eiríkr Útlendi Mar 14 '23 at 19:55
  • FWIW, the link appears to be the same paper discussed in this other post. – Eiríkr Útlendi Mar 14 '23 at 20:00
  • @EiríkrÚtlendi Well, in passive constructions, subject honorrification still raises the status of the subject rather than the agent. There are of course many ergative-verb pairs where the subject in the unaccusative one is the patient, rather than the agent, and still has it's status raised with subject honorification. As for the example sentence, I'm not sure why “厳格なる機能” can't be analysed as the subject of the clause that ends in “わかりながら” – Zorf Mar 15 '23 at 14:42
  • The clause ending in 分かりながら has an explicitly stated object, and that is not 厳格なる機能...? Separately, are you arguing that verbs like ある are transitive? That appears to be Shibatani's argument (as laid out on page 799 of the paper referenced by Ellen Woolford's 2000 paper on the Rutgers server, as linked in your post). I cannot agree with that: ある is only "transitive" after translation into idiomatic English using the transitive verb "have". Likewise for his other examples. – Eiríkr Útlendi Mar 15 '23 at 22:19
  • @EiríkrÚtlendi yes it has an object, but not a subject which is the same as “ 厳格なる機能”. That's the argument for that the part ending with “が” is actually the object, not the subject, because any clause ending in “ながら” must have the same subject as it's matrix clause. This is one of the arguments of many as to why the one marked with “に” is the subject here. Similar arguments indeed apply for why “ある” and even “怖い” are transitive. This has nothing to do with translations but that they have an argument that grammatically behaves as an object, even if Japanese were the only language on earth. – Zorf Mar 16 '23 at 09:51
  • Zorf, without further details, I cannot agree that ある is transitive. One may as well state that "to be" is transitive. From what you're saying, it sounds like there might be those who would make such an argument, which frankly I find bizarre. – Eiríkr Útlendi Mar 16 '23 at 16:16
  • PS: In my previous comment, I intended "subject" for 分かりながら (and could have sworn that's what I typed :)). 分かる in Japanese is an intransitive verb, derivationally the spontaneous / potential / passive of 分【わ】く. The core underlying meaning is that something "comes apart", as in "something breaks down (in a way that makes sense)" → "understandable". Just as English "to make sense" is intransitive, so too is 分かる in Japanese. No object for either. Transitivity only arises after recasting either "to make sense" or 分かる into English "to understand" or into Japanese 理解【りかい】する. – Eiríkr Útlendi Mar 16 '23 at 16:27
  • @EiríkrÚtlendi and the fact that it appears in that clause like that, with “が” clearly referring to a different thing than the subject of the matrix clause, with the rule that “ながら” must share a subject with it's matrix clause, is one of the many, many, many arguments why “わかる” has a dative subject, and nominative object. It's not just this case where the argument marked with “〜に” behaves like the subject does, not the object, but many more cases. “〜ために” , subject-honorification, causative forms, reflexive pronouns, they all treat it as the subject – Zorf Mar 16 '23 at 16:51
  • Can you find examples that show what you're describing for 分からせる, for instance? I can't seem to find anything that unambiguously backs up your contention. Likewise, could you clarify where this "matrix clause subject" rule you're describing comes from? I can find instances of ～がありながら where the subject of the ありながら clause is clearly different from the subject of the following clause. – Eiríkr Útlendi Mar 16 '23 at 19:24
  • It occurs to me that perhaps we're miscommunicating on a terminology level. In light of your comment here that even an adjective has an object, how do you define "object"? – Eiríkr Útlendi Mar 16 '23 at 20:41